Twenty years after famine last struck Ethiopia, hunger again stalks the east African nation. Paul Cullen reports from the far south of the country on the extent of the crisis
The rain comes down in sheets, bashing the red earth with a force only found in Africa. Rain after a lengthy drought should mean salvation, a chance to slake thirsts, refreshment for man and beast alike, sustenance for grazing; but here, it can also mean death, poisoning, the destruction of crops.
Death, for example, for the hungry animal already weakened from going without water for so long. Poisoning for the small child who drinks tainted brown rainwater, collected from a puddle in the track where passing trucks and 4x4s leave slicks of engine oil.
All along the tracks on which we travelled, the children ladled puddle-water into jerrycans, so desperate were they to get water - any water - for their families. The lucky few with tin roofs on their houses used basins to collect the rain. Most of the water, though, simply flowed off the hard earth, cascading down the tracks in deep ruts. For a few hours during these downpours, there is water, water everywhere, yet hardly a drop to drink, with most of this precious resource going to waste.
Once again, Ethiopia and its neighbours in the Horn of Africa find themselves in the throes of a major food shortage. The main cause is the unreliability of the rains and the principal victims are millions of pastoralists who rely on the rains to water their cattle and promote pasture for grazing.
But if the world said "never again" after millions died in Ethiopia in the mid-1980s, the reaction to the country's present-day crises could best be characterised as "not again". Indifference is rife, with several international appeals falling on deaf ears. The Red Cross was forced this week to relaunch its appeal for Ethiopia after raising just 25 per cent of the sum it sought last March.
In recent weeks, with the arrival of the rains, this indifference has changed to a supposition that the problem is now in the process of being solved.
But this is only partly true, as was evident during a visit facilitated by the Red Cross this week to Boroma province in the south of Ethiopia. A few tropical downpours, while welcome, do not a rainy season make. At this stage, it is far too early to say that the crisis is past. After years of scant rainfall, two good rainy seasons are needed this year to restore the natural balance. As things stand, within hours of a downpour, the ground appears as parched as ever, and there still isn't enough grass for grazing in most areas.
Near Moyale, just off the road that started in Addis Ababa some 750km earlier, a group of farmers has gathered together their remaining animals in a last-ditch effort to hang on to what remains. An elderly man bearing an ageing Kalashnikov stands guard; by his side, a small boy is wearing a cheap Osama Bin Laden watch.
A local charity has dropped some bales of rough hay but, ironically, the rains threaten to ruin even this source of feed as the fodder will spoil unless the truck-driver comes back with a tarpaulin to cover the bales.
The villagers' cattle, penned in behind thorny rows of acacia branches, present a pathetic sight. Normally a small but durable breed, they seem bewildered and disorientated. The hides have sunk into their ribcages and they are covered with sores.
"I once had 100 cattle and now I have just 10," Boru Tedacha tells us, waving his stick in the direction of his prize possessions. "The drought meant they had no pasture or water and so they just got sick and died."
This group has been collecting firewood and selling it in the local town in an effort to make ends meet, he says. Boru, who is 47 (exactly the average life expectancy in Ethiopia), has a family of 12. We ask him if he can survive with just 10 cattle.
"Even these 10, I don't know if they will survive," he says. "Perhaps I will sell them at the market. If I can't, we are helpless."
His friends have similar stories.
"Our cattle is all we have," one man tells us. "We are pastoralists, we don't do any other type of agriculture. The solution is to help us feed our animals."
A FEW MILES further down the road, another farmer, Guyo Tedacha, tells us he has lost 10 of his 15 cattle. Food is a problem, but so is water. The water table has fallen drastically, so the traditional well nearby can no longer supply the community. With his wife and 10 children, he survives for now on small rations of food from the government. For the future, he says he doesn't know what he will do, unless the rains are good.
Ethiopia's 70 million people are among the poorest on earth, but the inhabitants here in Boroma are palpably worse off than their neighbours. You can see it on the long drive from Addis, which takes two days on an ever-deteriorating road. As you travel away from the centre of political power, the road drops from the temperate climes of the Ethiopian highlands to the hot, arid rangelands of the Rift Valley.
