“This appeal attempts to document the major humanitarian crisis facing Ethiopia and one that is a consequence of a widespread and serious drought. It identifies 11.3 million people needing more than 1.4 million metric tons of food assistance and an additional 3 million who need to be closely monitored. This brings the total population at risk to 14.3 million. With 20 percent population at risk, 2003 could become a crisis of similar magnitude than that of 1984, when over one million Ethiopians died of hunger and disease... “
Joint Appeal of the United Nations and the Government of the
Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, December 2002
...underlying these problems are several root causes, including high population pressure and lack of access to markets, infrastructure, appropriate technical assistance, and other services. High population growth has forced farmers onto smaller and smaller tracts of land with each generation, even as forests disappear to accommodate more land for farming and grazing. Declining forest and grazing area contributes to soil degradation on croplands, as households are forced to burn animal dung and graze all available crop residues, rather than returning such materials to the soil.
International Food Policy Institute, February 2003
....rapid assessment 9/10 December 2002 on drought migrants/IDPs that have arrived in Addis Ababa over the last month or so. In Addis Ababa there are several concentration points with new comers, migrants and “miskins” (poor people), most of them gathered around worship places such as churches and mosques such as Georgis Cathedral (only people from the north), near the Great Anwar Mosque near Mercato area and in front of the Addis Ababa railway station,.....migrants that have been interviewed reported that some people died along the way to Addis. Some caught diseases on the way and in Addis Ababa and the Municipality has agreed to bury some of them in Guleleh Muslim cemetery. ICRC has reported that within the second registered group (106 people), 16 adults and 7 children died on the way from Hararghe to Addis Ababa...
UN-EUE Information on drought migrants in Addis Ababa December 2002 |
