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Churches Unite to Help Millions of Starving EthiopiansDate: May 4, 2000 
As the world scrambles to provide food for millions of hungry Ethiopians, Yatani Dalayo (right) can barely stand, and knows he'd never make it walking to Dubuluch, a small village three kilometers away. So he sits in his simple grass hut, staring at the ashes of a fire that hasn't heated food for days. Yatani is a pastoralist, an animal herder who roams the arid landscape of southern Ethiopia with his cattle and goats, leading the animals through grasslands watered by seasonal rains. Yet the rains haven't come for three years, so he has slowly sold off his cattle and used the proceeds to feed his family.
Today, the lean times have become impossible times, and Yatani has nothing left. His last five cattle died after his band of pastoralists arrived here a few weeks ago. Hundreds of cattle skeletons lay baking in the hot sun around their encampment. The animals that died most recently have their skin intact; pastoralists like Yatani don't even have the energy to skin the dead animals in hope of selling the hides.
As he sits quietly alone, his emaciated body covered by a shawl, Yatani says his wife and children walked to the town in hopes of selling a few pieces of firewood they gathered. Asked how he feels, he replies in a barely audible voice that he's fine; he's not sick, just hungry. He doesn't complain.
He just waits.
Will Yatani still be alive by the time relief assistance arrives from the outside world? That's the type of question being asked throughout the drought-plagued Horn of Africa, where 16 million people are at risk of starvation. Half that number lives in Ethiopia.
The international community has promised to help, yet to many here the time lag between promises and food deliveries has seemed inordinately long.
"It will be a crime against humanity if we let hundreds of thousands of people die because there's not enough food here," declared Christian Balslev-Olesen, general secretary of DanChurchAid, during a visit to Ethiopia. Balslev-Olesen met with Yatani and other drought victims throughout the Borena region.
"Ethiopia has the infrastructure in place, a very good monitoring system, experienced nongovernmental organizations, and a very organized society at a local level. There's no excuse for the international community to let people die here," Balslev-Olesen said.
DanChurchAid is a member of Action by Churches Together (ACT), a worldwide alliance of churches and aid agencies responding to emergencies. In early April, the Geneva-based ACT issued an appeal to its members to come up with $32 million in relief supplies for Ethiopia, including food, seeds, and tools.
The United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR) is also a member of ACT. It is working through the Orthodox Church and other ACT members to provide relief to Ethiopia.
ACT, which brings together mostly Protestant and Orthodox churches and agencies, is soon expected to join with the Rome-based Caritas Internationalis, the main relief and development network of the Roman Catholic Church, in issuing a new joint appeal for Ethiopian relief work. The work would be carried out by the Joint Relief Partnership, a national organization formed by several faith-based organizations, which began coordinating their relief efforts during the 1984-85 famine.
The ACT-Caritas joint appeal would support relief programs of Joint Relief Partnership members, which include the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, the Mekane Yesus Ethiopian Evangelical Church and the Lutheran World Federation, all members of ACT. The Ethiopian Catholic Church and Catholic Relief Services, the overseas development and relief arm of the U.S. Catholic bishops conference, are also partnership members.
The partnership announced early this year that its members planned to provide food assistance to about one-tenth of the 8 million Ethiopians who were then expected to go hungry this year. Yet because of worsening drought conditions, relief officials here now predict that another 2.6 million people will soon be added to the rolls of those needing assistance. Church-related agencies are beginning to plan how to expand their relief role even further.
Aid officials agree the Borena region is next in line for the drought to turn into a full-blown famine. In some areas of Borena, more than 90 percent of cattle and 65 percent of sheep have already died. Many farmers are using drought-resistant camels to plough their fields, as their oxen are dead or too weak to work.
If rains return to normal, aid workers say it could take many of the pastoralist families in this area as many as five to seven years to replenish their herds. Even for those animals that have survived until now, high levels of stress will prevent female animals from getting pregnant very soon. That means no milk, an important part of pastoralist diets, especially for children.
When Mekane Yesus staff conducted a survey in February and March in several areas of Borena, they found that more than one-third of children under age 5 in the region were malnourished. In several villages, schools have closed as children lacked energy to study.
"It won't be sufficient for aid agencies to just provide food for a few months," said Stein Villumstad, the assistant general secretary for policy and human rights of Norwegian Church Aid, an ACT member. "We've got to help people increase their ability to cope with drought over the long run."
The United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR) is responding to the food crisis in Ethiopia through its ecumenical partner Action by Churches Together. One hundred percent of donations to "Ethiopia Famine Relief, Advance #101250" will be used in for this response. The generous giving of United Methodists to the One Great Hour of Sharing supplements the cost of Advance gifts. Give through a local United Methodist church or send financial contributions to: UMCOR, 475 Riverside Dr., Room 330, New York, NY 10115. Call (1-800-554-8583 to make a credit card donation. Click here to make a secure online gift.
*Jeffrey, a United Methodist missionary, recently visited Ethiopia. Photo Credits: Paul Jeffrey/ACT, April 2000.
Source: United Methodist News Service.