Sahel: The world is waiting for pictures of starving children

When I see the dynamics of the "international aid", I get thoroughly disgusted at times.

Take the Sahel hunger crisis: Less than a year ago, the international humanitarian community got heavily criticized for their lack of advanced warnings, and preventive responses in the Somalia drought crisis.

While the first clear signals of a major drought in the Horn of Africa came as early as August 2010, it was not until a year later, in July 2011, that the international community reacted. The relief efforts mainly started after the UN officially declared a famine in southern Somalia, and the drought – finally – hit the international press.
Way too late for an adequate response though, states the post-factum Oxfam/Save the Children report. With disastrous consequences: Of the 13 million people at risk, an estimated 50,000 to 100,000 people died. More half of them were children under five, according to the same report.

I would not necessarily agree with all findings in the Oxfam report, but it was clear that "something did not work". According to me, it was not a lack of early warning signals, and not a lack of response from the humanitarian organisations. Nor was it a lack appeals for funding. It was a lack of response from the international community to provide sufficient funding to avoid a food security crisis to turn into a full-scale famine.

Anyways, in fall 2011, the humanitarian organisations humbly bowed their heads, screamed "Mea Culpa" and put ash on their forehead. "We will do better", they promised.

Of course, we did not have to wait long... A few months later, the Sahel drought hit, and this time, the humanitarians did everything according to the books: early warning signals of drought detected (tick), clear assessments (tick), clear targeting (tick), funding alerts issued (tick), media alerted (tick).

Result: already deep into the hunger crisis, the drought appeal for the Sahel is only 39% funded - check out this updated financial reporting for the common appeal (Source: OCHA). Individual sector such as education and human rights only have pledged funding covering 7% and 5% respectively.

Why? Why do donors not come forward with sufficient funding? According to me, the answer is simple: There is a dire lack of pictures from starving children. Misery sells. And people in the aid business know that nothing sells as well as the picture of a starving child on the breast of crying, underfed, exhausted mother. With a dry desert landscape in the background. Insert dead cattle corpses if possible.

There have not been sufficient pictures of starving children in the Sahel, thus funding does not arrive, thus the needs can not be fulfilled, thus people will die, thus awful pictures will come, thus people will get angry, thus donors will donate.

And once again, we will have put a plaster on a wooden leg. Just in time to prepare for the next drought famine in East Africa again. L'histoire se repète.

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The status of the world, according to the Global Hunger Index 2011

IFPRI (The International Food Policy Research Institute) just published its 6th annual Global Hunger Index. If you want an overview of the state of the world, related to poverty, hunger, and overall development achievements, I think this is a must-read.

The Index combines three equally weighted indicators into one score:

• the proportion of people who are undernourished, 
• the proportion of children under five who are underweight, and 
• the under-five child mortality rate.

The 2011 Global Hunger Index (GHI) is calculated for 122 developing countries and so-called "countries in transition".
The most interesting, is the evolution of the index, per country, over the years. From the 1990 to the 2011 Index, the hunger situation worsened in six countries:the Democratic Republic of Congo, Burundi, North Korea, the Comoros, Swaziland, and Cote d’Ivoire. Among these six countries, the DRC stands out. Its GHI score rose by about 63 percent. (Sometimes, I am ashamed to be a Belgian)

Here is an interactive map with the Hunger Index data, over the past 11 years:

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About Super Chickpeas and Silent Heroes

During my past visits to Kenya, Ghana, Mali and Burkina Faso, one common streak always came up when talking to farmers about climate adaptation techniques: they were all actively using new seed varieties for their different crops.

I had not really questioned where those seed varieties came from. I saw them in the shops of commercial seed traders, so I asked no more. A bit like a child does not ask where Santa comes from. A long and complex process of seed selection and breeding remained hidden for me.

A visit to ICRISAT, the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics near Hyderabad in India, changed all of that. I discovered the world’s headquarter for the agriculture research on five crops: sorghum, pearl millet, chickpea, pigeonpea and groundnut. And I discovered the link between chickpeas, chickpea heroes and the war against hunger.

Food diets, malnutrition and chickpeas
Sufficient food, but also a balanced food intake are key to battle malnutrition. Often the world’s attention goes to staple foods like rice, maize or wheat. We often forget it takes other crops too, to make a balanced diet, in a global fight against hunger.

