ANNOUNCER: Bringing you the world for 20 years, this is CNN.</s>PETER ARNETT, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Ethiopia's famine is growing worse. These young victims walk miles across the Danacle Desert (ph) seeking help at a newly opened Red Cross center. Doctors doubt that they will survive the terrible privations of the journey. Scores of thousands more are in a similar condition.</s>JOHN TOWRISS, DEPUTY WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF: There's this terrible catch-22 that goes on in those camps in that many people come in so close to death. And even though the workers may have the medicine to get them well, they're so sick the medicine won't stay in their bodies. A lot of times, it just goes straight through and they literally die while they're being given plenty of food and medicine.</s>ARNETT: The remoteness of most of Ethiopia makes it almost impossible for the government to get aid out to the population. About 1 million are being directly assisted now throughout the land, but six times more that number are believed starving and no help is reaching them.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I mean, people are just dying in the streets.</s>TOWRISS: In the case in Ethiopia, it went on for a couple years. Eventually the government, and through outpouring from around the world, were able to respond with some food. The government also moved a lot of these people to the southern part of the country at that time where conditions were more lush and, you know, they were able to sustain themselves.
CNN 20: Ethiopian Famine, October 27, 1984