Ayelish Luma (18) has walked for two hours in searing heat to queue for another two, to get food her brother. Temescen (3), too weak to cry, whimpers continuously as Ayelish explains that the family has not had food of its own since last September.

The same story applies for most of the 200,000 people of Weylayita, a region about the size of Co Cork. With no rain since 1997 the harvest has been poor three times in as many years. The people's prayers for rain were answered last weekend. Tragically, the rain was so torrential that the tiny maize saplings in which the people had placed such hope were destroyed.

Destroyed or not, the scenes at Dendo Kayisha Humbo, by 8.50 a.m. on Monday morning, would have been the same. At just this one dendo, or village, about 500 people, mainly mothers and children, had arrived in the hope of their children qualifying for the feeding programmes being established in the area by the Irish aid agency Concern.

The most malnourished-looking children are handpicked from the melee, to queue with their guardians, to be weighed and measured.

Children weighing 80 per cent of their ideal weight or less are registered for feeding; those at less than 70 per cent qualify for therapeutic feeding; and any with oedema - a condition caused by malnutrition which gives rise to swelling as the body effectively "eats" itself - are also admitted. They get 6 kg of a high-protein food-substitute, to last one month.

Perhaps relieved at the few moments to sit and rest before the walk back to Dendo Workish, Ayelish is willing to speak of her situation. She looks exhausted.

"There are six in our family, though our mother died two years ago of TB. There is a great problem with food shortage, for eight months now. We were able to get some money from family, to buy food at market. Then we could sell some wood, but that is all gone now. Our cattle, they are dead, too, so we have nothing," she says.

She says Temescen last ate two evenings ago, when he had some ensette. Ensette, when it can be found, is a last-resort food for the people. Known colloquially as "false banana", it is pure roughage, contains neither protein nor fat and is nutritionally useless. The results of subsisting on what is only a filler are clearly visible in the emaciated bundle of agony rasping in Ayelish's arms.

"We eat it all the time now," nods Ayelish vacantly.

That morning some 269 children are admitted for supplementary and therapeutic feeding. In one five-minute period, at just one of the two weighing scales, a four-yearold girl weighs less than 80 per cent of her ideal weight. A three-year-old boy is less than 75 per cent. He also has severe oedema.

Another three-year-old weighs less than 70 per cent. A tiny two-year-old girl, looking little more than six months old, weighs less than 70 per cent. She, too, has severe oedema, with swollen feet, legs and swelling around her eyes. The Northern Irish paediatrician comments that she has a 20 per cent chance of dying within the next two weeks.

"Even if we got her into the Blackrock Clinic she probably wouldn't make it," the paediatrician says. Like so many others, she is "severely immuno-compromised". The combination of their tattered clothes and the cold nights will kill many with flu before they die of starvation.

Victor Ferriera, a Portuguese nutritionist who along with an Irish nutritionist, Mary Corbett, carried out a survey of Welayita in April, said he was shocked not only at the levels of malnutrition among the people, but also at the ratio of severe to moderate malnutrition.

Co-ordinating the Concern response in Welayita, he says one would expect a ratio of 10 per cent severe to 90 per cent moderate malnutrition among those admitted for supplementary feeding.

"It has been about 30 per cent severe malnutrition to 70 per cent moderate, so far," he says. "This is a bad, bad picture, and as far as I can see, we are still on the ascent in this situation. It is going to get worse."

The other consistent finding has been that more girls have been affected by severe malnutrition than boys. Boys tended to be prioritised by families in feeding, said Mr Ferreira. He had expected to admit about 150 children in the first two days of the operation. They admitted over 700.

Paul Sherlock, director of Concern Ethiopia, says it is almost impossible to be accurate about how many are threatened with starvation in the country, though the latest estimate from the World Food Programme puts it at 10 million, revised upwards from a September figure of eight million.

Though logistical problems make getting food aid to those most in need difficult (some 80 per cent of Ethiopia's 60 million population are said to be in hard-to-reach areas) the greatest problem would appear to be foot-dragging by the international community.

An average of eight months is elapsing between the time food is pledged by the EU and its arrival. Reluctance to respond with urgency stems from concerns that food aid will be diverted to the country's war effort with Eritrea.

The IMF has refused further debt relief to this, the third-poorest country in the world, as long as hostilities continue; a highly unlikely development given yesterday's renewed outbreak of war with Eritrea.

But even if these obstacles are overcome, when one reads details of the 1984 famine, the outlook is depressing. Where the population was then 40 million, the government had access to three ports through which to import aid, 750 trucks to transport it and some 76 planes to carry out air-drops.

Today as it faces its fourth successive crop failure, because of the border dispute with Eritrea the government has access only to the low-capacity port of Djibouti, which is said to be working flat out. It has about 400 trucks and, so far, no aircraft committed to the relief effort.

Asked what she thinks of the war with Eritrea and its effect on international aid, Ayelish seems bewildered. Asked what she thinks of the government, she says she thinks they got maize once from them.

Asked if she's worried about her brother, she looks down at him for a moment before responding. With the intensity of determined dignity she says: "Maybe he will die, but we will come here every day to get food for him before that."