The traffic peters out as the roadside towns become drearier and evidence of human habitation is replaced by vistas of endless bush. Baboons and tiny antelopes scamper across the road and giant termite hills point like accusing fingers to the sky.
The only people who can survive in these conditions are pastoralists and their hardy animals, following a way of life that goes back thousands of years.
Yet even farmers have their limits. What defence have they against climate change triggered, most probably, by voracious energy consumption in the developed world? Or against the neglect of an administration sinking ever more deeply into corruption? This crisis is less about famine and more about the demise of a way of life. There are simply too many people, too much pressure on land and too much conflict between ethnic groups for the pastoralists to remain unaffected.
Nine years ago, I visited Ethiopia and found it a land of great hope. It seemed that this proud nation, which was never colonised except for a short period when the Italians invaded in the 1930s, had overcome a period of appalling suffering to embark on a progressive new path.
Today, those hopes are dashed. The food crisis affecting millions of Ethiopians cannot be blamed entirely on the regime, but it is surely symptomatic of its failure that so many are going hungry.
Everywhere we travelled this week, we listened to Ethiopians complain about their government.
"We always heard about corruption in Kenya, but now it has come here," one aid worker tells me. "Guys who didn't have a shirt on their back now controlling vast fleets of trucks, making millions. And because the corruption is coming from the top, it has spread down to all levels."
He went on to criticise the Irish Government's aid programme in Ethiopia, particularly in Tigray, a northern province which is the stronghold of the current leadership, claiming it bolstered the regime in Addis.
Some villagers even yearned for the days of the murderous Mengistu regime which, they claimed, did more for the area than the current government.
"The previous government installed a well, but now it's not working," says Ibrahim Aji Ali, a herder in the village of Kedema. "Mengistu drilled a lot of wells, but now no one takes care of them."
Even the administrator of the Somali half of Borama, Eden Yusf, joins in the criticism.
"We told the government and the international community four months ago about this crisis, and still we don't have enough food to feed our people."
SINCE I WAS last here, Ethiopia has prosecuted a vicious and pointless war against its far smaller neighbour, Eritrea, locked up hundreds of political activists, tampered with the conduct of last year's elections and shot scores of unarmed protesters who dared to show their dissent. The roads might be better but ethnic tensions and Islamic fundamentalism are on the rise and the consumption of the stimulant, khat, is spreading.
There was another reminder of popular dissatisfaction on the journey down from Addis, when we passed Butagira. Earlier this year, the head of this town, along with three other officials, sought political asylum in Ireland while on a visit to Dublin.
Joined-up thinking is a commodity in short supply in this crisis. The herders we spoke to couldn't see beyond getting their cattle back, when another drought is probably only months away. The government has built health centres, yet most are not functioning because there are no qualified staff to man them. The aid agencies are on the ground helping out, yet no one seems to be attending to the bigger picture, involving inexorable population growth, over-grazing and the arguably permanent effects of climate change on an ancient way of life.
Aid agencies have done their bit to plug the gaps. The Red Cross, for example, trucked in emergency water supplies during the drought and is now helping to improve the long-term water supply. With help from the Irish Red Cross, it also plans to provide health and veterinary care for the local population, as well as seeds and tools for farmers. Trócaire, Goal and Ireland Aid are also active in the general southern region.
However, this region is too vast and the needs are too great for the agencies to manage. Besides, they can only operate with the consent of local administrations. National governments are best placed to cater for the needs of their peoples, but what to do when there is no trust in their ability to carry out this work? It's an age-old conundrum of aid; in this case, the Irish Government, which spends about €30 million a year in Ethiopia, has decided it has no alternative but to work with the administration. It says Irish aid is channelled in such a way to ensure that the Ethiopian government can't get its hand on the money, but Goal's John O'Shea claims Ireland's aid is propping up the regime anyway.
Here in Boroma, where the needs are so great, these arguments seem academic. Like the rain falling on its red earth, so much of the aid promised leaks away before it ever gets here. The choice is between aid, expensively and sometimes wastefully delivered, and no aid at all.
The Irish Red Cross is currently appealing for funds to help those affected by drought in Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia. For information on how to donate, see www.redcross.ie or telephone 1850 507070.