Ethiopia Famine

The Disaster Archive Dialogues · Oct 13, 2026 · 33m

You could walk through the highlands of Ethiopia in the early nineteen eighties and not see disaster coming. Children went to school with slate boards, cattle moved in the cool dawn, and the land seemed to promise enough—if only just enough. But beneath this surface, the margin for error was vanishing, and no one yet knew how thin the line had become.In the early nineteen eighties, Ethiopia was a country of tradition and tension. The rhythms of daily life depended on rain-fed harvests and small herds, especially in the north and east. People hung their hopes on the belg rains and the stubborn…