Four corners: Each week, we bring you the most compelling stories from across the globe as viewed through the lens of our renowned foreign correspondent
It was the very place that the modern world woke up to the scourge of hunger almost four decades ago. It gave rise to charity supergroups, money raising songs, ‘Band Aid’ concerts and countless promises that we – the world- would never let it happen again.
But happening again it is, with the United Nations (UN) warning that more than 350,000 people in northern Ethiopia’s conflict ravaged Tigray region are now facing famine. No one really wants to call it that of course, least of all the Ethiopian government, so politically sensitive is the use of the word.
As has previously happened in other parts of the world, aid agencies whose visas, permits and access to certain countries or regions is determined by governments or regimes are rather reluctant to call it as they see it for fear their operations will be shut down. This happened some years ago to several humanitarian groups working in the Darfur region of…
