The Drought Revisited

Two years ago, an estimated quarter of a million people died from the effects of a terrible drought that swept across the midsection of Africa, from the arid states of the Sahel (Mauritania, Senegal, Gambia, Upper Volta, Mali, Niger and Chad) to Ethiopia. Except for the Cape Verde Islands off Senegal, where the danger of starvation is still imminent, the immediate danger in West Africa has declined. The drought, however, has moved steadily eastward to threaten another cluster of states extending from Ethiopia and Somalia, on the Horn of Africa, to Kenya and Tanzania.

In West Africa, the problem today is largely one of recovering from the drought. Last year at least 50,000 people in the region perished, not so much from outright starvation as from years of cumulative malnutrition that made them susceptible to such diseases as measles, meningitis, pneumonia and endemic diarrhea. In 1974 it took more than 1 million tons of imported grain (about half of it supplied by the U.S.) to keep Sahelians alive, and 382,000 tons will be needed this year. But another 50,000 or so people will surely die anyway because their bodies are too weak to resist disease.

Corrupt Practices. Roughly one-fourth of all the relief grain has been lost--to spoilage, to pests and animals, or to thievery and corruption. Several West African regimes--including those in Mali, Upper Volta and Niger--cracked down hard on corruption last year, jailing and even executing dishonest soldiers who were supervising relief. But corrupt practices continued in Chad, where relief food was again diverted to feed the military, and unscrupulous truckers charged high rates for their services. By contrast, the distribution was efficient and honest in Mauritania, where desert Arab honor inhibits stealing and profiteering.

Depending on the amount and distribution of the rains, the Sahel will not be faced with famine this year--at least until fall. Much of eastern Africa, however, is already threatened. Despite moderate rains last year, four of Ethiopia's 14 provinces have massive hunger problems. The worst-hit areas are Eritrea, where the civil war between government forces and rebel soldiers of the province's independence movement has driven farmers from parched fields, and the Danakil desert of northeastern Ethiopia. As many as 600,000 people in the two areas may be threatened by starvation.

Part of the relief problem has to do with credibility. Officials in Addis Ababa insisted last November that 200,000 tons of free, imported relief grain would be needed this year. Some sympathetic nations turned down the request when they learned that the military government not only had access to large supplies of local grain from unaffected areas, but also had a foreign exchange reserve of more than $300 million that could be used to buy grain. The government has now cut its request to 78,000 tons, and at least three foreign donors--the U.S., the Common Market and China--are treating it more seriously.

Farther south in Tanzania, two years of rain failure have produced a serious food shortage. Instead of begging abroad for food last year, President Julius Nyerere paid out some $160 million in precious foreign exchange to feed his people. But this year his treasury is almost empty, and the need is severe. Help has been promised from Scandinavia, China and the U.S., which agreed to provide $11.7 million in food assistance in January and has shipped 30 tons of tarpaulins to Tanzania to protect stored grain against spoilage. The March to May "long rains" began on schedule late last month, but some downpours were so heavy that they washed away plantings. Rains for the next six weeks will have to be both bountiful and evenly distributed or else, as Nyerere warned his people late last year, "there will be hunger, and people will die."

Refugee Camps. Kenya has also been hit by drought this year. But it is in Somalia that the frightening Sahel story of two years ago is being repeated. More than half the country is currently devastated by drought. At least 200,000 Somalis are clustered in refugee camps, 10,000 people have died of hunger since the beginning of the year, and another 800,000 are considered by U.N. officials to be in "starvation condition." Chronically undernourished children die in refugee camps by the dozens, even when there is food available there to feed them. Most have been so dehydrated by diarrhea that their bodies are little more than skeletons and their stomachs so shriveled that they cannot take solid food.

The heavy rains which are due in Somalia later this year will be crucial to the survival of thousands of people. But semi-arid Somalia cannot indefinitely support 4 million nomads in a total population of 5 million. The leftist military government is trying to force hundreds of thousands of nomads to settle as farmers on land that can be irrigated, or to become fishermen along the nation's 1,800-mile coastline. The proud nomads are contemptuous of both farmers and fishermen. But with their herds decimated and the continuing threat of starvation, they will probably give in. As an East bloc diplomat in the Somali capital of Mogadishu puts it: "The choice, for many, is to switch or starve."

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