(By Alan Taylor, The Boston Glob) — Recent crop failures, drought conditions and the current high price of food have plunged Ethiopia into another food crisis, reminiscent of the famines of 1984-85 which killed over 1 million. People have become so desperate for food that they are eating seeds that were meant for their next harvest. 4.5 million Ethiopians are in need right now.News like this feels familiar, yet distant. Words like famine and crisis describe the situation broadly, but it can be hard to personalize, to put faces to such things. Reuters photographer Radu Sigheti takes us on a brief, painful and intimate visit with the Mohamed family, as they experienced the loss of their young daughter Michu, due to malnutrition, earlier this month.
Amina Nanessa Mohamed cries outside the intensive care unit of Medicine Sans Frontieres after her four-year-old daughter Michu died of malnutrition near Sheshemene, southern Ethiopia, June 8, 2008. Some 4.5 million Ethiopians need emergency food aid due to failed rains and high food prices, reviving grim memories of the country’s 1984-1985 famine. (REUTERS/Radu Sigheti)
Chaltu Mohamed cries outside the intensive care unit of Medicine Sans Frontieres after her four-year-old sister Michu died of malnutrition near Sheshemene, southern Ethiopia, June 8, 2008. (REUTERS/Radu Sigheti)
A relative carries the body of four-year-old Michu Mohamed who died of malnutrition near Sheshemene, southern Ethiopia, June 8, 2008. (REUTERS/Radu Sigheti)
Amina Nanessa Mohamed cries as she arrives at her home carrying the body of her four-year-old daughter Michu who died of malnutrition near Sheshemene, southern Ethiopia June 8, 2008. (REUTERS/Radu Sigheti)
Kufu Mohamed stands outside his tukul as his mother Amima arrives home with the body of his four-year-old sister Michu who died of malnutrition near Sheshemene, southern Ethiopia, June 8, 2008. Kufu, which also suffers of malnutrition, was later taken to a Medicine Sans Frontieres intensive care unit. (REUTERS/Radu Sigheti)
Amina Nanessa Mohamed (R) cries as she arrives at her home with the body of her four-year-old daughter Michu who died of malnutrition near Sheshemene, southern Ethiopia, June 8, 2008. (REUTERS/Radu Sigheti)
Relatives, following Muslim tradition, wash the body of Michu Mohamed, a four year old girl who died of malnutrition near Sheshemene, southern Ethiopia, June 8, 2008. (REUTERS/Radu Sigheti)
Men bury four-year-old Michu Mohamed who died of malnutrition near Sheshemene, southern Ethiopia, June 8, 2008. Kufu, her brother which also suffers from malnutrition, was later taken to a Medicine Sans Frontieres intensive care unit. (REUTERS/Radu Sigheti)
20 thoughts on “Faces of Ethiopian famine U.S.-backed dictator cannot hide”
Deja Vue, Mengistu.
The Weyanes are bona fide liars. That is a fact. It is also a fact that they came close to denying the existence of famine in Ethiopia. But, they must have run out of excuses that they did not blame this unfortunate human tragedy to (you guessed it) “ShaEwya”!
May Allah rest those who have died in peace.
At this moment I feel hopeless like Ethiopia herself.
How can we go on like this?….weyane has to go..RIGHT NOW!
I have never seen and heard like this monistor “zenawi”
who gets delight when our young brothers and sisters died
like this.
In the near future, He wwill pay the price for the crimes he committed.
Death to zenawi
OH merchant of corps of humanity, sick and starving faces of children of the world by manipulation of photographs and through ur media !
We Ethiopians we will overcome our difficulties we are further ahead in fighting poverty in the last five years.
We will overcome it. You are putting these pictures in order to cover up the great stride the black people of Africa in particular Ethiopia’s achievement consistently against poverty. Oh merchant of African corps, the dead body of Africans through manipulating it through your pictures and medias you blossom in your carrier and fame. Can you hear me u merchant of corps and the sick faces of Africa and black people and humanity! The same way you ethnic cleansed black people in your country and wipe out the Aborigines Native Americans and killed 3000000 millions Vietnamese, 2000000 Cambodians killed white children and women of Yugoslavia and the Iraq children you are killing now. Is there any race where your hand is not drenched in their blood? You don’t care about starving Ethiopians for that matter Americans only u use their pictures for your political agenda and greed.
