Concern must get £4m to continue work in Ethiopia

Concern will be unable to carry out vital work in averting human catastrophe in Ethiopia unless it raises £4 million over the next two months, an executive who has just returned from the country said yesterday.

Father Jack Finucane, Concern's regional director for the Horn of Africa, said famine had already hit southern parts of the country and he estimated that in about two months it would begin devastating the northern regions of Tigray and Welo.

Father Finucane said the gravity of the situation was such that it could eventually reach the proportions of the 1984 famine, when over one million people died.

"Whatever are our best efforts in the south, there is no time left. People will die," he said. "We have some time to head it off in the north. It is possible for us to save hundred of thousands of lives if we act in time, i.e. very quickly."

Concern has just completed the first nutrition survey carried out in Ethiopia, which shows the situation to be far worse than had been thought.

The survey of 200,000 people in the Damot Wayde region, southwest of Addis Ababa, found that 25 per cent (7,600) of children under the age of five were malnourished. Some 7 per cent (2,380) were suffering severe malnutrition.

"Unless they get immediate specialised nutrition they will die, and within two to four weeks the mortality rate will rise," said Father Finucane.

Ms Liz O'Donnell, the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, will travel to Ethiopia on Tuesday. Concern is sending 38 tonnes of emergency aid on Tuesday, and four medical teams over the next two weeks.

Concern is also setting up three supplementary feeding centres in Damot Wayde to help the most vulnerable - the under-fives, pregnant and lactating mothers, the elderly and the sick.

Father Finucane said Concern had received £400,000 from the Government since November 1999, but its estimated spending over the next few months will be £4 million.

The charity's other sources of income are the general public, the EU and the US government.