Plea for more food aid

Ethiopia has called for a huge increase in food aid from the international community, warning that lives are at risk from serious shortages. The warning came from the Disaster Prevention and Preparedness Commission (DPPC) – the government’s aid arm – which issued its alert on Friday. The alert is part of the traditional bi-annual relief assistance appeal made by the Ethiopian government in January and July. The report said poor rains across many parts of the country had led to widespread crop failure and had taken a heavy toll on livestock. “The crop failure and poor livestock conditions have caused considerable food shortages in all the affected areas,” the report said. A recent assessment had established that the food situation in many areas over the coming months "would be grave, threatening the lives of many.” “The poor livestock condition in Afar [Region] and the neighbouring pastoral areas of Oromiya and Somali [Regions] has severely curtailed the supply of milk, and its impact on children will be serious,” the report added. It said an additional 160,000 metric tons of relief aid was needed – almost double the 187,629 metric tons it had called for to meet needs in January 2002. The report also warned that many families would need help for much longer than anticipated. The DDPC said its assessment teams had painted a “worrying” picture of the food situation in the country. In two villages in Somali Region – Hartishek and Fanfan – they registered global acute malnutrition (GAM) rates of 37.8 percent and 23.1 percent respectively. Crop failure and poor livestock conditions meant earlier estimates of some 3.6 million people needing food aid at the start of the year, must be radically scaled up. The DPPC now estimates some 5.9 million people are in need of food assistance across the entire country.