Britain gives Ethiopia £30m for famine

The UK is throwing Ethiopia a £30m lifeline as fears grow of a devastating new famine. The aid package from the British government comes after the worst drought in the East African state since Bob Geldof 's star-studded Band Aid song Do They Know It's Christmas? 25 years ago. Along with large parts of Kenya, Uganda and Somalia, Ethiopia is in the midst of a new food crisis, experts say.

As many as 6.2 million Ethiopians need emergency humanitarian assistance due to severe drought, an official from the Oxfam charity said yesterday. But the Ethiopian government puts the number in need at 5.3 million. "Some 6.2 million Ethiopians hit by two-year recurrent drought are facing starvation and need emergency assistance," Abera Tola, head of Oxfam America in east Africa, told Reuters news agency. Severe drought is driving more than 23 million east Africans in seven countries towards severe hunger and destitution, the charity said last week.

High food prices and fighting are making the situation worse in some areas. The rising price of crops combined with short rainy seasons is threatening the whole Horn of Africa. Around one in six of Ethiopia's 80 million people, double its population 25 years ago, are struggling to eat.And the number of people needing help has gone up from under five million in January to more than six million with this latest autumn harvest also forecast to fail. "The time to act is now, which is why the UK and the international community must come together and do everything to avert disaster," International Development Secretary Douglas Alexander said announcing the hand-out yesterday.

The World Food Programme, United Nations children’s fund (UNICEF) and other charities will manage Britain’s donation with an extra £9million for Kenya and Somalia."This is the worst humanitarian crisis in East Africa for over 10 years,” said Oxfam’s Paul Smith Lomas. Children are dropping out of school to help find food as the lack of food and water is killing farm animals all across the drought-stricken Horn of Africa. In Somalia, decades of civil war and back-to-back years of drought are causing widespread hunger and forcing people to flee in record numbers into refugee camps in Kenya. For the past month, farmers have been herding their starving cattle en masse to slaughter in a desperate attempt to sell them before they die.

By Hayley Jarvis for SOS Children