Ethiopia and BandAid 30 years on

Tomorrow marks BandAid's 30 year anniversary of the 'Feed the World' recording. Last month, we arranged a trip for BBC reporter Mike Wooldridge to return to the Antsokia Valley in Ethiopia, the place where he and Michael Buerk traveled with World Vision 30 years ago. The dramatic broadcast and the suffering they brought into the spotlight inspired Sir Bob Geldof and Midge Ure to record the original Band Aid single.

“Dawn, and as the sun breaks through the piercing chill of night on the plains outside Korem, it lights up a biblical famine – now, in the 20th century.”

These dramatic words formed the opening of a BBC report broadcast on 23 October 1984 about the unfolding Ethiopian famine, one of the worst humanitarian disasters in modern history, and one which haunted a generation.

They framed my teenage years. I was among the millions around the world moved by the horrifying images of starving babies and sobbing mothers, and the grief of grandmothers and grandfathers, many close to death themselves.

Musicians believed that they had the answer. Band Aid first released “Feed the World” 30 years ago on Monday, and other pop songs and concerts soon followed to spearhead the global response.

I “Ran the World” for Sport Aid in London with a million others, gave money and bought the Tears for Fears single.

Three decades on from all this, I have travelled back to Ethiopia with half of the two-man BBC team whose reports shocked the world into action, prompting one of the greatest ever humanitarian relief efforts.

Michael Wooldridge and Michael Buerk flew with Kenyan cameraman Mo Amin on two small World Vision relief planes into one of several badly affected areas.

The World Vision planes were the only way into the “closest thing to hell on earth,” as the BBC reporters put it.

They visited the dust bowl planes and valleys of Korem, Alamata and Antsokia and recorded the horror.

Drought, a series of failed harvests and civil war combined to drive tens of thousands into the main towns in the belief that there they would find food and shelter.

But as that famous BBC report claimed, “they found only death.”

After recording the devastation, Wooldridge and Buerk boarded the World Vision plane once again for Addis Ababa, where their films and radio reports were sent back to the UK and beamed around the world.

Their stories sparked an unprecedented global out-pouring. Shocked governments started airdrops within days, and the end of the two-year-long nightmare began, though not before some 400,000 people lost their lives to starvation and hunger-related diseases.

Mike Wooldridge and I, together with members of the World Vision Ethiopia team arrived in Addis Ababa in October to retrace the journey that took place three decades earlier. 30 years on, we made the long drive north to see what had become of those badly affected areas, and met with some of the people who had survived “hell on earth.”

A thriving oasis

We found a country greatly changed thanks to on-going programmes. Antsokia was once dubbed the “Valley of Death,” but as we drove along the road built by World Vision, we saw a fertile river valley in full bloom. Here all manner of foodstuff is grown– cereals like teff, corn, wheat, sorghum. Citrus fruit farms flourish and healthy livestock graze.

Much of the produce is sold locally around Ethiopia, and some is even exported overseas. Agriculture provides not only food security for the country, but also jobs, incomes - and hopes and dreams for the community.

Mike and I visited the thriving market in Antsokia, a bustling arena of traders and shoppers - stark contrast to 30 years ago when desperate people came here to beg for food that did not exist.

“I was 25 in 1984 and I remember the aid planes that finally came,” Antsokia farmer Abebe Aragaw told us, sweeping his hand towards the valley plain.

“It was a horrific time. Four to five people a day were dying in my village,” he explained.

Today, aged 55, Abebe grows several cash crops including teff and coffee. His fruit garden provides mangoes, avocados, oranges, limes, bananas – produce he sells locally or onto the national market.

“I make a good living now. My five children are all being educated, with one at university.”

Like hundreds in the area, Abebe has benefitted from programmes run in the partnership with the government and World Vision. People are taught farming techniques and learn how to sustain themselves in good times and lean periods.

“Much has been achieved. I see everywhere evidence of food security,” said Michael Wooldridge as he surveyed the plains of Korem where wheat is now grown on a landscape stuffed with crops and livestock.

Electric pylons run across the land and a new technical college is being built on a hillside where 30 years ago many came to die from hunger.

In Antsokia, 99.4 percent of children are now classed as adequately nourished under World Health Organisation standards.

Other figures are equally impressive: 89 springs have been capped and nearly 200 kilometres of piping laid to provide a fresh water supply. Three quarters of the valley’s 86,000 residents have access to drinking water as a result.

Most children receive education, with enrolment for primary school classes and literacy rates standing as high as 90 percent.

We visited a bakery in Alamata, one of the badly hit towns which Bob Geldof once visited to see the famine for himself.

A group of women, part of a ‘savings business group,’ make bread which they sell to hotels.

“We are doing well. We were taught how to set up a business with government and World Vision help. We now plan to expand, to start our own restaurant and buy some vehicles so we can distribute across the area,” says one of the co-owners, Alefu.

Each of the six women make enough money to feed, clothe and send their children to school, and across the valley scores of similar enterprises are taking shape.

Of course, challenges lie ahead. There are "hotspots" across Ethiopia susceptible to “shocks” such as drought or other environmental disasters. Rainfall shortages, accentuated by the effects of climate change, continue to menace the area. A rapidly expanding population – in 1984 the country population was 37 million, today it’s around 87 million – is also posing challenges.

But the government and aid agencies believe they can be met.

“I am impressed by what I see today,” says Mike Wooldridge as we head back across the plains and over the mountains.

We leave with the collective hope and confidence of the Ethiopians, most clearly better off than ever before, and who believe 1984 would never happen again.

“The people, like farmer Abebe, won’t allow it,” says Michael.

I muse how wonderful it would be for the musicians of 30 years ago to come here and see what they helped start, perhaps stage a concert like Live Aid - only this time to celebrate the success and hopes of new, empowered generations, like the young market traders, and bakers and farmers like Abebe in Antsokia, and the hopeful, book and pen-clutching students of Korem.

Like 30 years ago, British pop stars have once again come together to raise money for a humanitarian emergency. This time, with Antsokia in full bloom, it is Sierra Leone and the other countries affected by Ebola at which their efforts are aimed. You can watch Mike Wooldridge’s 30th anniversary broadcast on BBC here.