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Hunger in Africa's Horn

- Michelle R. Tauber

Hawo Abdi Subed traveled for days across the parched plains of southeastern Ethiopia. When she finally made it to the refugee camp in the village of Gode, three of her children had died. So had all but one of her 40 camels. "We came because we had no milk for the children," Hawo said when she arrived in Gode two weeks ago. "But they say they have no food here."

Sadly, there is very little food to be found in much of eastern Africa. Three years of sparse rains have killed almost all the cattle on which the region's traveling herders depend for meat and milk. The earth is bone dry, making it impossible to grow crops. To make matters even worse, many of the countries in this region, known as the Horn of Africa because of its shape, are at war with one another.

Preventing Tragedy
The fighting is getting in the way of much needed aid. In Ethiopia, 8 million people face hunger and other serious risks to their health. Although food shipments are arriving, they can no longer come through a major port in nearby Eritrea, which is at war with Ethiopia.

Both governments spend as much as $1 million a day on the war--money that could be used to feed their people. "There is only one long-term relief. That is peace," says Catherine Bertini, head of the United Nations World Food Program (W.F.P.).

No one knows exactly how many people have starved to death in recent months. But the United Nations estimates that 12.4 million people in 10 countries are in danger. Children are at especially high risk. "They're among the first to be badly affected by malnourishment," says Brenda Barton of the W.F.P. Aid workers have urged donors to act quickly in hope of preventing a famine like the one in 1984-85, when 1 million Ethiopians died.

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