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Famine Spreading in Ethiopia

Aired April 16, 2000 - 7:14 p.m. ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

ANDRIA HALL, CNN ANCHOR: Across the Horn of Africa, years of sparse rain have created a serious food crisis. In Ethiopia, an estimated 8 million people face severe hungry and urgently need aid donations.

CNN's Catherine Bond has the story of one family that's simply struggling to get by.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CATHERINE BOND, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A Sunday service ends with blessings for this fasting period before Easter and a prayer for rain. Here in the mountains around the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa, fields are plowed and rain has come, but despite the rain, for most Ethiopian farmers, hunger remains a part of daily life.

Kalem Boo-oh (ph) winnows barley. Once roasted, it'll be a snack.

"Today I'm also cooking bean sauce," she says, "bean sauce because we're fasting." "But even when we're not," she laughs, "how can we afford meat?"

Her husband, Ishetu (ph), says he has a field of wheat, a eucalyptus grove, and a few cows and sheep. Six months ago, he says, his crop was damaged not by drought but frost. But though aid workers agree the drought in other parts of Ethiopia isn't as severe as 16 years ago, people now are closer to the edge.

BEN FOOT, SAVE THE CHILDREN FUND: What is different is that we're talking about a population of almost double the size in '84 and '85, and a population that we believe is much poorer than it was in '84 and '85. And so it doesn't take the massive drought of '84, '85 to bring them to famine.

BOND: Poorer than they were during the famine then that claimed an estimated 800,000 people's lives. Because the cost of living has gone up and as the old divide their land for their children, farms grow smaller.

"I don't want to be a farmer," says Lish Alem (ph), one of Ishetu's sons. "But like it or not, I have no choice."

When it comes to improving the economy, critics say both Ethiopia's government and the international community are at fault.

FOOT: I think the record of serious investment in development aid is very poor, and if you balance out to the amount of money spend on relief food, it seems very strange. And I think that there is a need for a substantial investment.

BOND: A need for investment because aid agencies say it's poverty that forces famine, not just drought.

Catherine Bond, CNN, Entoto, Ethiopia.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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