Horror and hope in the Horn
Richard Swift believes there is plenty to be optimistic about even amid the rubble of war.

Emergency report
The Somalia on our TV screens is all villains and victims but Tony Vaux uncovers hidden heroism in the struggle to survive.

Hunger myths

A traveller's notebook
The editor hits the road in Eritrea and Tigray, hot on the scent of social change.

Ghebre's return
The warmth and pain of an Eritrean homecoming.

Native stranger
Eritrean women are fighting to protect what they won in the battle for independence. Elsa Gebreyesus reports from their new frontline.

THE HORN OF AFRICA - THE FACTS

Caught in the crossfire
Arthur Howes lived with the Nuba of Sudan in better times. He traces their sad fate today.

No home on the range
The modern world is no place for nomads. John Galaty visits an old friend and witnesses the destruction of a sustainable way of life.

Simply - Food and famine

Howitzer culture
An armed plague has been visited upon the Horn by cynical superpower politics, according to Alex de Waal's diagnosis.

Democratic elbow room
Horn activist Paulos Tesfagiorgis argues that development is not possible without human rights.

Whenever I travel I try and get my son, Joshua, a toy typical of the place I am visiting. I hope that this will ease the sting of absence and give him a sense of other places and ways of living. So when I went to Ethiopia and Eritrea to research this issue I was on the lookout for such a toy.

I found none. I should have known better. For most kids in the Horn of Africa there is no such thing as childhood. You see them working in the shops. You see them selling individual cigarettes or gum by the stick. Or beside the road, making sure the family herd of goats is not run over by a passing truck. To me this marked a clear difference - the necessities of survival intrude from the very start of life. Childhood as it is known in the North is a luxury.

I was wearing two hats in Africa this time - aside from my NI editorial duties I was evaluating Oxfam-Canada's program in the Horn, exploring new directions for it given the quickly changing political situation. Oxfam-Canada has a long history in the region. It was one of the first agencies in Canada to take the controversial decision to channel food aid to the rebel-held areas of Eritrea and Tigray. This at a time when most agencies and all governments officially refused to recognize the uncomfortable truth that in order to reach many of those most in need it was essential to bypass the Ethiopian dictatorship.

But yesterday's rebels are today's government - or at least this is the case in Ethiopia and Eritrea. So Oxfam's stock is high and this guaranteed us a warm welcome. I should hasten to add that the views and analysis in this issue are not necessarily shared by Oxfam, though they would certainly welcome the remarkable sense of hope that I found in a region badly in need of good news.

I was blessed with two cheerful and diligent travel companions, Mel Peters and Ghebre Abbai - also both Oxfam volunteers. We kept each other honest with gentle abuse that lightened long hours bouncing around the back-country or periodic bouts of stomach complaint and air sickness. It was particularly important to have Ghebre along. Not only did he speak the language but his knowledge of the society - his own society - was an invaluable measure of the benchmarks of change.

Years earlier I had witnessed the horror of the war but from Ghebre I got a sense of what it had been like to live in occupied Eritrea - and the potential of its newly won freedom. He was moved not by abstract principle but by what made a difference in people's daily lives. This is as it should be if that much abused word 'development' is to have any meaning at all.

Letters
Letter from Lahore
Updates
Reviews: plus Graham Greene classic
Curiosities
Endpiece: by Nicola Gregory
Country profile: Ecuador

FRONT COVER PHOTOGRAPHS: MERCENARY GANGS IN KISAMIO, SOMALIA TREVOR PAGE / PANOS. AND A WOMAN FROM HARARGE PROVINCE IN ETHIOPIA SEAN SPRAGUE / IMPACT VISUALS.
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