Chickpeas is one of those crops, and an important one, as they make up for more than 20 percent of the world pulse production. Chickpeas contain 22-25% proteins, and 2-3 times more iron and zinc than wheat. Chickpea protein quality is better than other pulses. …

So understandably, agricultural researchers, like Dr. Pooran M.Gaur, a principal scientist and chickpea breeder at ICRISAT, make continuous efforts to develop new chickpea varieties, adapted to fast changing environmental conditions. “Super Chickpeas”, as it were. Bred by –what I would not hesitate to call - “super scientists”, in the quiet isolation of agricultural research centers. (...)

Read my full post on the CCAFS blog

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The 2009 Humanity's Shame List. Vote Now!

Update:
The results are out. See this post.

A week ago, I called for nominations for the "2009 Humanity's Shame List", a top-10 highlighting the last year's events we, humanity as a whole, should be ashamed of.

As of now, until December 31st, you can cast your vote at the bottom of this post, to stress the importance of the individual disgraces.

Here are the nominations:

1. Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC): The international community ignored the widespread violence against civilians, mostly women and children. Meanwhile the largest UN Peacekeeping force in the world was unable to make a significant difference in the world's biggest human catastrophy.
2. Sudan: The international community failed to execute the international arrest warrant for the Sudanese President, accused of genocide and crimes against humanity. Non-action allowed the Darfur genocide to continue, tolerated the expulsion of a dozen NGOs on allegations of spying. Meanwhile Khartoum arms fractions in South Sudan, preparing for a new war.
   
3. Copenhagen: Where the world's political leaders failed to come up with a significant agreement to protect the environment.
4. Somalia: The international community failed to stop the politicization of the civil war, with the US through its proxy Ethiopia, and some Arab states through their proxy Eritrea who did nothing but put oil on the fire. Meanwhile the donor community failed to provide sufficient aid to sustain the feeding centers and refugee camps.
5. Zimbabwe: The international community failed to pressure Zimbabwe's government to provide sufficient social security, social safety nets and proper social welfare to its citizens, turning what once was the breadbasket of Sub-saharan Africa, into a well of hunger and human suffering.
6. Afghanistan: The international community and the UN underestimated the level of corruption during the elections, trying to cover it up while supporting Karzai, ignoring all reports of large scale fraud.
7. Pakistan: Armed interventions in the Swat province plunged the country into chaos, riddled with suicide attacks, displacing over 2 million people, with no hope of a longer term peace settlement.
   
8. US: Continued their short sighted armed interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan, plunging any country they touch, into chaos. Further mixing humanitarian and military causes, continues to put the lives of aidworkers at stake.
9. Sri Lanka: The international community failed to highlight the crimes against humanity and genocide the Sri Lankan government covered up during the last weeks of their civil war in an attempt to exterminate the Tamil population as a whole, locking up all civilians in camps which are rated as 'inhumane'.
10. Palestine: the Gaza blockade, implemented by Israel and Egypt and endorsed by most governments, collectively punishes 1.5 million refugees by inhibiting education, reconstruction, health and nutrition to allow the people to break out of a vicious circle of abuse. Hamas is cruelly and strategically using the Gaza situation to its political advantage. Israel used the highest grade weaponry to indiscriminately kill civilians, target aid organisations and schools.
11. Guinee: Where the government violently suppressed protests through whatever means, including widespread rape.
12. World hunger: We allowed a record of 1 billion people to go hungry, while the world is producing sufficient food.
13. GMO seed and food market manipulation: Monsanto and Cargill further monopolized the seed market, using the US government to introduce GMO food and seeds into developing countries. Shame on Monsanto for single-handedly causing the autumn corn harvest in South Africa to fail.
14. LRA: For their atrocities in DRC, Uganda, Chad and Sudan, with an international community unable to stop the abduction of children as sex slaves and child soldiers, widespread rape and indiscriminately killing amongst civilians.
15. Ethiopia: Wide spread famine taking gigantic proportions, despite a decade of aid efforts. Press and NGOs were closely monitored not to make the disaster "too public". Meanwhile, as a US proxy, Ethiopia continued their shady role in the Somalia crisis, discriminating their in-country political opposition and keeping a close lid on their civil war in Ogaden.
16. Iran: Rigged elections caused widespread protests, violently suppressed by the government killing innocent civilians to secure the government's handle on internal and external affairs.
17. Belgium: Administrative Kafka-ian hurdles paralysed the government in providing inadequate shelter and protection for the homeless and the asylum seekers during the severe winter.
18. North Korea: for their scare tactics, failure to cooperate with any common sense, and their wide spread human rights violations.
19. ASEAN: looking seeking to improve trade relations, but at the expense of basic rights across the entire region, the US plays along. Genocide in Burma continues.
20. Neocolonialism: EU, Middle East and Far East countries are buying up and leasing land in Africa either for biofuel production, or production of their own food. Despite the fact that those countries do not produce enough food for their own yet.
21. Aid agencies: for not being accountable for the $100 billion a year, failing the world's poor.
22. China: for equivocating in Sudan for the sake of oil resources, circumventing the international arms embargo for Sudan and Zimbabwe, and being a main stumbling block at the Copenhagen summit.
23. The international community: for being schizophrenic at the cost of human suffering in Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Sudan, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, DRC, Myanmar and so on, and so on.

