From BBC
Today the world is seeing one humanitarian crisis alongside another – in Syria, Central African Republic, South Sudan and the countries affected by the Ebola virus. Together they place huge, competing demands on humanitarian organisations.
Thirty years ago, at the end of November 1984, there was one disaster above all galvanizing the world’s attention – the famine in Ethiopia, which was eventually to kill up to a million people.
At that time, donors were racing to get relief supplies to the worst-hit northern areas of the country in an aid operation on an unprecedented scale.
But, as often happens, it was a desperate effort to catch up with the need.
I journeyed up the spine of Ethiopia, northwards from Addis Ababa, while covering the 1984 famine. My overwhelming memory is of parched countryside, bare hills – and weary and weakened men, women and children congregated in places they thought they might find food.
I was part of the BBC team that, late in the October, finally managed to get access to the epicentre of the famine.
Written by /Read more at BBC
