KARAT, 3 September 2008 (IRIN) - The crowd that filled Konso Mekane Yesus primary school in Karat town, 600km south of the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, were not pupils, but hundreds of mothers and children forced by food shortages to queue for relief rations.
Waiting on 2 September, they each received a quarterly ration of 25kg of corn-soya blend and three litres of edible oil and information on child health.
"I became a beneficiary after my baby girl had fallen sick," 35-year old Bende Kemba said. "Her belly was swollen and she became thin."
Bende's 19-month old baby Gnezebe Ole was her fifth child. Difficulties in providing for the child forced her, three-months earlier, to register with the UN World Food Programme's (WFP) targeted supplementary feeding program.
The programme, which supports 5,502 mothers and malnourished children in Konso, is part of a child survival initiative that targets 5.8 million children under five and 1.6 million pregnant and lactating women in 325 districts of Ethiopia.
A drought hit Bende's village of Nalaya Segen and the whole of Konso.
Farmer Kusse Gelabo, a father of nine, has two hectares in Sorobo Kebele - a difficult mountainous terrain.
Konso area already suffered chronic poverty, food insecurity and has a high population density, acute land shortage and poor soils.
Holmes, UN Emergency Relief Coordinator and Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs, who was on a three-day mission in Ethiopia met farmers who had lost their crops to drought and visited an outpatient therapeutic and stabilization centre run by Save the Children - US. He also witnessed food being distributed by the government to chronically food insecure people.
"Ethiopia is facing a food crisis that is one of the worst in the world, especially in terms of malnutrition among children," he said. "It is important that we make every effort to deal quickly and comprehensively with this tragedy."
Approximately 75,000 Ethiopian children have been directly affected by the drought and are at risk of severe acute malnutrition, while 4.6 million people throughout the country are receiving emergency food aid.
According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the situation has worsened due to a shortage of emergency resources including ready-to-use therapeutic food, emergency relief food and other critical supplies.
Admasu Assefa, the supplementary feeding coordinator in Konso said 85 percent of the 245,400 people in the district were in need of help but only 61 percent currently received relief. "Even better-off households only have a two months back-up," Admasu said. "Within a few months, the number will increase."
A screening exercise conducted by the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) in May found 1,991 malnourished mothers and children in the district, he added. That number rose by 160 percent during a follow-up screening in August.
The situation has been aggravated by inadequate funding, aid agencies said. WFP is facing a US$140 million funding shortfall while the Ethiopian government, other agencies and NGOs have equally been constrained by lack of resources.
Save the Children, for example, is seeking US$20 million to support its programmes, including feeding nearly 10,000 malnourished children in four regions. "The international aid effort has already saved thousands of children's lives," spokesperson David Throp said.
"We know that children could die, even after initial treatment for malnutrition, if we are not able to stabilize their health properly," he added.