Here is the poll:
(You can vote for several nominees at the same time)


If you are unable to view the poll in your browser, you can also access it directly on PollDaddy.

Spread the word, and let's have a mass voting to show we care, and to give a clear sign these shameful events are to be stopped.

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Global Hunger Index 2009: no reason to be proud

IFPRI, the International Food Policy Research Institute, released its 2009 Global Hunger Index report.
The report is the fourth in an annual series, that records the state of hunger both on a global level, as well as by country.

They conclude that in 2009, high and volatile food prices combined with economic recession posed significant risks to poor and vulnerable households, with often dire consequences for their food security. The 2009 Global Hunger Index (GHI) shows that the global economic downturn could make many countries even more vulnerable to hunger and that high rates of hunger are strongly linked to gender inequalities. In summary, they state "limited progress has been made in reducing hunger since 1990."

Between the 1990 and the 2009 GHI, Kuwait, Tunisia, Fiji, Malaysia, Turkey, Angola, Ethiopia (ED: not too sure if that takes into account the latest famine), Ghana, Nicaragua, and Vietnam saw the highest improvements in their scores.
Nonetheless, 29 countries have levels of hunger that are alarming or extremely alarming. Burundi, Chad, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Eritrea, Ethiopia, and Sierra Leone have the highest 2009 GHI scores. (Full)

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World Hunger: Disaster in the making (again)...

Just watching the articles on AidNews flowing by, it looks like hunger in the world is still here, and it is not getting better. The alarm bells are ringing everywhere:

Kenya drought worsens hunger risk
Number of Kenyans in need of food aid jumps by over 50%
Hunger on the rise in Mexico as recession bites
Cameroon ups maize output to avert food crisis
Uganda faces a food shortage crisis
Nigeria may face food crisis
Water crisis to hit Asian food
India to import food amid drought
Hunger warning for South Sudan now at pre-famine condition.
Drought looming in Syria, 250,000 people at risk
Millions in Nepal facing hunger.

And that is just in the past days, not including those affected by violence or conflicts.
We are in for a rough couple of months to come...

Picture courtesy A.Chicheri (WFP)

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Mother's Day: A day to honour ALL mums

May 10 is Mother's Day in many parts of the world. A day we give our mum some special attention, often in a way as a "thank you" for what they have passed on to us.

But let's think a bit wider. Mother's Day is an opportunity to honour all mums in the world. And the role of mothers in the world is nowhere as critical as in the developing countries. Let's think of those mothers also, on Mother's day. Think about some of the hard reality they are facing (Source):

• More than 60 percent of chronically hungry people in the world – around 580 million people – are women. (Source: FAO)
• Around 50% of pregnant women in developing countries are anaemic. Lack of iron increases the risk of death of the mother at delivery, accounting for at least 20% of maternal mortality. (Source: Kraemer, K. and Zimmermann, M.B. Nutritional Anaemia, Sight and Life, 2007)
• Women are the world’s primary food producers, yet cultural traditions and social structures often mean women are much more affected by hunger and poverty than men.
• In most developing countries women produce between 60 and 80% of food, but own less than 2% of the world’s titled land. (Source: Rural Development Institute)
• A mother will often be the last to eat – instead saving food for her children and other family members.

This is what I am doing:
- I am putting my mum's picture on WFP's Wall Against Hunger. (update: Here is my mum on The Wall! )
- I am mobilizing my fellow bloggers to put one of these banners on their blog, and to join the viral rally on Bloggers Unite.
- And.. I am putting the word out on my Twitter account

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Acute hunger spots in the world

Myanmar faces food shortages in many parts of the country, largely because of last year's cyclone Nargis destroyed most of the delta's harvest and a rat infestation wiped out most of the remaining crops.
A total of 2 million acres (800,000 hectares) of rice paddy were submerged saltwater waves and 85 percent of seed stocks were destroyed. A shortage of labor - 130,000 were left dead after Nargis - higher fertilizer prices and lower rice prices have dissuaded delta farmers from planting, causing about 185,000 tons of emergency food aid needed this year. (Full)

There is a general alert going out for an upcoming wave of hunger due to a drought in the Horn of Africa:

In Uganda's Karamoja region 970,000 people are heading towards starvation. The Government declared the whole region as an emergency area and said "food must [quickly] be distributed to this area to avert this problem." Drought conditions will cause conditions unlikely to improve before October when the next harvest is due. (Full)

The same regional drought also hit Kenya hard. In the South-eastern regions, the third consecutive bad crop will force 3.2 million people to resort to food aid. (Full)

Since August last year, WFP, the UN's main food assistance agency, has lost 4 staff in Somalia due to security incidents. Last week they said if the situation does not improve, they will be forced to cut their food aid, which will affect 2.5 million people. (Full)

In Zimbabwe, the hunger figures are even worse. The prolonged political turmoil has turned Africa's former breadbasket into one of the continent's poorest countries. Currently 4.5 million Zimbabweans are fully dependent on food aid, a figure expected to raise to 6 million in the next month.
Due to lack of donor funding, WFP has been forced to cut core monthly maize rations from 10kg -already 2kg below the recommended ration- to 5kg a month for adults. That is just about 600 calories a day. (Full)

News discovered via NewsFeeds and AidNews.

Picture courtesy James Akena (WFP)

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The 2008 World Balance Sheet is out: the MDG progress report

The UN Development Program published their 2008 progress report on the Millennium Development Goals (MDG).

The MDGs are part of the historic promise 189 world leaders made at the United Nations Millennium Summit in 2000 when they signed onto the Millennium Declaration and agreed to meet an eight-point road map or MDGs with measurable targets and clear deadlines for improving the lives of the world’s poorest people by 2015.

How well did we do in 2008? A snapshot (Source: UNDP's progress report)

Goal 1: Eradicate extreme poverty & hunger
The goal of cutting in half the proportion of people in the developing world living on less than $1 a day by 2015 remains within reach. However, this achievement will be due largely to extraordinary economic success in most of Asia.

In contrast, little progress was made in reducing extreme poverty in sub-Saharan Africa. In Western Asia, poverty rates were relatively low but increasing.

Goal 2: Achieve universal primary education
In sub-Saharan Africa the net enrolment ratio has only recently reached 71 per cent. Around 38 million children of primary school age in this region are still out of school. In Southern Asia, the enrolment ratio has climbed to 90 per cent, yet more than 18 million children of primary school age are not enrolled.

Goal 3: Promote gender equality & empower women
As part of its success in raising the total primary enrolment rate, Southern Asia has made the most progress in gender parity since 2000.

In Western and Central Africa, where high repetition and low retention rates are common, girls in particular fail to enrol in and stay in school. Drought, food shortages, armed conflict, poverty, lack of birth registration, child labour, and HIV and AIDS contribute to low school enrolment and high dropout rates for both boys and girls in those subregions, but prove to be especially devastating for girls.

Goal 4: Reduce child mortality
In 2006, for the first time since mortality data have been gathered, annual deaths among children under five dipped below 10 million. Nevertheless, the death of millions of children from preventable causes each year is unacceptable. A child born in a developing country is over 13 times more likely to die within the first five years of life than a child born in an industrialized country.

Sub-Saharan Africa accounts for about half the deaths of children under five in the developing world. Between 1990 and 2006, about 27 countries – the large majority in sub-Saharan Africa – made no progress in reducing childhood deaths. In Eastern Asia and Latin America and the Caribbean, child mortality rates are approximately four times higher than in developed regions.

