ethopia famine

There are  iftar and dinner offers of various hotels and resturants all over Islamabad . These normally range from minimum Rs 400 to Rs 900 per head. Which means one person will eat one meal worth this much. We have so many poor people in our country and we all have had atleast a few chances to witness these iftar buffets. We know how much food is wasted and thrown away. People fill their plates and leave them and refill the next plate! Do they really think what they are doing? I know they have a logic that we paid so much, so we have a right to waste. I do not agree with them if they have paid that much still they should know how many hungry souls could be fed with that. We as muslims will be asked for our ignorance and selfishness.

Have a look at this Independent report and count your blessings. And by the way do not consume so much sugar. Less than half a tea spoon in one cup of tea is enough for me to survive in day. This sugar shortage has more to do with our food insecurity and personal hoarding by the people now. Anyway let me get back to this….

Millions facing famine in Ethiopia as rains fail
International aid agencies fear that the levels of death and starvation last seen 24 years ago, are set to return to the Horn of Africa. Paul Rodgers reports.

The spectre of famine has returned to the Horn of Africa nearly a quarter of a century after the world’s pop stars gathered to banish it at Live Aid, raising £150m for relief efforts in 1985. Millions of impoverished Ethiopians face the threat of malnutrition and possibly starvation this winter in what is shaping up to be the country’s worst food crisis for decades.

Estimates of the number of people who need emergency food aid have risen steadily this year from 4.9 million in January to 5.3 million in May and 6.2 million in June. Another 7.5 million are getting aid in return for work on community projects, as part of the National Productive Safety Net Program for people whose food supplies are chronically insecure, bringing the total being fed to 13.7 million.

Donor countries provided sustenance to 12 million Ethiopians last year, more than half of it through the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP). Having passed that total only eight months into this year, and with the main harvest already in doubt, aid agencies fear the worst is still to come. “We’re extremely worried,” said Howard Taylor, who heads the Department for International Development’s office in Ethiopia. DfID has given £54m in aid to the country this year, and Britain has also contributed through the EU. “This is exactly the time when we shouldn’t turn away from the people in need,” he said. Read more

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Siraj Bibi

I read about 119 year old Siraj Bibi( in Dawn) and thought we have our lives so complicated. She loves to work and tries to keep others happy. These two simple rules of life have kept her happy for all these years. And we strive for our own comfort and happiness. Can we get back to those simple times again. We can only dream of being 119 years old (Mashallah) and that too with an active life style. I wish and pray for Siraj Bibi’s life and health.

SIALKOT: Hard work and iron will are the secrets of the ‘successful life’ of Siraj Bibi, a 119-year-old resident of border-area Kingra village, who still loves to do her chores with her own hands.

‘The will to work instills energy in my body and I remain active even at this age,’ she told this correspondent. ‘I get up early in the morning, sweep the courtyard of my house, cut fodder for cattle and do many more things.’

All these chores, she said, had become an integral part of her life. ‘The idea of sitting idle even at this age seems like waiting for death,’ said Siraj Bibi who also serves meals to her family.

‘The secret of my happiness is that I have always tried to make others happy. After saying ‘Fajr’ prayers, I visit the only market in the village and kiss the foreheads of the shopkeepers as if they all are my sons — my dear ones.’

She has memories of the British Raj days which, according to her, were good in terms of safety. ‘Life and property of every one was safe in those days,’ she said.

Siraj Bibi was born in 1890 at the house of Laldin in the neighbouring Occupied Jammu & Kashmir’s Chimneywali village. She recalled the painful memories of her five brothers and their wives being killed by the Sikhs at the time of partition.

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