by Thomas C. Mountain
Ethiopians faces mass starvation. Drought is the immediate cause of the catastrophe, but the ruling minority regime has exacerbated the crisis by refusing to take up neighboring Eritrea’s offer of free use of its ports, to receive needed foodstuffs. “What kind of government sits back and allows tens if not hundreds of thousands of its own people to die of starvation because of some political dispute with its neighbor?”
Millions Starve as Ethiopia Rejects Aid Through Eritrean Ports
by Thomas C. Mountain
“Only Ethiopia is allowed to get away with deliberately starving its own citizens.”
As famine stalks millions of Ethiopians, and aid ships wait forever to unload at Ethiopia’s port of Djibouti, offers of free use of Eritrea’s Red Sea ports fall on deaf ears in Addis Ababa.
According to Oxfam between 50% to 90% of Ethiopia suffered all or major crop failure due to the latest, greatest drought (this is just a guess because Oxfam isn't allowed access to most of Ethiopia). Millions upon millions have now exhausted their food stocks and major starvation has begun.
Desperate for food aid to be unloaded, aid agencies are begging the Djibouti port authorities to work faster, but the port of Djibouti is small and creaky and completely unable to keep up with the desperate need.
Enter Eritrea, home to not one but two ports on the Red Sea, with the southern and larger of the two, Assab, having been given a major upgrade by the Emirates this past year.
All backlog of food aid would be cleared up quickly if Ethiopia will only use the Eritrean ports, an offer repeatedly made in the past during droughts to no avail.
“The port of Djibouti is small and creaky and completely unable to keep up with the desperate need.”
The question has to be asked, what kind of government sits back and allows tens if not hundreds of thousands of its own people to die of starvation because of some political dispute with its neighbor?
Only Ethiopia is allowed to get away with deliberately starving its own citizens, for there is supposed to be enough food aid in the pipeline to prevent the worst of the famine and only the shortage of port facilities in Djibouti is preventing its distribution.
Why isn't the USA and its lickspittles in the EU pressuring the Ethiopians, who are supposed to be under UN Article 7 Sanctions for their refusal to accept final and binding peace and border agreements, and entirely dependent on foreign loans to keep running ($11 billion in 2015)?
The politics of famine is what it’s all about as death from starvation stalks Ethiopia, again.
Thomas C. Mountain is an independent journalist living and reporting from Eritrea since 2006. He can be reached on Facebook at thomascmountain, on twitter @thomascmountain or thomascmountain at gmail dot com
This is the foreword to the new edition of Marika Sherwood’s Claudia Jones: A Life in Exile (Lawrence Wishart, 2021).
The recent Community of Latin American and Caribbean (CLACS) meeting was a continuation of the effort to end U.S. domination through its Organization of American States apparatus.
Systemic racism and weak movement politics allow states and cities to spend relief funds on police and jails.
China's commitment to enhancing social cohesion is an example of what a society should strive to do. But racism endemic to the U.S. prevents it from taking the same steps.
The U.S. is once again attempting to overthrow a legitimate head of state in Africa, this time in Ethiopia, where they want to put their old puppet, the TPLF, or a new one, in power.
