Ethiopia-famine,sched-lead Ethiopian PM warns 8 million people facing starvation LONDON, March 31 (AFP) - Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi warned Friday that eight million people in his drought-stricken country were threatened by famine and complained of a slow response by the international community to help prevent a repeat of the mass starvation of the mid 1980s. "Some eight million Ethiopians face the risk of starvation, and (in) some areas, in particular, in the south east, there have been reports of deaths," he told the BBC. Ethiopia is the worst-affected of the seven East African countries where the third drought-induced crop failure in three years has left a total of 12.4 million people in need of relief food assistance. The World Food Programme (WFP) plans to distribute 371,050 tonnes of food this year to just over 6.1 million people in the region at a cost of 205 million dollars. The United States also committed itself to sending more than 400,000 tonnes of food aid to Ethiopia, while Japan agreed to extend 7.3 million dollars to purchase agri-chemicals and farming machinery. But, the Ethiopian prime minister said the amount promised was not enough and urged western countries to act more quickly to avoid a repeat of the terrible famines which ravaged the country in 1984 and 1985, leaving around 800,000 people dead. "The other donors, in particular the EU and countries in Europe, need to be a bit more forthcoming than they have been so far," he said. Zenawi admitted that Addis Ababa had used relief aid in its border war with neighbouring Eritrea during the 1984-1985 famine, but guaranteed that such an act would not be repeated. "We have given assurances that this will not happen again," he said. Zenawi's comments came a day after the United Nations issued a warning that the Horn of Africa countries would be affected by a big famine if the current drought continued, and appealed for more help from its donor countries. "We are facing the real possibility in two months' time of catastrophe if more donor aid does not arrive," Carolyn McAskie, the UN's acting chief coordinator for humanitarian affairs, said in New York. She said that UN agencies had appealed for 190 million dollars (199 million euros) for food assistance in Ethiopia this year but had so far received only half this amount. She added that About 940,000 tonnes of food might be needed if the drought continued and the planting season failed. "The funding situation elsewhere is similarly dire," she said. "There has been no response whatsoever against requirements for food in Eritrea." The WFP chief, Catherine Bertini is to embark on a nine-day visit to Ethiopia, Djibouti, Kenya and Eritrea as UN Secretary General Kofi Annan's special envoy. han/dc ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe/subscribe or view archives of postings, go to the Gambia-L Web interface at: http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/gambia-l.html ----------------------------------------------------------------------------