Health worker MargaretAguirre was alarmed at the sight of the little boy. His mother, named Adena,had brought the severely malnourished seven-year-old to the therapeutic feedingcenter run by the International Medical Corps. The center is one of manythe group has in Ethiopia?s Bolossa Sorie District in the Southern NationNationalities and People?s Region.
"It was quite frightening to seehim ," she says, " he was skin and bones?to say his ribs were poking out is anunderstatement. He could barely stand, and she had to hold him. The child istall and it was upsetting to see the child could not stand. His mother had tocarry him into the clinic."
The young boy was not theonly family member affected. His young brother was also suffering frommalnutrition. Two of six other siblings at home had recovered.
Health experts say familieslike this have run out of ways to survive. Drought means no pasture for theirlivestock, which provide the family with milk. Some sell off livestock, toolsand other family assets to buy food. Others eat seeds needed for planting orsurvive on foods like the false banana, or encet, which has few calories ornutrients.
By the famine stage, families andentire communities have often left in search of food.
It was a similar situation forAine Fay, the director of the Irish NGO Concern in Ethiopia. Shedescribes a child she met at one of her group?s feeding stations.
"He was a one-year-old (AbrahamAdwiro) and weighed 4.2 kilos," she explains. "[The father], who had migrated in search oflabor and the money, had not come back. In the meantime, this one-year-old haddeteriorated to the point where food alone was not going to help him. We gavehim both food and medicines. He needed antibiotics for an infection."
Concern is helping morethan 50,000 children and mothers in Ethiopia, including thousands in theregions of Amhara in the north and in six districts of the Southern Region;Damot Woyde, Duguna Fango, Offa, Shashego, Mareko and Soro.
Many children show up at any oneof the NGO?s therapeutic feeding centers with the large sores and swollenbellies of kwashiorkor, a condition linked to a lack of protein. They may alsoshow wasting, or marasmus.
International relief agencies areworking to prevent adults and children from reaching those levels.
They say over six million peoplein the Horn may be in need of help.
To assess food emergencies,relief experts use an indicator called the Integrated Food Security andHumanitarian Phase Classification Reference Table. developed by FoodSecurity Analysis Unit of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization.
The table rates foodavailability in a given area with five categories, ranging from generally foodsecure to the two most serious ? humanitarian emergencies and finally, famine.According to the table, famine includes several indicators that have not yetbeen met in the Horn, including two deaths for every 100,000 people.Contributing to the deaths is a daily consumption of less than 2,100kilocalories of food, and four liters of water.
To alleviate acute malnutrition inEthiopia, the NGO Concern is giving out packages of 8.3 kg of fortified flourand a litre of oil as supplementary food for thousands of malnourished childrenand pregnant mothers. Children are given high nutrition formula known as F-75or a high protein, ready-to-eat peanut paste called plumpy nut.
Similar help is also offered atthe supplementary feeding centers of the International Medical Corps, whichalso focuses on long-term solutions. They include efforts to fortify peopleagainst diseases that can kill thousands during food shortages. For example,the group teaches people to plant nutritious foods in their own gardens, and toprovide clean water and sanitation.
Magarette Aguirre says the situation in Ethiopiais severe. But she notes that there has been an improvement in rainfallrecently and says that for now, that should move some pockets of the countryaway from the threat of famine.