Addis Ababa (Fides Service) - There is no let up in the food crisis in Ethiopia where some 12 million people risk starvation unless they receive immediate aid. In fact present food supplies will last only until May. This is reported by the VIS International Volunteers for Solidarity, an Italian NGO sponsored by the National Centre of Salesian Works which has just returned from a mission in Ethiopia. The VIS also warns that widespread malnutrition is increasing the risk of disease, bronchitis, tuberculosis, malaria, eye infections and gastric problems. It is among the weakest, AIDS sufferers, displaced families, that hunger kills thousands.
According to the Ethiopian government and the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation FAO, so far international organisations have supplied Ethiopia with only 40% of its minimum food requirements.
Meanwhile Catholic missionaries are doing all they can to help those most in need, distributing food in kindergartens, elementary schools, mission centres, clinics, dispensaries, homes for street children, refugees camps, feeding centres. Proof that the situation is getting worse is the growing number of people assisted daily by the Salesian Sisters at Zway: the average 3,000 has now increased to 7,000 and many come on foot from villages as far as 80 km away.
One serious problem is lack of water. The only water available in certain areas is that distributed, free as always, at the different missions. At Dilla for example, the Don Bosco Mission provides water day and night to the hospital, prison, school and most of the people, about 70,000 many of whom come on foot from distant villages every day. LM (Fides Service 25/3/2003 EM lines 23 Words: 268)