No: 17264 Friday, June 23, 2017

17

I n t e r n a t i o n a l

FRIDAY, JUNE 23, 2017

WARDER, Ethiopia: The Somali people of Ethiopia’s south-

east have a name for the drought that has killed livestock,

dried up wells and forced hundreds of thousands into camps:

sima, which means “equalized”. It’s an appropriate name,

they say, because this drought has left no person untouched,

spared no corner of their arid region. And it has forced 7.8

million people across the whole of Ethiopia to rely on emer-

gency food handouts to stay alive. But by next month, that

food will have run out, aid agencies say.

Droughts are common in Ethiopia, and in past years the

government and international community have mounted

impressive efforts to curb starvation. This year though,

Africa’s second most-populous country is struggling to find

the money for food aid, say aid agencies. “We’re looking at

the food pipeline actually breaking, so the food is running out

in about a month’s time,” said John Graham, country director

for Save the Children. “After that, we don’t know what’s going

to happen.”

Distracted donors 

Once a global byword for starvation and poverty after a

famine in 1984-85 killed hundreds of thousands, Ethiopia has

seen its economy grow rapidly in the last decade. Health indi-

cators such as infant mortality and malaria deaths have also

improved. A stronger economy allowed Ethiopia to spend an

impressive $766 million fighting one of its worst droughts in

decades in 2015-16. This year however, things are different.

Economic growth has slowed, due in part to protests

spurred by long-simmering grievances against Ethiopia’s one-

party state. Donors have also been distracted by other region-

al crises. To the southeast, Somalia is suffering from severe

drought, with warnings it could tip into famine. Ethiopia’s

western neighbor, South Sudan, has suffered four months of

famine, and extreme hunger is at its highest levels ever after

more than three years of civil war.

Ethiopia by contrast has a strong central government and is

relatively free from conflict. But with the situation so desper-

ate in the region, donors aren’t responding to the country’s

emergency as they have in the past, said Mitiku Kassa, head of

Ethiopia’s National Disaster Risk Management Commission,

Mitiku Kassa. “They are stressed with the needs, especially

from those countries which (have) declared famine,” Mitiku

said. “That is why it is underfunded.”

Skipping meals is common   

Even though Ethiopia has contributed $117 million of its

own money this year and the international community $302

million, a funding gap of $481 million remains, according to

the United Nations. In the drought ravaged town of Warder,

the hundreds of displaced families crowding a ramshackle

camp say handouts of rice and sugar are becoming less fre-

quent. “Skipping meals is common,” said Halimo Halim, a

grandmother living with her children in a shelter made of

sticks and pieces of plastic. “Skipping is the order of the day.”

Families of nomadic herders such as Halimo’s are central to

the economy of Ethiopia’s southeastern Somali region. The

drought has deprived goats, sheep and donkeys of water,

killing them or making them so weak that by the time the

rains come they perish in the cold. Around 465,000 people

who have lost their livestock have migrated to an estimated

250 camps in the region.

The settlements are often located near water sources, but

that presents its own problems. In Warder, workers are pres-

ent around the clock at nearby wells to make sure people

drawing water chlorinate it before they drink it, lest they

contract “acute watery diarrhea”, which has broken out in

the region. Some aid workers say this is actually cholera,

which Ethiopia has long been accused of covering up to pro-

tect its image. 

Paying the bill 

Aid agencies have turned to so-called “non-traditional”

donors like the Gulf countries for funding. At the same time

they are keeping a nervous eye on budget negotiations in

top funder the United States, where President Donald Trump

has proposed slashing the aid budget. But some humanitari-

ans privately complain that the Ethiopian government isn’t

doing enough to call attention to its plight. They argue that

Addis Ababa does not want to distract from its development

gains or resurrect the old image of Ethiopia as a place of

mass starvation.

