afrol News, 20 March - Ethiopia is again facing food scarcity that has put the lives of over eight million Ethiopians at risk, particularly those in the South-West Oromia region where 11 people died of hunger and lack of clean water.

The food insecurity, caused by a long period of drought in Oromia region, affected close to half a million people, the National Disaster, Prevention and Control Commission confirmed.

Aid agencies provided food aid to tens of thousands of affected families in Borana and Bale in January.

Ethiopian authorities expressed worried over the escalating chronic food insecurity which resulted to a high number of malnutrition in the country.

The Horn of African country had a history of the world's worst drought that killed a million Ethiopians in October 1984.

Large and small ruminants [cows, sheep, goat, etc] became the first victims. They grow thinner, forcing their owners to sell them cheaply before they became worthless bones.

The death of crops due to heat and arid conditions turned the fertile land into sterility, living over five million people starving while two million others fled their homes.

At the time, the government of Mengistu became so involved in several costly internecine struggles within its borders to the extent that it could not cater anything for the starving population.

However, a documentary by the late renowned Kenyan photographer, Mohammed Amin had moved the world's attention to the Ethiopian crisis. More than half of the people who watched the sympathetic documentary, which portrayed people dying in dignity, including three heads of state, cried. In the end, Ethiopians were bailed out.

By staff writer

© afrol News

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