Ethiopia Famine: 40th Anniversary

Lord Collins of Highbury 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.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Featherstone, for opening the debate with such insight and care on issues that are incredibly important. I share in what the noble Lord opposite quite rightly said: many of the interventions that we have made are not short-term but long-term. They require continuity to ensure that we deliver proper support, so I welcome his comments. Let me reassure him that we will continue, where appropriate, the good work of the previous Government.

Having visited Ethiopia just last week, I was struck by just how pertinent the issues from the famine of 1984 are. The scale of human suffering in 1984 affected our collective conscience and taught us some vital lessons about how we can prevent such disasters happening again. We can all be incredibly proud of the way the British public rallied round in what remains the biggest humanitarian fundraising effort in history. The BBC’s expert reporting was a contributory factor in bringing that famine to global attention, and we should pay tribute to that.

The celebrity-endorsed Live Aid event united 1.9 billion people and raised £110 million, or $333 million. Live Aid asked some tough questions of western governments and relief agencies around the world, and rightly so. It helped people become more aware of global inequality and exposed them to the politics of international development and assistance, particularly in Africa. However, the horrific images also contributed to the perception of Ethiopians needing to be saved by West, and the idea that famine is a natural disaster rather than a manmade one, as we have heard in this debate.

Over the last 40 years, I think our views have changed and our perspectives have widened, as the noble Baroness, Lady Helic, highlighted. Other events have brought to our attention the need for a changed attitude. I am pleased to say that this Government are bringing a modern approach to development and our relationship with the people and Government of Ethiopia. We want to learn the lessons from the last four decades and tailor our approach to both humanitarian response and bilateral relationships. That means working hand in hand with our development partners, making sure that it is just that—an equal partnership. That requires leadership and responsibility from both sides, not just to respond to the crises but to prevent them in the first place. That is why I visited Ethiopia, including the affected Tigray region, within months of becoming a Minister.

Today, not only do we have better monitoring systems for assessing levels of need, but better global co-ordination and preparatory measures. That means we are much more capable than before of preventing such crises. At the same time—I want to stress this point—it is the responsibility of the Ethiopian Government to find political solutions to the internal conflicts, which, as we have heard in this debate, worsen humanitarian needs. Let me reassure the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, that I did make these points when I met Premier Abiy. He certainly gave me a history lesson, but we also focused very much on the future and what steps he needs to take to ensure that political effort is put into resolving potential conflicts in the future.

We are increasingly aware of the compounding impacts of climate change on the humanitarian crises. As I heard on my visit last week, it affects conflict, education, healthcare, the economy and our very ability to co-ordinate action globally. The UK’s engagement with Ethiopia has focused on tackling these issues, and adopting a multifaceted approach is key. That is why we have increased our focus on food, health, water and sanitation, and on the most vulnerable populations. We are also investing in improving data and evidence to enable informed decisions—a point that was made well in today’s earlier debate. We do this bilaterally through established routes and monitoring systems, via the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Of course, our approach must continue to evolve and we must focus more on preventive measures. It is hugely encouraging that we are one of the biggest contributors to the UN Central Emergency Response Fund, because equity is a key part of our approach. It provides a tailored response to vulnerable people, including internally displaced people and women and girls. As all noble Lords here are aware, women and girls bear the brunt of major crises. I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for his and the APPG’s work on this. I certainly have read the New Lines report— I will keep his copy as an additional copy.

When I was in Tigray, I met women and girls in the Sabacare IDP camp there. Such shocks worsen existing inequalities and education prospects, undoing the progress achieved in empowering women and girls. For example, the incidence of child marriage and gender-based violence significantly increases in the areas of drought. These facts show why we are adopting a more tailored approach.

This year, we are helping over 435,000 children and pregnant and breastfeeding women with nutritious food—the previous Government also contributed to this. I saw examples of our collaboration with the World Food Programme in Tigray, as it delivers holistic support to women and children in the health centre. It was a continuous programme, doing excellent work.

In 2023-24, we reached 36,879 women and girls suffering gender-based violence, and child protection services supported 52,000 wasted pregnant and breast- feeding women with critical nutrition. We provided regular cash transfers to 2,871 households with pregnant women and young children, and we placed 500,000 girls in school over the last year.

We have consistently called for the end of the wide- spread gender-related sexual violence in Ethiopia. We have deployed preventing sexual violence team experts in Ethiopia, as the noble Baroness, Lady Helic, mentioned. We will continue to focus on that work. We will protect more than 23,000 women and girls through those services, with regular cash transfers, as I said.