My friend Dede,
My affectionate greetings!
What kind of moral sensibility is this that makes you rave and rant about the wrongdoings of others but present the fatal flaws of your regime as they though they were good achievements?
How can you be so self-deluded?
These are all Oromo citizens and I am sure TPLF and Meles are pleased by this situation that will realize their long planned goal of slaughtering the Oromo society by any possible means in the coming decades.
Gobez…lets do some to remove the weyane gangesters once and for all. What are we waiting? Are we still sticking our leaps while we see this trajedy? We all have to know that we have the solutions on our hands to overcome this, it could be small or big but lets step up and start contributing our part to over come the root of these problems. If we all decide the first thing we have to do is to remove the weyane, then we can gradually fix our complex problems, but beyond the weyane regime we cant do anything, just LEFETO MENA…..
The pictures tore me to pieces. Put it for the for the court where Meles Zenawi will soon be tried. I am burning inside out. The West should look at this picture as a mirror of itself. They are having us destoryed.
There is no any starvation taking place in Makele, Adwa or anywhere in Tigray. Meles and his army of criminal gangs want to subdue the Oromos and Ogadenis by starvation and man made famine. God-willing, he will not succeed
Tigray people is doing fine. So do you think Meles and his fellowers cares about the rest of the country?
How comes the golder race spared from this drought? are they gonna tell us that the Golden race is very hard working? we haven’t seen famine in the south in thousands of years. While Ethiopia is the largest aid recipient in all africa, how comes only Ethiopians are starving?
while UDJ is trying hard to be part of the club in which the nice food and drinks provided for free in the U.S embassy, millions are dying having nothing to eat.
That country is hopless. sad to be born this time of the century and see all this mess
No one is spared from suffering except the TPLF gangs and their hodam followers. I have seen many Tigrean begars in the streets of Addis Ababa and eleswhere! Let’s not condumn the people of Tigray as if they are the ones who are doing this. It is not smart ploitics, either. Let’s not join the TPLF gangs and tell our Tigrean compatriots as if they are benefiting from the TPLF being in power, in which they are not. We should not forget that the TPLF has used the starving people of Tigray starving in the 1980s to beg international aid.
These are a group of hearless gangs and we should come together and remove them.
If we let “WEYANE” to govern this country, for sure we will see many more social evils in the face of Ethiopia.
“Gobez”, this is the very day to do some thing for our country,against Meles’s regeim. Let’s not leave any stone unturn to over throw “WEYANE”!
If a country like this is being governed by wild-groups with little intellectual experience in their background except the savage one, what we see now was just a matter of time for most of us. It was our speculation before years and it will get harder.
God bless these millions of ethiopians.
Dear ethiopian people, meles and his sponsors will soon move to be another sad chapter in the ethioian history. thanks to the heroic actions of the various ethiopian rebel movements, the somali people and the eritrean lions, tigrai warlord meles soon will get what he has been given the people of somali, ethiopia, and eritrea. It is just the matter of m.
please lets talk about solutions.meles is doing his best.he is the only person who can handle that power in ethopia.bleive it or not.
What shall we do? Is there any trusted organaization to send money
Dear Compatriates,
Can we make a clear demarcation between egos and facts please first of all. Personally, I blame the regiem for its part as government for failing to forecast the situation and make efforts to tackle it before hand. the loss of every sole is hurtful. However, comparing this draught with the great famine in 1984/85 is simply propaganda. There is no similarity between them what so ever! Not in magnitude, not in acknowledging the problem and willingness of the regiem to call for help.
Can I apeal to all concerned comatriates who genuienly care about the dire situation in Ethiopia, to mobilize resources and show our solidarity at this particular moment of time. politics will not spare lives, food will.
Many thanks,
Zelalem,UK