Tedla Asfaw
Meleskatchew Amha of VOA Amharic(June 10) went to Southern Ethiopia Oromia region where he witnessed the suffering of children in the middle of vast area of corn ready to harvest. The feeding center currently helps those children who came to the center with the help of their parents by traveling long distance sometimes taking month.
The humanitarian center saved lot of lives and at the same time unknown number of children died. Those children who got the clearance will go back to their home with no guarantee of food and the case of one mother story seems what most families are expected to face. This mother is thankful that her child who came close to death now is going home. But she has a large family of thirteen and they do not have any income to support their families or food aid and that is scary.
There is no guarantee that this child or other member of the family like many in that community will have food or water. I heard on the radio also they have to pay for clean water never heard of such thing in the rural part of Ethiopia I know. Who is profiting from sale of water and where are the so called government representatives of the region?
Is this what President Girma's self administration of all regions he boasted with plenty of food, water and electricity few weeks ago in VOA Amharic? Can the president himself come down and see on his own eye the self administration he was talking about which is none existent and the region cadres failed the people miserably and expose to whole wold that Ethiopians are left to die quietly in Oromia and Ogaden region.
The World Food Program(WFP) estimate of the hungry is now doubled from its first estimate and 4.5 millions Ethiopians need emergency food aid and it is now expected to bring in tons of food to Ethiopia before the crisis goes out of control this July. USA and UK the sponsor of the current regime are forced to give more money because the world community start seeing dying children in their mother chest and it ashamed them.
This is not new to Ethiopia. What new now is the West try to downplay this hunger by connecting it to international food shortage and price hike. I remember the early 1970s drought in north Ethiopia and we have plenty of food in other parts and we all got angry and sad why the Imperial regime failed to deliver food to those areas. This time however in all regions of Ethiopia the majority of them went to bed empty stomach and for this Somalia and Ethiopia are holding the record even beating Eritrea.
Why we do not see starving and dying Eritrean children ? maybe because they have no "democracy" like that of Ethiopia. The reason is Eritrea is run by one man and many yes men who know their job very well among which is to feed their people. However, Ethiopia is run by an actor/supporting actors performing on a parliament floor and they forget the masses with their misery believing that if the worst comes the international community which is subscribing to their performance will bring in emergency aid.
They are right, food shipment is on the way and the drama will continue. TPLF which is proudly calling itself a "development party" or can call it too a "demarcation party" though failed miserably with Eritrea is working hard to succeed in our western front using the current starvation as diversionary tactics.
If we have a free press we could have exposed the food crisis way before it took the lives of many of our children and we should not have waited until it is too late to be told by VOA Amharic. If we live in democracy we should have called the regime to resign and the only choice we have is to help those charities who are saving many lives and at the same time not to repeat such cycle of famine we have to unite to establish a country run by elected and accountable representatives of the people not self made actor or actors.
