Ethiopia Famine: 40th Anniversary

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Thursday 17th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, the whole House is indebted to the noble Baroness, Lady Featherstone, for initiating today’s important debate. During her remarks, she referred to the consequences of indebtedness on development—a point taken up by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Sheffield. Forty years ago, on 22 November 1984, in the House of Commons, I challenged the then Government on their policy on Ethiopia, stressing that Ethiopia was still paying back more in debt than it was receiving in aid.

As the noble Baroness rightly remarked, in comments that were echoed very movingly by her friend the noble Lord, Lord Oates, the catastrophe in Ethiopia was brought into our homes by the extraordinary journalism of the BBC’s Michael Buerk. His devastating first hand accounts roused our consciences and indignation —a point to which I will return in my comments.

I will follow what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Browne of Ladyton, and roll the clock forward from the two years of war in Tigray between 2020 and 2022 to the situation there now. Professor Jan Nyssen of Ghent University, a leading European authority on the war, put the number of war fatalities at between 300,000 and 500,000 people, including 50,000 to 100,000 from fighting, 150,000 to 200,000 due to famine and 100,000 from a lack of medical attention. To be clear, this was manmade, but no men have been brought to justice.

Professor Alex de Waal, the executive director of World Peace Foundation, draws parallels with the catastrophic situation in 1984. He says:

“In 1984, the Ethiopian government wanted the world to believe that its revolution heralded a bright new era of prosperity, and foreign donors refused to believe warnings of starvation until they saw pictures of dying children on the BBC news”.


On Tuesday evening, while speaking here at a meeting held in the Palace, I was struck by the intervention of a Tigrayan who believed that a complete denial of media access to the region from 2020 to 2022 enabled the regime to repeat these unspeakable acts of horror—these atrocities. That meeting was held to discuss a report of the New Lines Institute, undertaken over two years and comprising some 100,000 words. It concludes that the crime of genocide has occurred in Tigray. I have a copy for the Minister, which I will give to him during the debate.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Lord Collins of Highbury) (Lab)]

I have one.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

The Minister will know then, having seen the report, that that the situation has echoes of 1984. Ethiopia, as we heard from the noble Lord, Lord Oates, was then ruled by the Marxist-Leninist, pro-Soviet Derg. That ended in 1991, when its leader, Mengistu, fled to Zimbabwe. The House should note that an Ethiopian court found him guilty of genocide in absentia. His regime was estimated to be responsible for the deaths of 0.5 million to 2 million Ethiopians, mostly during the famine. Of course, he has never been brought to justice, becoming a role model for others who commit atrocities with impunity.

In September 2023 I chaired a cross-party inquiry, which published a report entitled The Three Horsemen of the War in Tigray: Mass Killings, Sexual Violence and Starvation. It called on the UK Government and other actors to provide a response commensurate with the gravity and scale of what had occurred. It made clear that starvation in Tigray is not an unintended consequence of the conflict but, as we heard from the noble Baroness, Lady Helic, a method of war. That finding is underlined in the New Lines inquiry, which concludes that there was an

“intent to destroy Tigrayans as an ethnic group, in whole or in part”.

That is one of the criteria for the crime of genocide, fuelled by torture, rape, mutilation and sexual violence. Another criterion—one of those factors taken into account when declaring a genocide—is the prevention of birth, illustrated by the slogan:

“A Tigrayan womb should never give birth”.


In October 2021, Mark Lowcock, the United Nations Emergency Relief Coordinator, commented on the situation in Tigray, including the attempt to block aid from going into the region. These are his words:

“There’s not just an attempt to starve six million people but an attempt to cover up what’s going on. What we’re seeing play out, I think, is potentially the worst famine the world has seen in the 21st century … What’s happening is that Ethiopian authorities are running a sophisticated campaign to stop aid from getting in by, for example, making it impossible for truck drivers to operate by setting up checkpoints with officials and militia people, by preventing fuel from getting in … And what they are trying to do is starve the population of Tigray into subjugation or out of existence, but to avoid the opprobrium that would still be associated with a deliberate, successful attempt to create a famine taking the lives of millions of people”.


In 2021 Pekka Haavisto, Finland’s Foreign Minister and a European Union special envoy to Ethiopia, said that, following his talks with Prime Minister Abiy and other Ministers, he believed that they were

“going to wipe out the Tigrayans for 100 years”.

In response to our cross-party inquiry, the Tigrayan Advocacy and Development Association told us:

“The Ethiopian, Eritrean, and Amhara forces left a trail of scorched earth … in which they deliberately burned houses, forests, and field crops ready for harvest; cut mango orchards, papaya trees, and plant nurseries; mixed grains with soil; looted and slaughtered livestock; and killed hundreds of protected wild animals. To ensure no harvest for the next season, ENDF, EDF, ASF, and Fano militia worked in tandem to block vital agricultural supplies, including seeds, destroyed and looted farm tools and prevented farmers from tilling their land during the most crucial period”.


Martin Griffiths, the UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs reported that, at the height of the crisis, 100 trucks a day of aid needed to get to Tigray but only 10% had gained access in the previous three months. New Lines highlights the shooting of truck drivers and the arrest and detention of drivers before they reached Tigray as another way of preventing food getting through.

The restrictions of aid continued after the ceasefire and during the informal truce. Although WFP and OCHA reported a resumption of aid deliveries at the beginning of April 2022, in reality, while they estimated that 115 food trucks would be needed every day throughout May, convoys were able to bring supplies into Tigray on only six occasions.

That brings us to today. In February 2024, Tigray officials warned of an unfolding famine that could equal or eclipse the 1984 famine. Ethiopia’s ombudsman said it confirmed the starvation deaths of at least 351 people in Tigray and another 21 in the neighbouring Amhara region as a result of drought and instability. Once again, the scale of this tragedy—like that in Sudan, as we have heard—has been massively under- reported.

In February the Guardian reported that

“humanitarians have mostly kept quiet, fearful of losing their operating licences”.

It went on to say:

“In private, however, their language is stark. A recent memo circulated among aid agencies warns that ‘starvation and death are inevitable … in considerable numbers’ from March onwards in some areas of Tigray if aid does not reach them soon. Another says child malnutrition rates”—


the role that malnutrition can play in long-term development was emphasised earlier in the debate by the noble Baroness, Lady Featherstone, and others—

“are as high as 47% in parts of Oromia, Ethiopia’s biggest region”.

On 30 July, I asked the Minister to comment on reports that more than 2 million were reported to be at risk of starvation in Tigray. He responded:

“The humanitarian community is targeting 3.8 million people … with food assistance”.


I was pleased to hear that the UK is leading a pledging conference. I echo the question asked by the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, as to how much of the $610 million has been raised and deployed.

I ask once more: what is being done to bring those responsible to justice? I hope, like the noble Lords, Lord Oates and Lord Browne, that in another 40 years there will not be a similar parliamentary debate asking why those with political power in 2024 did no better than those who went before them.