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Here are some news highlights from Ethiopia this week. I’ve included a summary of each piece. You can click on the title of each story to go read the full story. As always, links are only good for a few weeks, unless you subscribe to the news service.
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Ethiopia: Malnutrition Still Alarming
The Daily Monitor (Addis Ababa) 5 November 2007
New research conducted by Save the Children found that between one-third and two-thirds of children under age five in Ethiopia suffer from chronic malnutrition. Feeding a family of five in Ethiopia costs $1.27 (USD) a day. Most households in Ethiopia live on between 20 cents and $1 a day. It would take most families in Ethiopia four months of hard labor in the fields to be able to afford a healthy diet for their children for just one month.
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Kenya: Kenyans Held in Ethiopia, Asserts Woman
The Nation (Nairobi) 7 November 2007
There are reports coming out of Kenya that Kenyans suspected of being involved in terrorist activities are being held in an Ethiopian military camp in Ethiopia. A Tanzanian woman was taken and then released in April of this year and says that her Kenyan husband is still in captivity.
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Ethiopia: Relief Agencies Bolster Operations in Somali Region
UN Integrated Regional Information Networks – 8 November 2007
The UN is concerned about a growing humanitarian crisis in the Somali region of eastern Ethiopia. Aid access lately has been limited due to activity of the rebel Ogaden National Liberation Front as well as tension between Ethiopia and Somalia. UN representatives fear that as many as 1.8 million people could be affected, and are encouraging government service providers and humanitarian partners to step up their delivery of food and healthcare. Most of the people in the Somali region are pastoralists whose livelihood can be devastated by fluctuations in rainfall and prices of staple foods. New UN offices in the Somali region have been set up in addition to existing offices in Gode and Dire Dawa.
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This is my first time typing a blog though my husband and I have been reading for a while. Currently our application is in Ethiopia, we have been waiting almost two months. We were recently informed that there have been some complaints by the government with regard to international adoptions. Apparently there have been some incidences with families who have taken their children upon arrival and the public is seeing children either act out towards their adoptive parents or adoptive parents not “parenting” the way the public believes they should. Either way, the message was the gov’t was concerned with the increased negativity by the Ethiopian public towards adoption. As a result, our agency has told all parents that unless they stay in the guest house, they would not be able to take their kids until the final day of travel. If you stay in a hotel you can come and see your child but you cannot leave with him or her. Has anyone else encountered this? I understand their concern of government perception, without them we cannot adopt. But if the adoption is final before travel, aren’t we the legal parent? In addition, isn’t the time in Ethiopia meant to bond with the child in their environment so as to make a difficult transition as smooth as possible? Plus I just don’t understand the point. We went through the criminal, financial and social tests, you trust us to be the child’s permanent parents, but yet they don’t want anyone to see us be parents in Ethiopia. It is all very strange and I was wondering if anyone else heard anything.