Famine in Africa

A detailed Summary of Famine in Africa

This paper is about two African third world countries that have serious problems with hunger, Ethiopia and Sudan. Looking at the people, the land, and the history in each country, a comparison will be made about the causes and effects of famine. Famine in Ethiopia and Sudan is apparently due to ethics, politics, and global weather patterns, but the specific causes of famine in these two countries differ greatly.

Famine has stricken both Ethiopia and Sudan very harshly, with many people dying of starvation and others just waiting to die from the horrible hunger. Starvation threatens 365,000 people in Sudan, with the numbers just increasing, with no sign that they will stop increasing either (Nelan, 20). The whole country of Sudan is going through these troubles, but the famine is having its biggest impact in the Southwest and the Northern areas of Sudan (Nelan, 22). Throughout the whole country, 2.5 million square miles of land are empty, without crops that could hold valuable food for the starving people in Sudan. Those numbers are almost nothing compared to the country of Ethiopia though. It is estimated that in Ethiopia there are 4.6 million people starving or currently dead (www.news). Part of this is due to the fact that

their crops became stunted drastically with the elongated dry season and an exceptionally short rainy season (www.news). All of these things make people miserable so they are forced to focus on other things to try and block out the famine troubles in both countries.

The ethical problems, politics, and the weather patterns keep these two countries from making much progress in ending famine.

The famine looks like it will continue to wipe out thousands of people, just like it has been doing over the many years, and decades. In Sudan, the famine has been a problem for roughly two decades continuously (Nelan, 18). In Ethiopia though, it seems that neither the government nor the people can "stop the bleeding". The famine in Ethiopia has been going on off and on for three decades (www.elca). Governments in both countries have tried to stop their famine, even though not one hundred percent of their effort has gone to this cause. It is still not a top priority for either country. In fact, in Sudan, for those who are in the upper class or of government status, food is much easier to acquire (Rosenblum, 9). Because of this it "blinds" the upper class to the extent of the problem; these are the people who have the power to help turn their famine around (Rosenblum, 11). The problem of favors among the upper class is not the only type of favoring that goes on within Sudan.

Food is scarce enough throughout both Sudan and Ethiopia that the people have almost no energy, which makes acquiring food that much more difficult. If a citizen wishes to get food, they have to expel the little energy that they have to walk to a "food center". (Corbett, 12). In Sudan, the average citizen has to walk roughly twenty miles to reach the nearest "food center" to get the food they need to feed their families (Corbett, 15). In Ethiopia it is even worse, the average walk for an Ethiopian citizen is a forty mile trek to acquire their food (Bertini, 65). Also in both countries, it is hard for anyone that is middle to lower class to get a vehicle to make the long journey, so almost everyone walks for their little ration of food that they can get (Corbett, 15). In Ethiopia, roughly twenty percent of the people that start to take the journey to get their food, die in the process, since they are so week to begin with due to the famine (Bertini, 69). The death rate of the treks made to ge

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Approximate Word count = 1598
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: People