Ethiopia: people are dying for lack of food

"We are receiving information that in the Tigray region there are already people dying for lack of food", the Salesian missionaries explain from Ethiopia. "Deaths due to lack of medicine are something usual, but the fact that we are receiving this news of deaths due to hunger is very worrying", they warn. "The drought, the increase in prices, the lack of accessibility to the area... it is very complicated", the missionaries add. "There are no roads, no telephone, no internet, no electricity, no banks... people have no access to money. For more than a year now, services for the population have been completely closed. Rich and poor, everyone needs humanitarian aid", say the missionaries.

More than 25 million people in Ethiopia need emergency aid to survive, according to the United Nations. "The coronavirus, the war in the north, the droughts in the south and southeast of the country, and the floods in other places are causing a serious humanitarian problem in the country", explains Luis Manuel Moral, director of Salesian Missions.

The Salesian missionaries have already distributed more than 260,000 euros in food, hygiene products and warm clothing. "We continue to work to bring more aid to our communities to distribute it to the people who need it most", say the Salesians from Ethiopia. The country is experiencing one of the most severe droughts in the last 40 years, and more than seven million livestock breeders and farmers in the most affected areas have been left without means of subsistence. "The prices of basic necessities are now very high and continue to rise with each passing day," they explain. 

The Salesian Missions, once again, wants to ask the international community for responsibility to bring peace to Ethiopia and solidarity to all people so that those affected by the drought and hunger can survive.