The stark reality

I came across these news reports. I will caution you that this are not easy to watch.

These video contains some disturbing images.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/7444998.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/7449722.stm


Below is a transcript of these clips (thank you to the kind person who typed them up for me!). I recommend watching them as it's just not the same affect when reading. However, I wanted them here so that if the clips are not available we will be able to read these stories.


Ethiopia Film # 1

Narrator: All of these children were carried long distances this morning, a desperate journey in search of help. They came to a treatment center in the village of “Garagotto.” All the children are sick, malnourished; some are starving. “Terokey” also arrived today. He is 8 years old. His mother “Eyelich” carried him for two hours. There’s no food left in her village. But it may be too late to save her son.

There are thousands of children in this district alone, struggling to survive. Over the morning the numbers grew; mothers carrying precious bundles of life. With children this tiny, hours can make all the difference.

To understand the scale of this we traveled to a more remote village. In “Eddo” the Missionaries of Charity are giving emergency care to 200 children. “I walked for four hours,” said Winnea, who feared her son was dying. “I was so tired, and it was very difficult getting here. The cattle have died; there is hunger.”

Many of these children have been living on one meal a day, sometimes a biscuit or wild plants.

Missionary of Charity: “Some days they have no more appetite to eat anymore. They cannot eat anything … so we bring … we are helping them just to live to get their appetite … then they eat.”

Narrator: “So many of these children when they arrive are very close to death?”

Missionary of Charity: “Yes, yes.”

Narrator: Last night one of the children died here, another the night before, two the night before that. They’re not dying in large numbers, but if you go back to the villages where they came from, you can understand why. The Sister here believes we are at the start of this crisis, and not at the end.

The African sky is heavy with rain. It is strange. The landscape has, in recent days, turned green. But there is hunger. It is because a drought destroyed the root crops, on which survival depends. We drove to villages some distance from the few treatment centers. We found parents holding up their children, hoping we would take them where there was food. In “Odo” some children had been taken for help, but space hadn’t been found for 12-year old “Andrias.” He is severely malnourished and has malaria.

We heard of villages that didn’t even know that treatment centers had opened. We found one of those villages, “DandoWokeecha.” A crowd gathered around us. In the past few days, four year old Zachias and three year old Immanuel have been sickened. Their father, Arrellois, was desperate.

Father: “We barely eat once a day, and there are days we don’t eat at all.”

Narrator: There is not famine in Ethiopia, but there is a crisis facing tens of thousands of children most of those are clinging to life.

(This next short conversation is incomplete.)

Daniel Hagdu: … probably estimate that 50 % …
Narrator: … upwards 50% …
Daniel Hagdu:

Narrator: Ethiopia is better placed than in the past to cope. Even so, aide agencies say there is not enough food in the country. But in the months ahead until the next harvest, children like Sacku will need feeding.

Reported by Gavin Hewitt, BBC News, Ethiopia.


Ethiopia Film #2

Ethiopia’s Food Cost Problems

Narrator: Two days ago we watched as desperate mothers in SW Ethiopia carried their malnourished children to a treatment center. Among them was 8-year old Terokey, who was starving. We wanted to find out what happened to them. The following day we found his village. Terokey had been carried back here - a 2 hour journey. He is very weak. What’s happened here shows just how vulnerable these children are. He had been taken home because there was not enough money to move him to hospital.

Father: “We used to feed him some cornbread and sweet potatoes,” said his father Lakomoe. But we no longer have any of these things. We have nothing at home at the moment.”

Narrator. Outside Terokey’s home are other children in need of food. Because of a recent drought the crops failed. The land is now green, but there won’t be another harvest until 3 to 4 months. And this is what survival means around here. There is corn, but it won’t be ready for three months. The people are forced to rely on this. It’s what they call “false banana.” Now part of its value is to take the trunk. But they have to bury it underground like here. Bury it underground for three months. Only then can they take it out and cook it. And after all that, it’s of poor nutritional value.

To avoid a tragedy, tens of thousands of children will need emergency food aide. But go to the larger towns like “Bodessi” and you find the price of beans, maize and wheat have all doubled in the past five months. “People can’t afford to buy things,” said this man.

And move on to the capital Addis Abada and the market price of grain has soared three times what it was. “The grain has never been so expensive,” said Itris Mohammed. “It has never reached this level before.”

And to make matters worse, there’s not enough food in the capital. Back in Terokey’s village we asked the people how many of them were down to one meal a day. Every hand went up, hands that soon became pleas for help.

Gavin Hewitt, BBC News