Ethiopian famine and Live Aid

In 1983 to 1985 a famine struck northern Ethiopia, especially Tigray and Wollo. On October 23, 1984, BBC reporter Michael Buerk and cameraman Mohamed Amin broadcast footage from a relief camp at Korem, describing a "biblical famine". The report shocked British viewers. Musicians Bob Geldof and Midge Ure organized Band Aid's single "Do They Know It's Christmas?" within weeks, American artists followed with "We Are the World", and on July 13, 1985, the Live Aid concerts in London and Philadelphia were broadcast live by satellite around the world.¹⁴

Drought and failed rains were the trigger, but war and policy turned a food crisis into mass death. Since 1974 Ethiopia had been ruled by the Derg, a Marxist military government led by Mengistu Haile Mariam, which was fighting rebels in Tigray and Eritrea. Its counterinsurgency restricted trade and movement in rebel areas, aid was at times blocked or diverted, and grain taxes and forced resettlement of hundreds of thousands of northerners to the south added to the toll. The government spent heavily on celebrating its tenth anniversary in September 1984 while the crisis grew.²³

Estimates of the dead range from about 400,000 to one million. Live Aid and related efforts raised well over 100 million dollars, though critics argued that some aid strengthened the Derg's resettlement program. The episode created the template of celebrity-led, televised fundraising for disasters and made Ethiopia's famine an enduring symbol in the West.¹²³