Borena: On the Edge of Disaster

Where the Ogaden is today will be Borena's fate in the next few weeks if relief is not provided to the pastoralist people who make their home in the Sidamo area close to the Kenyan border. (In the Ogaden, the weak the old and the young are beginning to die, the BBC reports.) I returned to Addis Monday night after a five-day visit to the Borena region which lies about 575 Km from Addis, a 10-hour drive one way. The people of Borena are not succumbing yet, but the cattle they depend on for everything are dying in droves. Roads are littered with the carcasses of cattle. I took the picture above outside a small village of about a dozen huts where the villagers complained that they were struggling to feed their children. With a handful of exceptions, the children appeared to be very thin but not emaciated yet. (Borena adults feed the children first before they eat themselves.) CARE workers, who are doing the bulk of the relief work right now, fear that despite recent rains, the Borena people are so depleted by three consecutive years of drought that they are on the edge of starvation. What can you do? Aid can make a critical difference now. Send a check to CARE Ethiopia P.O.Box 4710 Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, email: care.eth@telecom.net.et. More important, if you are in the West, phone, email or write your government officials to help the people affected by the draught in Ethiopia and others parts of East Africa.

UN Country Report on Ethiopia