'I must try and show you this
There is a child, I think maybe it's four months old. The
doctor says, 'No it's two years old.' It squats on
baked mud, a tattered dusty piece of cotton hangs from one
shoulder onto its distended stomach. Its face is huge. A two year
old face on a four month body.
The eyes are moons of dust and flies caked by tears so big they
don't dry until they reach the navel.
The child stares. Between its legs flows a constant stream of
diarrhoea. The immediate earth around its legs is damp with
it.
I am watching a child die. In total silence and surrounded by its
family it eventually begins to s.h.i.t out its own stomach.
I am tired with grief and despair and a consuming rage for
humanity.
He dies soon. He just dies. Big deal. A jumble of bones and dry
skin, wet eyes, flies and s.h.i.t.'
- Bob Geldof's Diary Notes from Africa re: the Ethiopian
famine.
