♪ ♪ [There comes a time... ♪ when we heed a certain call... ♪ when the world must come together as one...] (Narrator) What tragedy inspires a song?

What heartbreak motivates action?

How does human suffering touch the soul of a willing pl?

How can artists make a difference?

I often believe something that Paul Robeson once said, that artists are the gatekeepers of truth.

And artists instruct and they inspire.

If you can do that, that gives you one of the most powerful tools in the world in which to to commit yourself to changing of the human heart and the human mind.

♪ (Narrator) When drought hit the Horn of Africa in 1983, millions of people in the war ravaged nation of Ethiopia were subjugate by a ruthless dictatorship that denied food relief.

More than 1 million people starved to death.

The treacherous war zone didn't stop Kenyan photojournalist Mohamed Amin.

Joined by BBC correspondents Michael Buerk and Mike Wooldridge, the skilled team of frontline journalists risked their lives to tell the truth behind what many consider the worst humanitarian disaster of the 20th century.

Many governments failed to do the right thing.

But when the story behind the famine was broadcast worldwide, musicians chose to stand together as one.

Their unity inspired the hit song We Are The World, Band Aid, and Live Aid.

♪- Male voice chanting (Voiceover-Buerk) The famine throughout the Horn of Africa in 1984 1985 was as much a political event as a climatic one.

The factor that led to the famine is man made, and was also, natural.

Because of drought, political instability, insecurity, insurgency.

A combination of all this led to this famine.

At the time, the wars being fought there were the largest conventional battles unfolding anywhere on the planet and it's pretty much what define the landscape to the north.

Again, Tigray and Eritrea, before the famine hit.

(Voiceover-Buerk) The real reason that people were on the edge in their millions, it was because of civil war.

An uncaring, dictatorship that did actually use food as a weapon.

(Narrator) Longtime Emperor Haile Selassie and his ancestors had ruled Ethiopia for more than 700 years.

That changed with his death following a military uprising in 1975.

As leader of a new government called the Derg, Marxist dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam ruled Ethiopia with support from the Soviet Union.

Opposition to Mengistu in the northern province of Tigray soon grew into an armed revolutionary movement.

What began as a pursuit for regional autonomy morphed into a civil war for national liberation.

Mengistu solidified his rule with a reputation for uncommon violence.

Whether it's stories of student uprisings and shooting down hundreds and hundreds of students or a very famous cabinet meeting where he actually shot some of the members of the cabinet.

he was ruthless.

(Voiceover-Amin) While he didn't initiate the drought, he did initiate the famine.

The famine was very much man made in the sense that there was no assistance, no aid, no help that was given even when the early warning signs were coming out, they just completely ignored them.

(Voiceover-Bertschinger) I don't know who was who was shooting at what.

Tigrayan People's Liberation Front, against the government, but I might have been wrong.

(Voiceover-Wooldridge) There was a strong resistance against that government.

Rebels in the north, northern regions of Tigray and Eritrea were confronting that military regime, and it seemed that their politics were the politics of control.

Total, total control.

(Voiceover-Bertschinger) I mean, I was held at gunpoint and things but you never knew if you could get out.

And whether you be alive to get out or not.

(Narrator) When the rains failed, millions of small scale farmers were unable to feed their families.

Most sought refuge in camps, but to no avail.

Both warring factions took advantage of the suffering, but only one weaponized the food supply to those in need.

Are you Oromia?

Are you Amhara?

Are you Tigrayan?

Are you Somali?

They don't care.

These are the innocents.

Absolutely no parts to play in this.

They were neither bearing the weapons, they were not supporting either side.

(Voiceover-Bertschinger) When I got there, you've just got starving people.

People just skin and bones.

Hundreds, thousands of children.

And at the time, we only had sufficient food for 500 children.

I would file stories from Khartoum or from inside Ethiopia, inside Eritrea, a couple other places.

You have empathy for the people who are the victims of a famine but I would hope and I think a lot of people also feel some outrage, that it's wrong.

The magnitude, is what's unimaginable.

But how many of them dropped dead for lack of water or medicine or food?

(Voiceover-Muiruri) The moment you add a bit more humanity into it, an entire plain of people who are completely innocent, blameless.

And they have played absolutely no part other than just being poor Ethiopian or poor Ethiopian farmers.

(Voiceover-Belafonte) In the earliest of my years I made it my business to whenever I see, injustice or poverty, it was my business to confront it.

To make a difference.

Nothing had humbled me, and made me so ego less than to look at the devastation.

Because I was there.

I touched the brow of dying children.

I looked at kids who some of them didn't have but an hour left in life.

And I looked at the tragedy, the enormity of this event.

(Voiceover-Bertschinger) There was no food coming in at the time when I arrived, there was nothing there.

Just thousands of of just.

Yeah, a brown, gray mass of people.

There was no tents, no, not even shelters.

It's more like just piles of people.

Literally piles of people just lying on the ground.

And that's why I said somehow the world sort of.

They didn't know.

They didn't know.

Not until really, Michael Buerk and Mo came and did the filming about the extent of what was happening.

You didn't have satellites in those days or drones.

And at the time that the famine broke into the world headlines and then proceeded, Mengistu█s army was prosecuting major military offensives.

So there was an extraordinary famine, and behind some of the scenes people saw on television was really brutal conflict.

