What are the latest developments in the food crisis in Ethiopia? Is the international community responding to the government's appeal?
A joint appeal was launched by the Ethiopian government and the United Nations on the present food crisis in this country. Some 11.3 million people need emergency food and another 3 million may join them. Aid organisations say that 4 million tons of food aid are needed. It is agreed that there is hunger in the Tigray, Afar, Somala, part of Oromia and the Amhara region of Heraghe. Leaders of various religions have made public appeals to the international community to respond generously to save these lives. In particular I would mention appeals launched by the Joint Ethiopian Eritrean Religious Leaders Peace Committee, in Eritrea 2.3 million people risk starvation, Joint Relief Partnership signed by Orthodox, Catholics and Protestants of various national and international voluntary organisations.
The next harvest will be November-December 2003. Food supplies received will last until January but how much will be available for the rest of the year is not known. In 2002 the European Union gave humanitarian aid for 67 million Euro and has promised 80 million Euro of aid for 2003. The United States and other countries have signed similar contracts.
Apart from the present emergency we must reflect why every year 4-5 million people in Ethiopia need food aid. Indeed, according to some reports there is a gradual impoverishment of the people. With 85% of the population engaged in subsistence farming and ever more vulnerable because of recurrent and ever more frequent crises, new social policies are urgently necessary. However reforms touch national leaders' political sensitivity and conservatism which leave little space for creating markets that function, industries.

You visited some of the missions recently, what did you find? What are the missionaries doing.
One of the worst hit areas is Haraghe in the south east. It is here that the Ethiopian Bishops will meet 18-19 December for the inauguration of the offices of the Catholic Secretariat, very active both in response to the emergency and in broad spectrum development programmes. I visited missions in Borana in the south where the Spiritan Fathers have worked for years among the local people. They have youth programmes, development programmes, first evangelisation. In this region Medical Missionaries of Mary sisters provide the only medical assistance available. In the west in the regions of Wellega and Benyshangul-Gumuz there are young diocesan priests, fidei donum priests from Colombia in south America, Daughters of St Anne, Comboni Sisters and other women religious giving powerful Christian witness in their schools, clinics, first evangelisation centres. Christian values are a motor for integral, effective and lasting development.

Tell us about relations with other Churches in Ethiopia and dialogue with other religions
In recent years positive steps have been made in the complex planet of religions in Ethiopia. Most of the 67 million Ethiopians are Orthodox Christians or Muslims. Catholics and other Christians are small groups, although active and lively. During the 1998 war between Ethiopia and Eritrea in 1998 leaders of different religions collaborated to reach peace. It is to be hoped that there will one day be a Council of Churches in Ethiopia and Eritrea and then a Council of different religions. In the tormented and often conflict ridden context of the Horn of Africa faith can open the road to reconciliation, mutual respect, building a society where everyone may put their talents towards achieving the common good. Christians, Orthodox, Catholics and Protestants and Muslims are meeting ever more frequently striving to know more about each other and to respond together in the case of emergencies. We see ever more often the presence of all the different religions the occasion of special celebrations. The path is still long but the Spirit of the Lord is at work. (Fides Service 12/12/2002)