Black Agenda Report
Black Agenda Report
News, commentary and analysis from the black left.

  • Home
  • Africa
  • African America
  • Education
  • Environment
  • International
  • Media and Culture
  • Political Economy
  • Radio
  • US Politics
  • War and Empire
  • omnibus

Millions Starve as Ethiopia Rejects Aid Through Eritrean Ports
Thomas C. Mountain
06 Apr 2016

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

Do you need and appreciate Black Agenda Report articles. Please click on the DONATE icon, and help us out, if you can.


More Stories


  • The US Continues Escalating in Ukraine
    Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    The US Continues Escalating in Ukraine
    01 Feb 2023
    The U.S. got more than it bargained for after instigating the Ukrainian conflict. The Biden foreign policy team grows more desperate and their plans become more dangerous as they reckon with the…
  • EXCERPT: Howard University: Every Black Thing and Its Opposite, Kwame Ture
    Editors, The Black Agenda Review
    EXCERPT: Howard University: Every Black Thing and Its Opposite, Kwame Ture
    01 Feb 2023
    Kwame Ture reminds us that the Black university is a place of contradictions – and a potential site of struggle.
  • Ilhan Omar Is Not Mama Africa
    Ann Garrison, BAR Contributing Editor
    Ilhan Omar Is Not Mama Africa
    01 Feb 2023
    The new Speaker of the House announced he will remove Congresswoman Ilhan Omar from the Foreign Affairs Committee. The attack from republicans has given her image a boost, but her record shows the…
  • Tennessee’s Tonton Macoute? Or, rotten Orchard called Capitalist State Machine?
    Raymond Nat Turner, BAR poet-in-residence
    Tennessee’s Tonton Macoute? Or, rotten Orchard called Capitalist State Machine?
    01 Feb 2023
                                                                                                         Tennessee’s Tonton Macoute? Or, rotten 
  •  BAR Book Forum: J.T. Roane’s Book, “Dark Agoras”
    Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
    BAR Book Forum: J.T. Roane’s Book, “Dark Agoras”
    01 Feb 2023
    This week’s featured author is J.T. Roane. His book is Dark Agoras: Insurgent Black Social Life and the Politics of Place.
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us