July 24, 2005
From Gonder to Niger
I spent most of last week touring the countryside around Gonder with UNICEF (I have just started a three month contract with the agency helping out with their emergency communications). One the last day, just before catching the plane back to Addis, we spent an hour in a therapeutic feeding centre in Gonder's main university hospital. A therapeutic feeding centre (or TFC) is where only the most severely malnourished children go - the kind of children that could die at any moment without treatment simply because they are not getting enough of the right sort of food. There were about 20 shrunken children in the beds, including 10-year-old Abraham pictured here, either on drips of being fed fortified milk with syringes. They all seemed very well cared for but incredibly fragile.
When we got back there were the pictures of the Niger food crisis on TV. To untrained eyes, the children in Niger seemed in a much worse state. But again, most of the pictures came from an emergency therapeutic feeding centre. The same shrunken children were being fed with the same life-saving substances - fortified milk and a wonderful product called Plumpy Nut - a kind of pumped-up peanut butter that can have almost miraculous effects on malnourished children.
That wasn't the only similarity between the two scenes. Half way through a BBC report on the Niger crisis, a worker for Save the Children UK appeared in front of the camera talking about how "undramatic" the whole situation was. "There is no war in Niger, no rebel groups, no despots, no problems getting the aid in, it is just poverty," said Toby Porter, Save the Children’s Director of Emergencies in a press release. "And kids are starving to death. It is simply because so many people in Niger are desperately poor, so many people living below the poverty line that a small shock creates a humanitarian disaster."
In Gonder it was also "just poverty". The children had been picked up in a routine government-run, UNICEF-funded, health screening of rural communities around the city. They hadn't been caught up in any wars, rebel clashes, floods or anything dramatic like that. They had just been caught up in everyday poverty compounded by disease (the day before the hospital had treated two children, aged 7 and 11, for polio, part of a brand new outbreak - but that is another story).
It was the fact that it was all so ordinary that was the really scary thing. There were no TV cameras or international reporters. It was just another ordinary day in Gonder. The first time I saw a TFC it was very upsetting. This time I must admit I had become sufficiently hardened to just get on with my job.
It is no surprise that aid agencies have such a tough time raising funds when we have got so used to scenes like these. Earlier this month, UNICEF Ethiopia put out an appeal for donors to fill a $42 million hole in funding (Niger is looking for $18 million), partly for the same screening programme that brought the children into Gonder hospital.
And it is not just the "western world" that has grown hardened and uninterested. The Addis-based papers here hardly ever write about the ongoing nutrition crisis (up to 500,000 Ethiopian children die every year from preventable causes but apparently that is not a story). The last time I wrote about malnutrition on this website, I got loads of complaints from Ethiopian readers accusing me of trying to "ruin the image of the country". Someone else said "all you can think of covering is the same old recycled stories...". Which is actually close to the point that I am making. These stories of dying children are getting "old" and "recycled". And we are all getting used to them.
UPDATE: Save The Children UK has set up a special Niger Food Crisis appeal page.
Posted by aheavens at July 24, 2005 7:12 AM
Comments
Dear A. Heavens,
Thank you for your report of malnutrition that is unraveling in the rural Ethiopia. As you said it is very sad to see kids starved because of a certain reason they don't know. It takes someone who is passionate to even talk about it, let alone helping these kids. Do your job, write what you see and what is happening. Believe me at the end of the day people will thank you, as I am thanking you.
I am an Ethiopian and my countrymen/women seem to live off the reality. It is a hard work to convince people that most of the image-ruining reports of western media are true. Everyone is adamant of listening the problems that is draging the country back. It is not that you prefer to report about the bad of the country but in fact you are doing it for the good of the country. The point is we have to recognize first the fact that people have no enough food to eat and this is a reality not a plot AHeavens made against Ethiopia.
Posted by: tadele at July 24, 2005 3:27 PM
It is high time to reveal the devastating poverty in Ethiopia which is one of the main reason there is famine in Ethiopia.
If the end effect is not understood, then the cause of poverty/famine will not be understood.
