Famine looms again

last updated 8 January 2015

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Ethiopia faces a famine even worse than the one that killed 1 million people in 1984, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said this week. “It is like a recurring nightmare,” he said. Because of a harsh drought, nearly 6 million people suffer from hunger, and another 6 million could starve by the end of the year if international donors do not come through with food aid. Zenawi said he feared the world would forget about Ethiopia because television news had not been paying attention. In the ’80s, TV images of skeletal children galvanized a massive international hunger-relief effort.