Tuesday, June 11, 1974 Ethiopia JIJIGA, Ethiopia (4') - Trac- terms tors slog through mud now on trition the vast plain around Jijia the Ui Peasants and cattle drink from heU puddles. Grain shoots and grass Eth spread a thin carpet of green. sched Grass, grain and puddles are et strange sights in Jiiga, where until a few weeks ago it hadn't rained noticeably for two years. Now torrents of rain have come to this fly-infested military and farm center 30 miles across a baking semidesert from hostile Hoa Somalia. tan "ANOTHER two weeks with no rain and the temperatures sOm we have here, and people would have been dying in big num- WaE bers," said Dave Ellaway, a British Red Cross volunteer. Ji- jiga is about 650 miles north equi of the Equator. Still, 75 per cent of the cattle in the area have starved and many more died gorging them- selves after the rain. Much more rain is needed over the next few tracto months before the first crops planti can be harvested in eastern Foreii Ethiopia's Harrarge Province. to pay Inhabitants will depend heavily, $15 i meanwhile, on food aid -pro- grams, hampered by lack of SHI funds and transport, strikes and pianr bureaucracy. er, pa Survival is still in the balance fans for Jijiga, as it is for three of un- million rural Ethiopians in the nomac drought-affected regions across carcas the country. flying Deser IN ADDIS, Ababa, the capi- D sal; Western relief administra- . e tors say they are winning the ge g battle against hunger. Death rule rates are reported back to near worse normal in most areas. Scenes of easter maas starvation like those of disast last year, when tens of thous- scale. ands died, are hard to find. Shin "I am amazed how much bet- thousa ter things have gotten over the food r past two or three months -in 12 ma THE MICHIGAN DAILY Page Five fights drought, starvation of administration and nu- view he plans to ask about 40 ," said John Phillips of foreign donors for as much as nited Nations Development 250,000 tons of grain in 1975, am. about 100,000 tons more rhan the iopian . authorities have amount pledged this year. uled 21 rehabilitation pro- - oxen and seed supply, A QUARTER-million tons of rders offer grain to marketplaces at exorbi- prices; to obtain one sack of sorghum, e peasants agree to pay back four. Even er is available from well owners at the ivalent of 30 cents a bucket. to produce normal crops. Conditions are worst in Har- rarge, Bale and Sidamo provin- ces - the southeastern third of Ethiopia. Rain and food aid appear to have staved off the widespread starvation officials had feared would start in May. Hoarders offer grain in marketplaces at exorbitant prices; to obtain one sack of sorghum, some peas- ants agree to pay back four. EVEN WATER is available from well owners at the equiva- lent of 30 cents a bucket. "If your disposable income is two Ethiopian dollars a week, you can't afford to both eat and drink," Ellway said. An Ethio- pian dollar is worth 50 U.S. cents. But Arthur Hamersley, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Or- ganization representative in Ad- dis Ababa, reported after fly- ing over Harrarge that the rain was light and scattered. Most farmers who plowed their fields didn't bother to plant and those who did have little chance of seeing the current sorghum and corn crop mature. THE FIRST possible harv-est that could overcome the need for food relief would be in De- cember, seven months away, Hamersley said. One Western relief expert ex- pects the 1974 crops throughtaut the province to total less than 40 per cent of last year's yield, which was far less than the 1972 harvest. IHarrarge officials have asked Shimelis for food aid for .00,- 000 persons, most of them no- mads. r rental, well-digging, tree ng and road building. gn donors are being asked y all but $2.5 million of the illion cost. MELIS Adugna, the Ethio- drought relief commission- ints a darker picture. He out on his desk snapshots lerrourished children and er burning heaps of cattle Esses, taken on a recent tour deep in the Ogaden t near Somalia. pite huge injections of fore- rain, Shimelis does not out the possibility that sing conditions in south- rn Ethiopia will produce er on an even greater melis expects hundreds of nds of Ethiopians to need 'elief for at least the next nths. He said in an inter- grain, plus sea transport to Ethiopia, would cost about $37.5 million at current prices. -Rain has been falling in Wollo and Tigre, the two northeastern provinces hit hard by drought last year, and in the southwest. Most observers say it is too soon to tell whether the rain will be sufficient. Even if it is they say, famine-weakened pea- sants, short of seed grain and oxen to pull plows, are unlikely FREE Book With Any Purchase (no matter how small) THE ALMANACH OF POOR RICHARD NIXON Being a Newe Almanack and Prognostication wherein is declared by RICHARD MILHOUS NIXON the Right Dispo- sition of the State for the Whole Yere concerning Weather Changes and Sicknesses coming therefrom; with Prediction of Suche Thinges as Shall follow the Terrible Political Eclipses of the Sunne thrice this Yere A $2.00 VALUE jJ CENTICORE BOOKSHOPS S 336 MAYNARD 1229 S. UNIVERSITY ... ()- ){.....