AN ETHIOPIAN aid worker has given heartfelt thanks to the people of Oxfordshire who contributed to the famine appeal in the 1980s.

Mother-of-three Almaz Fiseha Demissie is currently studying for a masters degree in development and emergency practice at Oxford Brookes University after winning the Brookes Africa Scholarship.

Ms Fiseha, 57, who has spent more than 30 years working in the humanitarian aid sector, described the real difference people’s generosity made.

Her comments follow claims this week by a former member of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front that it had used money raised through the 1985 Live Aid concerts to buy weapons. The accusations were dismissed by Live Aid organiser Bob Geldof.

Ms Fiseha said she had been working for the Catholic Relief Service since 1975 and was sent to run a relief centre in a town in Tigray, northern Ethiopia, in 1983 when the famine started.

She said: “I have seen how the assistance from people here saved lives.

“You send money and you don’t know where it goes, but people were dying and then the people who received the food assistance lived. That was because people were willing to give.”

She said she had met people in Oxford who had given up meals, or raised money for the appeal – and assured them it had genuinely saved lives.

Ms Fiseha, who came to Oxford in September for the year-long course and lives in Headington, said her experiences during the famine changed her for good.

She said: “You would see dead people on the road.

“There would be an influx of people coming in from the hard-hit areas looking for assistance, some made it to the town then died when they reached there, some did not make it that far. We would go out every morning and count bodies to report back, it was just terrible. We made arrangements, registering people, preparing everything, but we had to wait and wait for the food to come.”

Her programme provided food for under fives and had strict criteria for who was eligible.

But she said when she put the children on the scales, virtually all of them were so under- nourished they qualified for assistance – and there was not enough food for all of them.

She said: “How can you choose? It was really tough.”

It is thought up to a million people died in the famine, and millions more were left destitute.

Ms Fiseha described the influx of aid, which continued until 1985 and 1986.

She said: “You would find all kinds of things, like a bottle of Nutella, it was so touching.

“All those people would have died without the aid.”

She said people’s generosity continued to impress her – she is living rent-free with a family she met through St Clement’s Church, where she worships.

She hopes her degree will help her influence policy when she returns to her home country.

fbardsley@oxfordmail.co.uk