According to UNICEF, it may already be to late to save Eritrea from the famine ravaging a great swath of Africa. According to the agency 70 per cent of the 2.3 million population of the country are facing food and water shortages, with supplies about to run out within the next 6 weeks. According to a spokesman, it takes anywhere from two to three months to deliver food from Europe and anywhere from four to six months to deliver food from the American continent. furthermore, since both Sudan and Ethiopia will not allow food shipments through their country, Eritrea can only be supplied from the Red Sea, and the agency fears that once war breaks out with Iraq, this route with either become unusable or the insurance rates will be so high as to become unaffordable.

Close to 40 million people are facing starvation on the African continent during the spring of 2003, a major story playing out behind the scenes, as, in particular the Iraq war takes center stage. India also suffered a food catastrophe earlier last year when the monsoon rains failed, and economic collapse in central and south America have led to reports of such things as reports of child starvation coming out of Argentina. The response to the crisis, which has been unfolding for many months has been virtually nothing, which indicates that the policy will be to allow the famine to progress, but in the past all appeals have been underfunded, this being the persistent pattern, and all famines have simply progressed and wrecked their devastation, and then the world just carried on.

Meanwhile poor countries, which have been stripped of social programs, and have abandoned their food reserves in the name of putting agriculture completely under the control of 'the free market' have no remaining safety net. As well, given that the Jubilee 2000 campaign failed, in the midst of the famine the interest payments on loans continue to be made on time, with some countries budgeting as much as 33 per cent of incoming revenues to servicing the interest on their debts.

70 per cent of the population of Eritrea amounts to about 1.6 million people, just a fraction of the almost 40 million potential deaths about to occur on just the African continent alone during the spring and early summer of 2003. What is Ironic is that many of the hungriest countries on earth are also net exporters of crops, since the free market has dictated that productive land be turned over to cash crop monocultures for export, since this line of production is more profitable than keeping human beings alive.

12 Myths about Hunger and Starvation
 http://www.awitness.org/journal/starvation_myths.html

The following pages were written almost a year ago and follow the steady progress of the developing famine accross the continent of Africa during the past year, a famine which is now about to wreck its inevitable devastation, unchecked, as has always been the case in the famines of the past.

The questionable policies of the IMF in the face of South African famine
 http://www.awitness.org/news/april_2002/imf_africa_famine.html

IMF denies telling Malawi to sell their food reserves
 http://www.awitness.org/news/april_2002/imf_malawi.html