In his second blog about CAFOD’s humanitarian work over the last fifty years, Mike Noyes remembers the drought of 1973.
The drought that affected East Africa and the Sahel region (the stretch of Africa just south of the Sahara desert) in 1973 was one of the worst in recent memory. When I was working in Africa in the late 1980s, people used to talk about this drought as being the one that caused permanent environmental damage: whole forests died, and wildlife was wiped out.
The impact of the drought was particularly serious in Ethiopia, because it coincided with a civil war. Affecting mostly the north-eastern part of the country, the drought was said at the time to have led to the deaths of some 200,000 people, although current estimates put the figure at about half that number.
Attempts by the ruling regime of Haile Selassie to cover up the extent of the disaster, and a domestic economic slump resulting from the 1973 oil crisis, increased discontent amongst the politically organised groups in the army, and led to a coup which brought the communist-backed Derg regime to power.
This regime in turn was to collapse in 1987 following another major drought and famine in Ethiopia in 1983-84, where once again the government tried to hide the true impact of the suffering of its people.
Back in 1973, we launched a special appeal for Ethiopia and raised £30,000 – worth about ten times as much in today’s terms. Continue reading
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