HEADLINES:
R/€ Remembering the awful famine of 25 years ago
November 27, 2009 Edition 1
KOREM, Ethiopia: Twenty-five years after releasing a hit single to raise funds for victims of Ethiopia's infamous famine, Bob Geldof on Wednesday visited one of the then worst-affected villages in the north of the Horn of Africa country.
Dozens of children and women greeted the Irish rock star as he arrived in Korem village, some 600km north of the capital Addis Ababa, waving placards emblazoned "No more deaths from hunger".
"It's a miracle to come back after 25 years to this beautiful place and see you all in healthy shape," the 49-year-old told a cheering crowd, among them survivors of the devastating hunger.
Geldof arrived in Korem the same day 25 years ago when he released Do They Know It's Christmas?, a song he co-wrote after galvanising some of the world's top musicians to participate in the charity drive.
"What happened here deeply affected every human being outside Ethiopia," he said. "Nobody who was here 25 years ago doubted that you could rebuild your lives in the way you have now."
Geldof spoke at a hospital site financed by his Band Aid group, British author JK Rowling and other donors.
The hospital is expected to cater for the district's 250 000 people when completed in four years' time.
The site bears great symbolism as it was the feeding centre where the BBC's live footage of dying children propped up against their skeletal mothers was shot and broadcast to the world.
Locals recounted horrifying tales of the 1984 famine - which killed a million people - recalling how families who arrived at the feeding centre, some already too weak, died and were buried in a nearby gravesite.
"They were buried here, hundreds of thousands of them," said Gebremedhin Alemu, gesturing at empty fields strewn with stones and trees, but no grave markings. Now a guard at the hospital site, Gebremedhin said he lost his one-year-old son, an aunt and his mother-in-law.
Ethiopia's then military regime was blamed for sparking the disaster through untenable land policies, forcible eviction of millions of people and covering up the famine. The regime was toppled in 1991. - Sapa-AFP
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