BBC NEWS | In Pictures | In pictures: Ethiopia's impending famine

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21:03 GMT, Wednesday, 23 July 2008 22:03 UK

In pictures: Ethiopia's impending famine

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Severe droughts, together with rising food prices, have left millions in Ethiopia in need of emergency food assistance.

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Valerie Browning is an Australian nurse who lives and works in the Afar region. She and her husband Ishmael al-Garod founded an NGO, the Afar Pastoralists Development Association, six years ago.

Dorro and her mother

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Ms Browning has been treating two-year-old Dorro for malnutrition. The family had no food and this has reduced her immunity, so now Dorro is seriously ill.

Valerie Browning tests a child

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Ms Browning gives a child the Middle Upper Arm Circumference test. The majority of children she visited over a three-day period were suffering borderline malnourishment.

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These women left their village in search of food and water. Milk is used as a substitute for food, but animals that have not already perished produce only a fraction of what they would if healthy.

Dead cattle

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Many animals continue to die for lack of water and grazing pasture. Their value has fallen by a half even though food prices are rising.

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Two-year-old Halima Gaz has been severely brain-damaged following a fever when she was 15 months old, as her family was unable to get her to a doctor.

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Unda Awka had been slipping in and out of consciousness through lack of food prior to the arrival of aid.

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Maryan Ali and her malnourished children remain in a remote village close to the border with Djibouti. Most families have left to go in search of grazing pasture.

Mahmoud

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For some, the search is not only for grazing pasture, food and water: Mahmoud's expedition is to secure a second wife.

Dhabo and her son Hussein

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Dhabo said: "I had to close the shop six months ago because food prices have risen so much… People rely on their animals for money, but one goat is now worth less than a pair of flip-flops."

Ethiopia

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All photographs by Nick Danziger/Oxfam

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