cinating that even in their poverty- stricken state they could still study and learn Hebrew, carrying on a 5,000-year- old tradition. We returned to Addis Ababa to fly to Alamata, a town devastated by famine in Central Ethiopia. Alamata and nearby Korem have been inundated by more than 50,000 refugees from northern drought areas. Starving people were everywhere. I saw one teenage girl led from a hut by what looked like her grandmother. She couldn’t walk without being held upright, and when they pulled up her shirt she looked like a skeleton. There was barely a human being left in that skin, yet I could see that she had once been a beautiful girl. Her eyes showed her helplessness and months of suffering. Her grandmother kept making motions of putting a syringe in her arm, apparently knowing that only intravenous feeding could save her. I felt terribly helpless. The next day I went back to find them but they were gone. Some of the other villagers looked stronger. These people, I concluded, could walk to the nearby feeding centers, four miles away, for a daily meal. Those who could not were doomed to starve to death. The main street of Alamata was crowded with displaced persons, some walking and others being loaded onto flatbed trucks. People were saying goodbye to their families and friends as the trucks were loaded and driven off. We tried to film this tragic scene but were stopped by local authorities, so we drove off toward Korem camp twelve kilometers away. On the way I stopped to film the convoys. I presume they were being taken to resettle in more fertile areas, a controversial government program. In Korem, camp dwellings stretched as far as the eye could see. There was one area of teepee-shaped huts. Another was composed of large sheets of black plastic suspended over two-feet-deep, ten-feet square holes, making tents for large families who spend their nights huddling on the dirt floors. Still another area was comprised of army tents. Five doctors from a French group called Doctors Without Borders lived in quonset-like huts in the camp’s center and cared for the entire population of 28,000. Many new arrivals, judged to be too sick and starved, could only be left to die. A doctor said that twenty to forty people died daily. In one of the medical huts hundreds of people were sitting, lying and writhing on the ground as they desperately waited for medical attention. Areas were set up to weigh and care for children, who always received priority treatment, and in some cases food five times a day. Eating small amounts, many times a day, is the Originally the United States was hesitant to provide relief to Ethiopia because it was communist. Yet it is doubtful the starving people have ever heard o fMarxism or capitalism. Politics should not interfere with saving human life. only way starving children can eat without getting sick. The camp was constantly in danger of running out of supplies. When we were there,, only five days of food was left. Women could be heard wailing as they moved through the camp. The next morning we awoke before dawn to film the stream of people walking barefoot through the morning chill to receive a meager meal. As we got close to the feeding centers we were stopped from filming by officials who felt we would interfere with their program. It can be very difficult to control mobs of starving people waiting to be fed. A few days later we flew to Somalia. Neighbor to Ethiopia, it has a very different flavor, although it is also extremely poor. Camels can be seen throughout the country which stretches along the gulf of Aden on the Indian Ocean. It is populated by Muslims, most of whom are nomadic herdsmen. They are beautiful people; tall slender and elegant. The women wear strikingly bright colored fabric. Their problems are different than the Ethiopians. In addition to suffering from drought, large numbers of refugees inundated their country after the Ogaden War in the late 1970s. At present about 750,000 refugees live in Somalia, whose normal population is four million. The Somali camps were older and had better housing than those in Ethiopia, and in one case even a school. The people looked healthy and well fed. Iwas told that other areas are worse. The big problem is that the Somali government cannot let these people integrate into their society due to both their high numbers and the weakness of the Somali economy. So they are destined to live in semipermanent camps until a solution can be reached or they can return to Ethiopia. This is certainly not a utopian way of life. Although the people receive enough to keep from starving, they complain of the lack of meat, of which their diet consisted previously, anjl work. They also dislike the sorghum-fortified cereals, which may be healthy, but after five years taste repulsive. In this community, CARE set up a forestation project. Refugees are paid to work in the nurseries, planting, watering and pruning, until the seedlings are large enough to be planted by the thousands. Somalia is a great example of how relief efforts can be properly managed, but it does not solve the problem of what to do with the refugees. As with all displaced persons, they cannot just be fed. They need a permanent home and help to develop water and forestation projects, the antecedents to sustainable agriculture. The last week of our trip was spent in Sudan, once considered the breadbasket of Africa. But because of drought and the influx of refugees from neighboring Ethiopia and Chad, this country is now in terrible shape. We went to El Obeid, a town a few hundred miles west of Sudan’s capitol, Khartoum. One of the programs for refugees there is the production of fuel-efficient stoves, essential because wood is so hard to find in the sub-Sahara, drought or no drought. A small cottage industry was set up to make these stoves from recycled 100 gal- long drums and an inner lining of molded clay. They are now selling well in the local markets. The camp at El Obeid was built on soft sand with occasional scraggly trees. Over 78,000 people congregated here to escape certain death. For protection from scorching sun, sand storms and cold desert night?, they built odd constructions of branches, rags and blankets around the scrubby trees. These makeshift shelters were the worst I had seen on the trip. Food was distributed to families to be cooked, and outdoor kitchens were set up to provide additional feeding for pregnant and lactating mothers and their children. While we were filming at one outdoor kitchen, a shrill cry went up nearby. We rushed over to find-a newly born baby boy. The baby looked healthy and the mother looked happy. A birth can be a positive event even in a disaster zone. Perfume was sprinkled on everyone within reach, as is the custom, and there was a genuine feeling of joy. The biggest tragedy is the children. Although an adult’s body and brain can be severely starved and later recover to its full capacity, a child’s cannot. Children continue to starve every day. The final question must be asked: what is the cause of this disaster? It is true that the countries of the sub-Sahara, and Ethiopia in particular, suffered from a shortage of rain over the last decade, and severe drought conditions for the last three years. The earth they plow and plant is old, cultivated for centuries and depleted of its nutrients. The governments in the region have been incapable of caring for their people, preferring instead to amass arms and fight their oppositions. In Sudan, government forces are fighting in the south against Christian and animist guerrillas who oppose the'strict Muslim laws of the dictator, Jaafar Niemeiry. 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