From: Berhane Habtemariam (Berhane.Habtemariam@gmx.de)
Date: Wed Jun 17 2009 - 05:42:28 EDT
Port problems hurt aid in Ethiopia
The World Today
- Wednesday, 17 June , 2009 12:42:00
Reporter: Bronwyn Herbert
PETER CAVE: Ethiopia has battled famine for more than 30 years but now
there's been a turn for the worse.
The United Nations says it's run out of food for at least five million
Ethiopians who rely on its help.
The crisis has been exacerbated by the Ethiopian Government's decision to
prioritise fertiliser imports before food aid at its crowded port.
Bronwyn Herbert reports.
BRONWYN HERBERT: For decades Ethiopia has relied on millions of tonnes of
donated food.
Now its stockpiles are empty.
BARRY CANE: We've run out of food for relief victims. That's about five
million people. The last food available for these people is currently being
distributed, when that's done there's nothing left.
BRONWYN HERBERT: Barry Cane works for the United Nations World Food Program
in Ethiopia.
He says a combination of drought, high food prices and a drop in donor funds
have all contributed to the food shortage.
But he says the problem has been exacerbated by the difficulty of actually
getting food into Ethiopia.
BARRY CANE: It's a land locked country, as you probably know, and it has one
main port and that's Djibouti. Djibouti is severely congested and once you
get the food out off the ships of Djibouti, then there's a severe shortage
of trucks to ship it around the country.
BRONWYN HERBERT: Why is it that the port is in such a poor state in terms of
congestion?
BARRY CANE: The Djibouti Port is always congested. It's the only way into
this country, the natural Ethiopian ports are in Eritrea, but Eritrea and
Ethiopia are not talking to each other and haven't been for some time. They
even fought a couple of wars. And you now, after all it's a country of
80-million people serviced by one serviced by one port in a neighbouring
country, so it's always, always a problem.
BRONWYN HERBERT: Barry Cane says food aid has now been forced down the
priority list.
BARRY CANE: The Government has decided that fertilisers should be
prioritised, which has pushed food relief down the list a bit. The
Government argues that the fertilisers should have high priority because
without those fertilisers the situation for the 2009 harvest will be even
worse than it's shaping up to be.
BRONWYN HERBERT: Tim Costello is the head of World Vision Australia and says
the situation is extremely serious.
TIM COSTELLO: This isn't crying wolf's tears or scare tactics. We have known
since March that by June the food supplies would run out, we have known with
the global financial crisis that aid levels have been shrinking but this is
a real crisis that the world needs to respond to.
BRONWYN HERBERT: Just how generous does the world need to be to alleviate
this situation?
TIM COSTELLO: Well, all of us who remember the 1983/1984 Ethiopian disaster
do not want to go back there, that was just horrific and the appeal by the
World Food Program to particularly rich nations is this is critical, don't
turn away your head.
PETER CAVE: Tim Costello from World Vision Australia ending that report from
Bronwyn Herbert.
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