Goal 5: Improve maternal health
Maternal mortality remains unacceptably high across much of the developing world. In sub-Saharan Africa, a woman’s risk of dying from treatable or preventable complications of pregnancy and childbirth over the course of her lifetime is 1 in 22, compared to 1 in 7,300 in the developed regions.

Goal 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria & other diseases
Every day, nearly 7,500 people become infected with HIV and 5,500 die from AIDS, mostly due to a lack of HIV prevention and treatment services. However, largely because newly infected people survive longer, the number of people living with HIV rose from an estimated 29.5 million in 2001 to 33 million in 2007. The vast majority of those living with HIV are in sub-Saharan Africa.

Goal 7: Ensure environmental sustainability
Carbon dioxide emissions reached 28 billion metric tons in 2005 and continued upward, resulting in increased atmospheric concentrations of CO2. Emissions per unit of economic output fell by more than 20 per cent in the developed regions, while they increased by 35 per cent in South-Eastern Asia and by 25 per cent in Northern Africa.

While no area can escape the adverse impact of climate change, the Arctic, small islands, mega deltas in Asia and Africa, and the African region overall seem to be especially vulnerable because of their high exposure to the effects of climate change, their populations' limited capacity to adapt to the consequences, or both.

Goal 8: Develop a global partnership for development
At current exchange rates, official development assistance (ODA) continued to drop from an all time high of $107.1 billion in 2005, to $104.4 billion in 2006 and $103.7 billion in 2007. This is mainly the result of a decline in debt relief grants. Adjusting for changes in prices and exchange rates, aid disbursements fell by 8.4 per cent in 2007 compared to 2006.

Check the full 2008 MDG progress report

Picture courtesy Rein Skullerud (WFP)

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Picture of the Day: Scavenging

Zimbabwean children picking up corn spilled from a truck on a road near Harare. (Full)

More Pictures of the Day on The Road.

Picture courtesy Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi (AP)

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Christmas dinner. Three different takes.

In the local newspaper, I found three articles, one next to eachother. All about food and Christmas. But with a different take.

As an example of the deteriorating situation in Zimbabwe, starving families are feeding on the skin of a cow slaughtered six years ago. (Full)

In the Vatican, the pope likes his take of Lebkuchen (honey and spice biscuits), Stollen (German Christmas cake), Bavarian sausage and chocolate. (Full)

The poor in North-Italy will be savouring beluga caviar this Christmas. 88 pounds of the contraband delicacy was seized from smugglers. Officials decided to donate the lot to shelters and homes for the elderly. (Full)

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Rumble: Hunger - Time is running out

As a special Christmas gift, put a picture of those you love up on The Wall Against Hunger.

Source: WFP's Hungerbytes

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Rumble: The Wall Against Hunger

My girls are part of the Wall Against Hunger. Are your loved ones too?

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News: When was the last time a UN agency got a "Business Innovation Award"?

The 2008 ICIS Award for "Best Business Innovation" was given to a joint initiative of the Dutch company DSM and the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP). Together, they developed "MixMe" powder sachets to provide people in developing countries with micronutrients that can be mixed with food at home.

The food enriching micronutrient powder "MixMe" will enable the World Food Programme, the UN's frontline agency for hunger solutions, to bring better food assistance to the hungry poor.

In addition to the almost one billion people who are hungry there are close to another billion of people in this world who seem not to suffer from hunger at first glance but are suffering from a deficiency in micronutrients (the so-called "hidden hunger"). These people appear to have enough to eat, but often eat mainly carbohydrate rich foods such as rice or maize which do not provide the essential vitamins and minerals (micronutrients) needed for good health and therefore they develop all kinds of diseases such as anemia and blindness.

The "MixMe" "home food fortification" is a novel approach to the enrichment of food with micronutrients.

This year alone, the "MixMe" sachets will reach over 250,000 people in Nepal, Kenya and Bangladesh. WFP and DSM plan to substantially increase the coverage area in the coming years to reach millions of people. (Full)

More posts on The Road about food aid and hunger.

Picture courtesy Christian Farnsworth (WFP)

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Picture of the day: Famine in Ethiopia

Ethiopian women left their village in search of food and water. Milk is used as a substitute for food, but animals that have not already perished produce only a fraction of what they would if healthy. (Full)

More Pictures of the day. Check also the posts on Ethiopia and hunger.