We obviously also need to focus on how to have future growth in Ethiopia. We have rallied international support for a multibillion dollar financial package from the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. But no country’s economy can flourish in the midst of conflict, which remains a persistent contributing factor to the humanitarian crisis—another point I absolutely stressed to Premier Abiy. We know that the conflict in Tigray claimed the lives of up to 600,000 people.

The noble Lord, Lord Alton, has constantly pushed on the issue of genocide, and he knows the long-standing government position on how you make such a determination. But I reassure him that I am absolutely committed to ensuring that we hold those responsible to account and that we have proper policies to end impunity. That means ensuring that we not only support the evidence-gathering process but help survivors—who are left with a legacy of widespread human rights atrocities perpetrated by all sides—to get justice. We are committed to supporting them, which is why we support Ethiopia’s transitional justice policy and why, in my visit, I announced £16 million to help 75,000 Tigrayan military personnel return to civilian life.

As my noble friend Lord Browne mentioned, since August last year the Amhara region has been plunged into instability, with a full-scale insurgency. In other regions, violence is coming on. I assure my noble friend and others that the Government are absolutely focused on bringing international attention to this. We want to ensure that we join those affected by this conflict to call on the Ethiopian Government to find a peaceful resolution. I raised that not only with Premier Abiy but with all leaders in Tigray; I spoke to the Acting Premier and President in the region.

I want to underline the importance that we place on these issues. The noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, spoke about the pledging conference in Geneva. Certainly, we will continue that work—$610 million has been raised. The pledges made were intended for 2024-25, but we will host a follow-up meeting in November to ensure not only that we deliver those pledges, which have been met, but that we increase them from April. We are working on that. In the post-conflict situation in Tigray, I visited a manufacturing factory in the war zone. We will pledge further support, just under £7 million, for Ethiopia’s textiles and garments sector. Jobs are vital to changing people’s lives, and I have seen how this can work.

On malnutrition, I think noble Lords know exactly where my heart lies on that—for 10 years, I supported the Nutrition for Growth summits for the APPG. As noble Lords have highlighted, malnutrition has long-term consequences such as stunting, which excludes affected people from the economy and harms development prospects for populations far into the future. In tackling the risks of famine, we are also safeguarding Ethiopia’s future economic prospects. This is in all our interests.

The noble Baroness, Lady Featherstone, and others raised the issue of ODA spending. Certainly, the Prime Minister and this Government are committed to restoring 0.7% of GNI once the fiscal situation allows. However, as I said in the earlier debate and will repeat now, we are focused on impact and on delivering what we can. Nutrition is vital. Our support for the pledges of the Nutrition for Growth summit remains. It has the biggest multiplying effect in investment and development, and we will continue to support it. In 2021, the UK pledged £1.5 billion to improve nutrition of women, girls and children. It also pledged to integrate nutrition across the ODA portfolio and to use the OECD/DAC nutrition policy marker to report on nutrition integration in our programme. We will publish annual nutrition accountability reports on progress against our pledges—the previous one was published in August. We will continue that work, and I hope that I will be in a position to report on it in the future.

We know we are operating in a difficult environment in Ethiopia, with active conflicts, hard-to-reach areas and tough regulations, and many humanitarian agencies struggle to help those who most need it. As a result of the Geneva pledging conference, the Government of Ethiopia made commitments to reform humanitarian practices. I reassure the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, that that includes facilitating unimpeded and sustained access to all areas and affected people, collaborating on an analysis framework that draws on global best practice—again, another issue raised with Premier Abiy. While food insecurity and malnutrition remain a cause for concern in Ethiopia, we hope that these steps will reduce prevalence over time.

In conclusion, this has been an excellent debate. Looking to the future, prevention has to be our primary goal. Our objectives must be to ensure that the events that stunned us 40 years ago are never repeated. We will do that by promoting sustainable economic growth, creating climate-resilient humanitarian systems and prioritising human rights alongside empowering women and girls. We will do this working in genuine partnership with the Government of Ethiopia. With conflicts currently raging across the country, reports of human rights abuses and violations, serious economic challenges and food insecurity crises throughout Tigray and Afar, there is much work to be done. As partners, our Governments must work towards the benefit of both our peoples. Resolving this is the collective responsibility of the Ethiopian Government and the international community, because only by working together can we discover lasting solutions to poverty and inequality.