Ethiopian Famine (1983-1985): Drought, War and Live Aid

The Ethiopian famine of 1983-1985 was one of the worst famines of the late twentieth century, striking above all the northern provinces of Tigray, Wollo and Eritrea. Drought caused crops to fail, but civil war and the policies of the Derg military government turned hunger into mass death, with estimates ranging from about 300,000 to more than a million victims. Television images of the famine in 1984 sparked an unprecedented wave of popular fundraising, including Band Aid and Live Aid.

Background: revolution and war

In 1974 a committee of military officers known as the Derg overthrew Emperor Haile Selassie, who had been widely criticised for concealing an earlier famine in Wollo in 1972-1974 (see the overthrow of Haile Selassie). By 1977 Colonel Mengistu Haile Mariam had become the dominant figure in a Marxist-Leninist government allied with the Soviet Union.

The Derg faced armed rebellions across the north. The Eritrean People’s Liberation Front fought for Eritrean independence, and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front controlled large parts of the Tigray countryside. Government forces conducted offensives, aerial bombing and blockades in these areas, which were the very regions most affected by drought.

In 1975 the Derg nationalised all rural land and abolished the old landlord system, a reform that was popular with many peasants. But farmers did not gain ownership of their plots, which were periodically redistributed by local peasant associations, and the state took growing control over the grain trade. Many farmers had little incentive to invest in their land or store surplus food, and by the early 1980s agricultural output in the northern highlands was stagnating while the population grew.

Causes of the famine

Rains failed across much of northern Ethiopia in 1983 and again in 1984, after years of uneven harvests. Farmers in the highlands depended on small plots and had few reserves of grain or livestock to fall back on. As crops failed, food prices rose and families sold their animals and possessions.

Historians such as Alex de Waal argue that drought alone does not explain the scale of death. Counter-insurgency campaigns destroyed crops and markets, and travel restrictions stopped people from moving to find work or food. Government grain quotas, price controls and the forced sale of produce to the state reduced the resources of peasant households. Relief was difficult to deliver to rebel-held areas, and aid agencies working from Sudan carried food across the border into Tigray and Eritrea.

In September 1984 the government held lavish celebrations for the tenth anniversary of the revolution and the founding of the Workers’ Party of Ethiopia. Critics later pointed out that the scale of the famine was played down during this period.

Life in the relief camps

As harvests failed, hundreds of thousands of people left their villages and walked to towns along the main roads in search of food. Large camps grew up at places such as Korem and Mekele, where government agencies and charities distributed grain and ran feeding centres for children. At their peak some camps held tens of thousands of people, far more than the available food, shelter, clean water and medical staff could support.

Aid workers had to decide which children were sick enough to receive scarce supplementary food, a choice many of them later described as the hardest part of their work. Overcrowding, cold highland nights and poor sanitation allowed diseases such as measles, typhus, cholera and diarrhoea to spread quickly. In many camps disease killed more people than hunger alone, especially among young children already weakened by malnutrition.

The world takes notice

Relief agencies and the Ethiopian government’s own Relief and Rehabilitation Commission had appealed for food aid since 1983, but the response was slow. That changed after a BBC report by correspondent Michael Buerk and Kenyan cameraman Mohamed Amin, filmed at the crowded relief camp at Korem in Wollo. Broadcast on 23 October 1984, it described a famine of biblical proportions and was soon shown on hundreds of television channels around the world.

Governments and charities greatly increased their aid. The United States, Western Europe and the Soviet bloc all supplied food or transport, and food deliveries rose sharply in late 1984 and 1985.

Band Aid and Live Aid

Moved by the BBC report, the Irish musician Bob Geldof and the Scottish musician Midge Ure brought together leading British and Irish pop stars as Band Aid. Their single “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” was recorded on 25 November 1984 and released in December. It became the fastest-selling single in British history up to that time. In the United States, USA for Africa recorded “We Are the World” in January 1985.

On 13 July 1985 Geldof and Ure organised Live Aid, simultaneous concerts at Wembley Stadium in London and John F. Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, watched by a global television audience. Together, the Band Aid projects raised well over 100 million pounds. They changed how charities raised money and how the public in rich countries engaged with humanitarian crises.

Resettlement and controversy

From late 1984 the government launched a programme to move people from the drought-stricken north to more fertile areas in the south and west. Around 600,000 people were moved, many by force. Conditions in transit camps and new settlements were poor, and tens of thousands are thought to have died. The government also began “villagisation”, grouping scattered farms into planned villages.

The aid agency Médecins Sans Frontières criticised the resettlement programme publicly and was expelled from Ethiopia in December 1985. Debate continues about how far aid was used by the government, and in some cases by rebel movements, for political and military purposes.

Death toll

There is no precise count of the dead. Estimates range from about 300,000 to more than one million, and one million is the figure most often quoted. Deaths were concentrated in the north, among children and the elderly, and many were caused by disease spreading in crowded relief camps rather than by starvation alone. Researchers have argued that a significant share of deaths can be attributed to war and government policy rather than to drought.

Timeline

• 1974, September: The Derg overthrows Emperor Haile Selassie.
• 1983: Rains fail in northern Ethiopia and aid agencies warn of famine.
• 1984, September: The government celebrates the tenth anniversary of the revolution.
• 1984, 23 October: The BBC broadcasts Michael Buerk’s report from Korem.
• 1984, 25 November: Band Aid records “Do They Know It’s Christmas?”
• 1985, 13 July: The Live Aid concerts take place in London and Philadelphia.
• 1985, December: Médecins Sans Frontières is expelled after criticising resettlement.

Legacy

The famine became a defining image of Africa in Western media for a generation, a portrayal that some Ethiopians and scholars have criticised as one-sided. It reshaped humanitarian work, encouraging early-warning systems for food crises and debate about delivering aid in war zones. Like the Great Irish Famine more than a century earlier, it showed how politics and policy can turn crop failure into catastrophe. The Derg itself fell in 1991, when rebel forces led by the Tigray People’s Liberation Front and its allies captured Addis Ababa and Mengistu fled into exile in Zimbabwe. Eritrea became formally independent in 1993. Ethiopia suffered further food crises in later decades, but none on the scale of 1983-1985.

Why it matters

The Ethiopian famine showed that modern famines are rarely caused by nature alone. It also marked the birth of mass celebrity-led fundraising, which changed the relationship between ordinary people in wealthy countries and distant humanitarian emergencies.