James Landale travels with the UK Africa minister to northern Ethiopia, where the situation is deteriorating.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
For they and Ethiopia are suffering once again from a devastating legacy of conflict and drought, twin evils that in recent years have destroyed farms and crops and forced millions from their homes.
Doctors at the hospital tell us the numbers of severely malnourished children being admitted have doubled since 2020 when the war between Tigrayan forces and Ethiopian and Eritrean armies began.
We travelled with the British Africa minister, Andrew Mitchell, to Agulae, an hours’ drive north into the hills, where a clinic was assessing children from outlying villages.
He promised Britain would commit a further £100m ($125m) to help up to three million mothers and babies in Ethiopia get access to health care; a new fund to provide medicines and vaccines designed to end preventable deaths.
The BBC’s powerful reporting of the humanitarian disaster prompted a wave of publicity and campaigning, including the Live Aid concert led by the musician Bob Geldof.
Last year USAID, America’s development agency, and the United Nation’s World Food Programme suspended humanitarian support for five months after it emerged that huge amounts were being stolen, much of it to feed various armed forces.
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