What Really Matters
"It's the first time we've seen it like this," Mr. Lutta said, referring to the severity of the famine. In this area, conditions were never this bad, even in the terrible 1984-85 famine, which killed some one million people.

Children like Aberash will be saved only if the West mounts a major effort to help them. The U.S. has responded relatively well to the calls for assistance from Ethiopia, but I'm afraid that much more will be needed. For individuals who want to contribute, some options are listed below.

Aberash is just one child, but I saw countless more just like her. In village after village, you meet these kids, hold their hands, touch their bones. But they are in a remote corner of the world, dying quietly, as we go about our business.

In the best of circumstances, about 100,000 boys and girls like Aberash will die of malnutrition-related ailments this year in Ethiopia. If the drought continues and the West doesn't provide more assistance, the number of deaths will rise to several hundred thousand or more... NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF