Archive: What I Saw in Ethiopia

By John Wieler

Now I’ve seen it with my own eyes. Let me tell you what I saw at the feeding camp at Decamhare, run by a Christian church there. Maybe 1,000 people had been getting fed at this camp. But by the time I arrived the camp had nearly run out of grain, and camp workers could only feed 200.

I saw them feed one group. First they dumped the grain into a pile. The fortunate people getting food were sitting around in a very orderly fashion. As they came forward they were registered, their fingerprints were taken to make sure they went through only once, and they were handed their food.

When that was finished a bit of grain was left in the pile. The workers started to gather it up. But separated from the grain by an eight-foot-high fence topped with barbed wire were the wretched others-the ones who were to get nothing that day, perhaps no day. There wasn’t enough food for them, or perhaps they were from outlying areas not covered by relief programs.

The sight of that leftover grain was too much for them to stand. There were 300-400 of them on the other side of the fence, and they began to pound on the gate and climb over the fence. The young fellows who were guarding the gate began lashing out with sticks and hit some of the fence climbers. But the guards couldn’t hold them. They kept pushing and pushing against the gate and suddenly it gave way and people just poured in.

Then a strange thing happened. I expected these starving people to rush up and grab the grain and then leave. But the Ethiopians are not thieves. No, instead they just sat down in rather neat rows and waited. The leader of the camp then came out and told the people he couldn’t give them any food. It wasn’t their day. Besides, he said, there was very little grain left to give anyone.

Slowly the disappointed people got up and left, but not everyone left quietly. Many of the young women with babies, some at the breast, made an almost indescribable pleading for food for their children. They were pitifully haggard and were dressed only in tatters. They were terribly poor, and had come from far away to get food. But because they came from the wrong areas they were not registered—there was no day for them to get grain. I stood and wondered where the women and babies were going to get food. And I knew they were not going to get any. They were destined to starve, and they were starving…

The End of the World

For the people of Ethiopia it’s the end of the world.

Already you have heard the story. For several years the rains have not come. Crop after crop has failed, including the latest one. Added to that have been the scourges brought on by human blunders: the Marxist government has pursued a poor domestic policy which has discouraged small farmers. And in Northern Ethiopia a civil war rages on.

All of these things together have brought terrible famine. The people are literally starving to death. By now every American has seen and heard the grim story on TV. What you see on television you can perhaps ignore. But not when you see it yourself. What I saw with my own eyes can never be forgotten.

The tragedy happening at the camp I just told about is being repeated in many other camps around Ethiopia. A friend of mine visited a camp with 12,000 people crammed in it, and 500 more arriving daily. As you can imagine, there wasn’t enough food there. He told me that about 160 people were starving to death every day in that place. No medicines left, not enough food. The people die. It blows your mind how this could happen on earth.

Still, there are places with hope, because of the food sent by relief agencies. For example, I visited a World Vision feeding camp at Alamata, in the Wollo province—one of Mother Teresa’s feeding camps was next door. My number-one impression was the dust. Dust everywhere. I t was very, very dry. There was hardly anything green in sight. There were children everywhere, getting in the way, begging for food.

Thank God there was food at that camp. I n only 1 3 days the population o f the World Vision camp rose from 3,700 to 5,500, with more pouring in every day. The camp workers have the people split up into about six groups. One group gets intense feedings of milk and high energy food every few minutes. This program is for the children who are literally starving to death, and for the mothers who are just skin and bones. Some of them don’t make it. Then there are the other levels of feeding, all the way up to those who get dry rations and cook them themselves.

How poor the people are! Their clothing is pathetic. You feel that they haven’t washed their clothes in three years. Brown, faded, and parched cloth—it looks almost like the earth itself. Patches upon patches upon patches. And their feet—the terrain is so rough that feet must be protected, but many are wrapped only in rags. Others are bare.

All that’s inside the camp. Outside there are the newcomers who aren’t yet registered or had to be turned away because the camp was full. Here it is chaos. I had to watch where I stepped. Human waste was everywhere. In some of the stools I saw blood, and of course the flies.

The flies were tormenting the children too. Some of them were so helpless and weak they couldn’t even brush the flies off their faces. Their eyes are full of flies and their mouths are full of flies and their noses are full of flies.

The good news was the valiant efforts inside the camp to bring the starving back from the brink of death. The bad news was outside the camp, where there was no food. People were dying. It was very, very grim.

The civil war has made the situation worse. Because of the drought and the war, thousands of Ethiopians have walked into Sudan to escape. Sudan has become a refuge for those who are unable to register for food in Ethiopia.

Another crop failure is expected this spring, so the situation in that region of Africa may grow even more desperate. The famine may drag on for another year and many are saying two years. To get the people back on their feet and back into their villages will take more  time and money.

Christians say, “What difference does my little amount make?” It does make a difference. We should not think in terms of masses. We should think in terms of individuals. The miracle of the loaves and fishes continues, whether we believe it or not.

First, we have to assume it’s going to rain eventually, and there must be seed to plant. The people have eaten almost all their seeds. Some of the relief agencies have begun planning ways to bring in new seed and some cultivation expertise. If that doesn’t happen, the famine will continue indefinitely.

Even during this crisis we must be thinking of more than short-term food assistance. The land itself must be restored. It’s the old story—when you abuse the Lord’s garden’ the ecology factors in nature somehow avenge themselves. If all the trees are chopped down you have erosion and you lose the ability of the trees to draw clouds for rain. Food is being used now to pay workers to build roads that are missing, to plant trees when the rains come.

One success story I saw along this line happened near a northern city called Esmira. An evangelical group had given $20,000 to a local church to build a reinforced dam, which caught a lot of the water from the last real rain. Today, that dam is providing adequate water resources for the town next to the dam and even for Esmira, 10-15 kilometers away. The people who built the dam also put in a large cistern and hand pumps, so now there’s enough water for vegetable production and even reforestation. This is a good demonstration of what should be happening to prevent future disasters.

One thing many Western evangelicals don’t realize is that there is a large Christian population in Ethiopia, the Coptics. They are similar to Eastern Orthodox Christians. But we shouldn’t reflect too much on the theological differences. The important thing is that many of these people have been faithful.

My heart went out to these people when a Coptic priest came up to me at a feeding camp and let me know he was a Christian by showing me his cross. I think we evangelicals have a mission to relate to these people. But of course all the relief organizations help hungry people of every faith. Jesus made no distinction when He said that when we help the least of these, “You have done it unto me.”

The situation in Ethiopia is one of the most serious catastrophes of our century. The need is unprecedented. Fortunately, cooperation between the various relief agencies is excellent. There is no room for competition here. And I think the Christians in the West can feel confident in the recognized agencies that are raising support for Ethiopia, from the largest down to the smaller agencies.

Another thing is that we must try to find ways of getting aid to some of the Ethiopian communities where small church groups exist. Perhaps this is an area where evangelical groups could focus some effort.

We also need to remember that the need in Africa will continue well beyond this crisis. We need to give generously to help rehabilitate the area so this famine will not be repeated.

Last, I think the churches back home need to re-evaluate their overall mission. It’s just as much an imperative of the Gospel to feed the hungry at the right times as to evangelize at the right times. In the light of Jesus’ teaching, we must re-examine the discipline of helping our fellow human beings.

One scene I witnessed in Ethiopia was especially poignant. I was walking along right outside a feeding camp. I looked down and saw a woman who had just then given birth. I thought to myself, Life and death both stand out so much here. We as Christians must continue and increase our giving today so that life can at last gain the upper hand.

John Wieler went to Ethiopia during December to plot out a strategy for meeting the needs of the famine victims there. Wieler took years of experience in the area of relief work to the field with him while representing World Relief/Canada, a relief, development, and refugee service arm for the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada.