Children in Ethiopia are 'too sick to feel hunger' as charity launches urgent appeal
EXCLUSIVE: Mary's Meals founder Magnus MacFarlane-Barrow shared a powerful account from his recent visit to the drought and conflict-ravaged state of Tigray.
Children are so sick they can no longer feel the pain of hunger pangs due to the crisis gripping Ethiopia, a charity founder has warned. Magnus MacFarlane-Barrow, chief executive of Mary’s Meals, recently visited the war-ravaged region of Tigray to witness the devastation first hand.
Calling for immediate action to prevent widespread starvation, he said: “People are already dying of hunger and everything we're hearing on the ground points to a well-founded fear of much worse to come if the world doesn’t respond.
“We’ve heard accounts of children who no longer feel the pain from hunger pangs, not because they have eaten, but because they don’t have the energy to feel pain anymore.
“It’s hard not to make comparisons between how the world was so moved to act nearly 40 years ago when Ethiopia was gripped by the infamous famine of the 80s and the situation today that is virtually being ignored.
“We need to make sure that the terrible outcome Tigray is heading for doesn’t happen, but it will if we don’t act now.”
READ MORE: Celebrities back Express Christmas appeal to feed thousands of children
Magnus started Mary’s Meals in 2002 after witnessing the horrific impact of famine in Malawi. It provides nutritious meals in schools for more than 2.4 million children in 18 countries.
The latest Daily Express Christmas appeal raised more than £26,000 - enough to feed more than 2,700 children every school day for one year.
The Scottish charity has been providing a daily hot meal for children at schools in Ethiopia since 2017, and now feeds around 45,000 youngsters in the region.
Tigray has endured two years of deadly civil war that forced millions from their homes and is thought to have killed more than 600,000. The conflict has been compounded by several failed rainy seasons, escalating the humanitarian crisis.
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More than 91 percent of Tigray’s population has been “exposed to the risk of starvation and death”, according to the president of its Interim Regional Administration, Getachew Reda.
Visiting a hospital, Magnus saw rows of beds filled with the malnourished bodies of the drought’s young victims.
Dr Abraha Gebreegziabher, a local paediatrician, said: “We are seeing three times as many cases of malnutrition as normal, and the mortality rate is five times higher.
“The number of children dying from malnutrition was quite stable for the last 13 years, but since the war, it’s doubled. Previous deaths were generally linked to other health conditions, but now malnutrition is a singular cause on its own.”
Millions of children have dropped out of school, with many sent out work or beg on the streets.
Regional statistics suggest 53 percent of all primary-age children in Tigray are not enrolled.
A staggering 15,000 teachers are unaccounted for and 95 percent of classrooms in the Central Zone of Tigray - the worst-hit area where much of Mary’s Meals’ work takes place - are said to have been damaged during the war.
After being forced to pause its school programme in Tigray last year during the war, the charity is now operating again and has doubled the size of its programme there since Christmas.
Now it is launching an urgent appeal to raise vital funds to expand its work and reach thousands more children. The charity believes that fighting hunger is key to keeping children in education and helping them strive for a brighter future.
Ara Primary School in eastern Tigray has reopened since the conflict eased, but more than 300 pupils are yet to return.
Headteacher Weynareg Araya said: “The community wants this school to continue but, in some houses, they want their children to support them to make money.
“There is frustration in the homes because of hunger, but they know how important school is. A school feeding programme would be important here. It will support students to be active and learn. Those out of school will come back, and they will be energetic to learn.”
Magnus added: “Everywhere we go, people are asking us to expand our programme to schools so that we can keep the children fed and in school because their education will determine the future.
“One of the defining things about this situation is that we can – and are ready to – roll out the Mary’s Meals programme to many more schools if we can mobilise more support and raise the necessary funds. Clearly the need for that is enormous. Please join us in acting now.”
You can find out more and donate here.
This crisis could be worse than famine of the 1980s, says MAGNUS MACFARLANE-BARROW
I have just returned from Tigray in northern Ethiopia, which – despite its unique history, culture and breath-taking scenery – will, sadly, forever be associated with hunger.
The infamous famine here in the 1980s was the catalyst for Live Aid and that enormous global fundraising effort that many of my generation will never forget.
I last visited in 2017 and even then, we saw the pressing need for our daily meals in places of education and agreed plans to greatly expand our work as soon as possible.
At that point, none of us could have envisaged the devastation that was about to unfold.
The Covid pandemic, the war in Ukraine, and the economic downturn led to a huge surge in hunger all over the developing world, but in Tigray these have been compounded by two additional catastrophic events.
The two-year a civil war – which claimed the lives of around 600,000 people and left the country in ruins – has been closely followed by a terrible drought, leaving dry fields unplanted.
Tigray officials say 4.5 million people are in urgent need of food aid and both adults and children have already begun dying of hunger.
In the largest hospital in the region’s capital, beside a ward full of emaciated babies and their mothers, a local paediatrician explained to me that more and more children are dying from malnutrition here:
“We are seeing three times as many cases of malnutrition as normal, and the mortality rate is five times higher.
“Previous deaths were generally linked to other health conditions, but now malnutrition is a single cause on its own.”
As always children are suffering the most. Hundreds of thousands have dropped out of school because of their acute hunger.
In just one small mountainside village, they told me around 300 children no longer attended school.
And meanwhile, wherever I travelled in Tigray, I met proud people – amongst them former business owners – now reduced to begging each day to survive.
The only ray of hope I saw was in the schools where we serve Mary’s Meals. In these schools the opposite is happening; rolls have risen and happy, laughing children queue for their daily school meal.
Free of the gnawing pain of hunger, they dared to tell me about their dreams for the future.
Mary’s Meals has always made a deliberate choice to work in places of acute need and has responded to many terrible humanitarian crises.
But never, anywhere, have I seen a situation crying out so desperately for our school meals. We urgently need to expand to bring Mary’s Meals to more children here – and the only thing that is preventing us doing so is funding.
Many here are saying that this could be worse than the famine in the 1980s. That is a shocking possibility, but one that could still be avoided if only the cry of those children – in this noisy distracted world of ours – is heard and responded to, before it’s too late.
- Magnus MacFarlane-Barrow is the founder of Mary’s Meals
