Ethiopia, a landlocked country located in East Africa, is the continent’s oldest independent nation. With its remarkable historical heritage, captivating landscapes and rich cultural tapestry, its beauty collides with a horrific reality that millions face. Three years of failed rains have pushed the country and the region to the edge of famine.
The famine of 1983 – 85, which affected 7.75 million people, shocked the world. Today, more than 20 million people in Ethiopia already need emergency food. With much-needed aid and attention diverted to Ukraine and Gaza, the world has turned a blind eye to the unfolding catastrophe in the East African nation.
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Lisette talks to a local community health clinic nurse who is seeing an increase in children with malnutrition. Photo: Alex Parsons
But one journalist determined to shine a light on this forgotten crisis is Newshub’s Europe Correspondent, Lisette Reymer. Recently, Lisette and Newshub cameraman Alex Parsons travelled to Ethiopia with Tearfund’s CEO, Ian McInnes, and International Programmes Director Tim Manson. Lisette covered stories for The AM Show, digital, and 6pm news.
Tearfund’s Communications Specialist, Grace Ellis, sat with Lisette to learn about the people she met, hear her heart-breaking interviews and powerful moments. She also shared about the extraordinary work and resilience of Tearfund’s local partner, working to meet the needs of the hungry.
“I didn’t know the immense scale of it before I went. It’s just enormous. Probably my biggest moment of shock was hearing from aid workers they consider what is happening in Ethiopia to be the biggest humanitarian issue in the world right now. It hits you in the face when you have experts in the field saying the scale of it dwarfs anything else the world is talking about right now,” says Lisette.
The scale and the immense need became evident when Lisette interviewed 100-year-old Abdul.
Lisette interviews 100-year-old Abdul who has lost all his livestock during this extended drought. While the surrounding countryside is deceptively green due to recent light rains, it is not expected to last long enough to harvest crops. Photo: Ian McInnes
“Before the interview, he was waiting with a group of people, hoping food was going to arrive. We asked him who was delivering the food and where was it coming from. No one really knew, and eventually, someone said, ‘We are waiting for God to deliver the food’.”
Lisette told me the people in his village would do this every day. They were reliant on God because they had nothing.
“I started crying when I interviewed Abdul. He spoke to us essentially about wanting to kill himself. He didn’t know why he was alive, and he didn’t want to be alive. It was misery, but he told us his faith was keeping him from doing that,” says Lisette.
Abdul has lost his ten children and all his livestock. His story is sadly too familiar in
this region.
“I thought, how has this man survived so long? But not long ago, he had a successful business, he had an incredible reputation and satisfaction. His dignity had been stripped away by the drought. It’s hard meeting someone whose life is incredibly difficult to fathom.”
Lisette was also impacted by a malnourished seven-year-old girl.
“She looked way smaller than my three-year-old nieces—she couldn’t stand up, she wasn’t moving and was so pale. I realised this crisis is indiscriminate, it affected everyone.”
Lisette spoke about the misconceptions people have about extreme hunger in Africa: That these countries are always hungry. But she learnt in southern Ethiopia, the area she visited, those communities’ outcomes didn’t always look bleak. It used to be a thriving agricultural hub with rich farmland—it was a profitable and successful area. Farmers owned cattle and goats, could provide protein for their families, and sold butter to earn their livelihoods.
“They were really proud farmers; they knew what they were doing, ran good, strong businesses, and supported their families,” says Lisette.
“Because of the drought, these people have lost their livelihoods. I think there’s a sense of lost dignity and self-worth. What I loved was that many were so determined to get it back.”
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Newshub journalist with her work colleagues☺️. Photo: Alex Parsons
Lisette was struck by the beaming smiles and warm hearts despite their difficult circumstances. One moment that stood out for Lisette while filming a story for Newshub was when the children from one of the villages gathered to sing a song.
“The children were so scared at first. They’d never seen a TV camera before. We’d turn and show them the footage and they squealed and ran away. By the end, they had warmed up so much they started singing for us. It took them so long to convince themselves to do it. They started when we weren’t watching. It was so sweet, such a special moment.”
Lisette spent three days with Tearfund’s partner, Terepeza Development Association (TDA) and says she cannot speak highly enough of them.
“They’re remarkable. There’s always so much said about aid organisations and concerns about where the donations end up. But I love that with TDA, the money is going directly into the communities. Tearfund works as that intermediary channel to get the money to locals who know what they’re doing. The partnership is remarkably effective.”
Lisette told me she saw the tangible impact donations can have on communities.
A mother takes her child to be assessed for undernourishment at a local clinic. Photo: Himali McInnes.
“We met a medical health worker who said when TDA was delivering food [bought] with Tearfund donations, malnutrition numbers were down. Now the donations have stopped, they have run out of food to deliver, and in the last six months, the number of new patients coming into her clinic has doubled.
That is direct confirmation from someone who works in the local medical centre of the impact New Zealand dollars have had on that community,” says Lisette.
Lisette has been Newshub’s Europe Correspondent for three years and says she has wanted to tell this story.
“Telling this story is genuinely one of my greatest achievements, not personally, but for journalism. Tearfund has made telling those stories and delivering them to Kiwis possible. Now there are a bunch of New Zealanders that understand what is happening in Ethiopia, that didn’t a week earlier. That’s really important.”
Read our latest blogs to learn more about Ethiopia's forgotten crisis.
A Forgotten Hunger
Avoiding Famine in East Africa