“There is no shortage of funds to combat drought,” com-

munications minister Negeri Lencho insisted earlier this

month. If the international community doesn’t send more

money, Mitiku said the government would be “forced” to tap

its development budget for drought relief in July. But with a

lead time of about four months required to procure emer-

gency food, the UN says that may be too late. In Warder, those

uprooted by drought, like Sanara Ahmed, are wondering how

long they can survive on unreliable food handouts. “Some

support was there, but it cannot substitute for our depend-

ability on our livelihood,” Sanara said. —AFP 

In Colombia, FARC

nurses want to trade

arms for white coats

COLINAS, Colombia: As a battlefield nurse for Colombia’s

FARC rebels, Johana Japon helped stitch up wounded fighters

as bullets whizzed past her. And now that the rebel army is

demobilizing under a historic accord signed last year to end

more than 50 years of war, Japon wants to study medicine,

don the white garb of a bona fide nurse and tend to everyday

patients. Japon is among 500 rebel fighters assembled in

Colinas, a town in southern Colombia, one of 26 designated

spots for members of the rebel movement to gather, surren-

der their weapons to UN personnel and start the process of

rejoining civilian life.

She is also among FARC members rushing to do the paper-

work needed to apply for 500 scholarships Cuba is offering for

ex-rebels to study medicine on the island. Another, Mery

Quintero, who spent 20 of her 47 years in the ranks of the

FARC, says people like them have a new purpose in life. “We

worked as nurses, and that gives us the possibility to help

rural people and people in general,” said Quintero, who once

studied bacteriology but had to leave school when her moth-

er lost her job and could not afford to pay her tuition.

But like other applicants, Quintero says she may have a hard

time getting one of the scholarships because she only got as far

as grade school in her education. The Colombian conflict erupt-

ed in 1964 when the FARC and the ELN-a smaller rebel group

that is now in peace negotiations with the government-took up

arms for rural land rights. The violence drew in various rebel

and paramilitary forces and drug gangs as well as state forces.

The conflict left at least 260,000 people dead and displaced

more than seven million, according to the authorities.

Mauricio Jaramillo, a FARC commander who schooled

Japon in field medicine when she joined the guerrilla army,

said the scholarships are a golden opportunity for rebels who

served as doctors or nurses during the war. But it is not just

them, he added. “We have a lot of supporters who have chil-

dren ... young people who want to study medicine,” Jaramillo

added. Jaramillo-a nom de guerre, as his real name is Jaime

Parra-is known as “The Doctor” because he actually is one.

He is also one of the architects of the FARC medical care

network, which at its war-time peak in 2000 even boasted a

300-bed hospital in southern Colombia. “Over the years we

trained around 150 people to work as nurses,” said Jaramillo.

They specialized in lab work, surgery, treating trauma and

other areas of medicine. Japon, 35, recalls treating fighters

with horrific wounds, like one who was shot in the gut and

hip, which she said was practically blown away.

“Shards of bone kept piercing his small intestine. He was

operated on three times. He ended up with his intestine stick-

ing out of his body, and we had to douse it with water to keep

it moist,” Japon recalled. Then the army came, the rebels had

to flee and two days later that soldier died, she said. These

nurses have other memories haunting them, too-performing

abortions on female rebels so they could keep fighting. 

“Even though for everyone in Colombia we were the

worst of the worst, with all that we did we are leaving a mark

that is different from what people imagined we were,” said

Quintero. These days, as she waits to surrender her rifle as

part of the peace process, Quintero is helping build a clinic in

a village where some FARC fighters plan to settle and get on

with their lives. —AFP 

Starvation looms as food runs 

out in drought-hit Ethiopia

ETHIOPIA: A picture shows people displaced by Ethiopia’s drought walking at a displaced persons camp in Werder. — AFP

COLINAS: Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC)

Dr. Japon shows medical supplies at the Transitional

Standardization Zone Jaime Pardo Leal in Colinas,

Guaviare department, Colombia. — AFP

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