Today, Ethiopia is a land marked by the starkest contrast: feast and famine. In Addis Ababa, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed is holding a lavish celebration to inaugurate his new government, on a scale not seen since the coronation of Emperor Haile Selassie almost one hundred years ago. There are vast crowds, parades, state banquets, and soaring speeches about Ethiopia’s proud independence.
In Tigray, children are starving to death in a man-made famine. Clinics and hospitals, stripped bare of even basic medicines, are filled with their faint, pitiful cries. The UN published some of its most disturbing statistics ever: almost four out of five pregnant or nursing mothers were acutely malnourished.