Picture courtesy Nick Danziger/Oxfam

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News: Who is hungry on the World Food Day?

Tomorrow Oct 16 is the World Food Day, marking the "birthday" of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. FAO was the first agency created by the United Nations to address global hunger in 1945.

Did you know 25,000 people die every day from hunger and related causes? Not in 1945, but today!
Did you know 923 million people do not have enough to eat - more than the populations of USA, Canada and the European Union together?

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) continuously updates its World Hunger Map. On this interactive worldmap you can zoom into the hunger hotspots in the world, and find out the facts.

Did you know that out of the 69 million people in Ethiopia, there currently are 31.5 million (45%) undernourished?
Did you know 21% of Indians (221 million people!) are hungry?

Use The Global Hunger Index (GHI) from International Food Policy Research Institute to find out more.

This post is part of the Blog Action Day campaign inviting bloggers to publish posts about poverty today, October 15th.

More posts on The Road about poverty, development, hunger, WFP and foodaid.

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Rumble: Millions, Billions and Trillions: Zimbabwean Confusion.

A few weeks ago, the Zimbabwe National Bank dropped 10 zero's from the Zimbabwe Dollar (ZWD).

Blogger "This is Zimbabwe" is in despair and describes some of the confusion between old and new currency.

Yesterday I had a balance in my account of ZWD$2,000 (that is ZWD$20 trillion in the old value). This account is dormant, untouched for months.
This morning I find I owe the bank ZWD$500,000 in service fees for one month’s bank charges to hold my $2,000.

The daily cash limit per person per day is ZWD$20,000, but the cost of a personal cheque book is ZWD$2,000,000 or ZWD$33,333 per page.

A friend of mine got to the bank at 3am this morning and was handed a number – number 94 in line. At 5pm he finally got to the front of the queue.

We are facing one of the worst famines in our country’s history. And yet there is still food available in the towns, but it is spoiling on the shop's shelves as no-one can afford to buy it. (Full)

More posts on The Road about Zimbabwe

Picture courtesy guardian.co.uk

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News: Josette Sheeran (WFP) on The Late Show

Josette Sheeran, the Executive Director of the UN World Food Programme on The Late Show with Dave Letterman.

More posts on The Road about the food crisis

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News: Storm leaves * * * on the brink of a 'food crisis'

I have a Google News feed I monitor for key words. One of the key words is "food crisis". Most of the news feeds are about hunger in developing countries. I just came across a news article, titled "Storm leaves [name deleted] on the brink of a food crisis.

If I take pieces of the article, but delete the names, one would think it is about a place in Africa or Asia...

The city is on the brink of a "food crisis" as a result of Sunday's windstorm, said [deleted]. "We have a stressed hunger-relief network because demand is up 20 percent over last year. We are facing a hunger crisis in our community." At the Catholic Social Services food pantry, [deleted], marketing and development director [deleted] said the individuals being hit hardest by the food crunch are children. "Most folks we see have children," [deleted] said. "If you look at the number of people in the household, well over 65 percent of the food goes to children in this community. Outside the pantry, [deleted] residents Dorothy, 19, and Kenny, 20, said they are staying with friends after losing power to their home on Sunday. They estimate they've lost $200 worth of food, and the couple came to the food pantry to replenish groceries. "It's hard to eat. We have no food.", she said.

Now I ask you: Where would this article be about? Haiti, Cuba, India, Pakistan, Philippines, Madagascar?

No, the article was about Dayton Ohio, USA. The full article, you find here. Puts things into perspective. Hunger and poverty is universal. And that is a sad thing.

Picture courtesy Peter Wine (Dayton Daily News)

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Picture of the day: Ethiopia in food crisis - once more

A relative carries the body of four-year-old Michu Mohamed who died of malnutrition near Sheshemene, southern Ethiopia.

Recent crop failures, drought conditions and the current high price of food have plunged Ethiopia into another food crisis, reminiscent of the famines of 1984-85 which killed over 1 million. People have become so desperate for food, they are eating their next harvest's seeds. 4.5 million Ethiopians are in need right now. (Full)


More Pictures of the Day on The Road.

Picture courtesy Radu Sigheti (REUTERS)

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