Posted by: tyrel at July 25, 2005 3:06 AM
This is horrible! How can there be starving children in Gonder and no one else reports it? There is a difference between poverty and starvation!
I think there is more to this story than meets the eye. If there are even a few starving children than there is a hidden famine in Gondar that this shameful goverment is ignoring. Why is the goverment letting the situation get to the point of children STARVING??!!
To me this shows clearly that this goverment is very selective about who gets food aid in Ethiopia. I will bet anything that there are no feeding centers in Tigray despite the fact that Tigray farmers are more improvished than the ones in Gonder
I am so ashamed that it is foreigner who cared enough to inform us of these horrors in Gondar and in the Somali region.
Shame on us, shame, shame, shame!
Posted by: Safiya at July 25, 2005 4:28 AM
Thank you,
thank you Andrew for the report. By the way, I would like to thank you for doing a good deal of decent journalism in Ethiopia. Were it not for your being in Addis, we would not have been able to know and see as much as we saw and heard about what ever has happened over the last few months in the country.
Yes we are starving. There is no question about that.But one thing should be known. The famous nobel prize winner economist, Amartya Sen said in his book,'famine can never occur in a country where there is democracy.' I think that fully explains every question about Ethiopia. But what is the west doing? You can see leaders like Tony Blair who invite Meles Zenawi to Gleangles to speak about aid in africa IN RETURN for GOOD GOVERNANCE two weeks after Zenawi ordered the shootings of 36 people in Addis Ababa who opposed election irregularities. Why didnot he invite Mugabe then? Or do they think smarter dictators are better off for africa?
You can also see Americans supporting any body who supported them on the war in Iraq. Ethiopia,Eritrea and Uganda supported the US on Iraq and IN RETURN,Museveni is trying to prolong his power by changing the constitution, nobody knows the word 'democracy' in Eritrea and Meles Zenawi is smart enough to speak about democarcy but he is NOT ready at all to give power to the people and the US is as quiet as it has never been with Lebanon,Ukraine and Georgia. What a paradox! Should we then be surprised to see a starving little boy in ethiopia? Not at all! African problem is leadership problem, there is no question about that and the West has a role in it as we can see!
Posted by: Mintesinot at July 25, 2005 2:39 PM
Hi Andy,
I can't thank you enough for covering these stories.
The accusations that your coverage may damage the countries images are totally nonsense. I think the truth should be out at any cost. People who make such accusations are either irritated government operatives or people who want to ignore their problems and live in total elusion.
However, you interestingly pointed out that the children are being mortally starving in the absence of war or any large-scale chaos. However, although we don’t here bullets and bombs, there is a war between evil and good, between those who want to struggle to solve the people’s problems and those who want to steal from these starving kids and put money in international banks, and between those who want to dismantle the country and those who want to unite it, build it, and strengthen it, so far, it has, to the most part been wars of idea. While, I truly hope such wars of ideas would continue and be fruitful, there is a threshold, there is a limit as to what can be tolerated. If our people are being starving to death, and our best and brightest being arrested, tortured, killed, and banished out of the country, there is a limit.
Posted by: Henok at July 25, 2005 4:48 PM
You people talk about reputation to hurt a country like Ethiopia. I say it has been known for yrs about Ethiopian children starving. I live in America and have seen many commericals on tv stemming back to the 80's. I remember one well for a save the children foundation for basideb in Ethiopia. I know they raised millions of dollars. Did they use that money to feed the children?
Posted by: eric shinn at July 26, 2005 3:36 AM
Thank you Andrew for being the voice for the voiceless. I am very touched by the story. It seems the people of Gondar are being ignored by the govt. for some reasons. I used to teach there I have very fond memory of the people and the place of Gondar. They are peace-loving people. Please don’t be discouraged by those who are saying you are giving a bad image of Ethiopia. It is hard for me to understand these people to expect you to ignore the facts. You are presenting the truth. Please keep on bring awareness to the world so these people will get the necessary help. We need you. Thanks a million!!
Posted by: kt at July 26, 2005 4:10 PM