Loading...
Loading...
Click here if you don’t see subscription options
August 03, 2009

A Catholic aid official who just returned from Eritrea described children too weak to walk and orphanage staffers overwhelmed by the number of children being dropped off because their families cannot feed them. “Unless you’ve been there and seen it, you cannot understand the gravity of the situation,” says Gabriel Delmonaco of the Catholic Near East Welfare Association. “We are trying to save one life at a time.” Nearly half of Eritrea’s population is undernourished, and more than 85,000 children are malnourished as a result of widespread famine, according to Amnesty International. Eritrea’s 2002 drought resulted in severe water shortages and an almost complete failure of that year’s harvest. Since then, rainfall has been inadequate, and last year’s drought made conditions significantly worse.

Comments are automatically closed two weeks after an article's initial publication. See our comments policy for more.

The latest from america

I use a motorized wheelchair and communication device because of my disability, cerebral palsy. Parishes were not prepared to accommodate my needs nor were they always willing to recognize my abilities.
Margaret Anne Mary MooreNovember 22, 2024
Nicole Scherzinger as ‘Norma Desmond’ and Hannah Yun Chamberlain as ‘Young Norma’ in “Sunset Blvd” on Broadway at the St. James Theatre (photo: Marc Brenner).
Age and its relationship to stardom is the animating subject of “Sunset Blvd,” “Tammy Faye” and “Death Becomes Her.”
Rob Weinert-KendtNovember 22, 2024
What separates “Bonhoeffer” from the myriad instructive Holocaust biographies and melodramas is its timing.
John AndersonNovember 22, 2024
“Wicked” arrives on a whirlwind of eager (and anxious) anticipation among fans of the musical.
John DoughertyNovember 22, 2024