(Narrator) From 1983 to 1985, more than 7 million people were impacted by the famine and civil war.

As many as 1 million died of starvation.

During late October 1984, Kenyan photojournalist Mohamed Amin and BBC correspondents Michael Buerk and Mike Wooldridge overcame government restrictions and found a way to document the crisis.

(Voiceover-Wooldridge) Every report coming out by this point September and into early October of 1984.

It is utterly clear how the scale of this is growing all the time.

By now we had a pretty good idea that this was 10,000 a week, even as much as 15,000 a week, that we're dying in the worst affected areas.

(Voiceover-Bertschinger) First thing in the morning, when I used to wake up as the sun rose, or even before, I used to blow a horn.

And the horn was the horn of somebody had died or several people had died.

And I'm talking about the children mainly because that's who I worked with.

They used to try and find them an old flour sack, the family, to wrap the child in.

And then they used to carry the child with the wailing mothers and the supporters to bury the child.

(Voiceover-Wooldridge) There were times when there was a, you'd have to call it a spell of death.

The war at this point was worsening for the government as well.

Sure, they were still in many ways in denial about the extent of the famine, and certainly didn't want the world to know about it.

I'm sure they didn't want us running around in a place like Mekele.

A garrison town, filming.

And clearly they would expect making the link between the war and the drought and all the other factors.

And you couldn't do anything but that of course nor would we.

It's a dark art, journalism.

And it's a particularly, I think art in situations of this kind.

First of all you have to have the right people with the right with the right contacts.

And the great cameraman, Mohamed Amin in Nairobi, he had the contacts.

He was sort of a Mephistophelien figure you know, who was capable of coming to the most extraordinary deals with people to get places.

Mo Amin is our hero.

That he has exposed the plight of Ethiopians affected by famine and drought to the world.

(Voiceover-Muiruri) The moment when you mentioned Mohamad Amin, suddenly there'd be smiles, doors would open, probably get access for interviews, access to where nobody else would.

(Voiceover-Thomas) The war was less important for him than showing the world what was happening to average, everyday people.

It was not an easy thing, and for him to also be driven, that it was important to get as much on camera as possible.

So that it was believable.

(Voiceover-Amin) Because he knew this continent and this area so much better than the editors.

They had come to learn to trust his judgment.

There were many different moving parts to that story, and he had to kind of be the, the glue that brought them all together.

This is not somebody who just went there to do the job and come out again.

He's actually somebody who was touched by something that he saw quite deeply.

(Voiceover-Amin) It was probably the most significant moment in his life was doing that, not just because it was a big story, but just in terms of how it changed him his mindset, his mentality, his passion, his empathy, all of those things.

(Narrator) Rebel forces fought throughout the North, but the government controlled the city of Mekele.

Each crew member knew the risks.

They also knew the importance of giving voice to the innocent, the vulnerable and the dying.

(Voiceover-Amin) The road infrastructure didn't exist at all.

So they were like, fine we'll give you the permissions, they're absolutely useless because you can't get there.

Not knowing that he, with his other contacts, had met, made a connection with World Vision, which was one of the largest charities in the world at that time.

And the head of World Vision, a person called Peter Searle.

Peter was complaining that they had this plane that had food aid, that they were trying to get to northern Ethiopia with but they had no permissions.

And dad just, you know, smiled and nodded and then came back to Peter and said, right Peter, here's the deal.

I have the permissions.

You have the plane, we come on board.

So you take us, you don't remove any of the food we'll sit on top of the the sacks and, you know, we need to get there and that's how they made it.

With the Ethiopian government being none the wiser.

(Voiceover-Buerk) So we flew north to Mekele, landed at the airstrip and stepped into, you know, what was the biggest natural disaster of the 20th century.

(Voiceover-Wooldridge) The sense of foreboding about just how bad it was going to be.

I think that started to set in on that flight.

Even as we taxied to a halt, you could just see out of the windows of our small plane all the people who were gathered around the airstrip and in the barest of clothing, with virtually no possessions whatsoever, they'd obviously come in from all the countryside around which we had seen was so devastated by this, this famine.

(Voiceover-Buerk) They'd stayed in their homes and as long as they could and then decided you know, they were going to die if they stopped, so moved in their thousands, hundreds of thousands all the various villages, settlements around.

We went to this supplementary feeding station run by the International Red Cross, where this young, British nurse, 25, 26 years old, was running what should have been a supplementary feeding station for babies and, and toddlers, but you know, supplementary feeding, there█s 100,000 starving people there.

(Voiceover-Bertschinger) We didn't have the proper facilities to do intensive feeding.

So I said to the local Red Cross workers who were with me I said, So which ones should we choose?

Do you want to go and choose them?

And they said, oh, we can't choose them.

That's our family.

That's our cousins, that's our friends.

You've got to go out and choose them.

So 60, 70 out of a thousand and the rest you knew were going to die.

And I can remember counting this one time ten rows of children and in each row there was over 100 children, and I had 60 or 70 places, that's all.

I knew they were going to die within a week, ten days, because there was no food.

And the families would die as well.

Well, I can just remember two, two men, which was Michael Buerk and and Mo Amin, and coming to the to the corrall and saying they wanted to take some films and, you know, and just stand over here and we're just just going to ask you a few questions.

I feel terrible because it's sending them to a certain death.

it's terrible.

I can take just what we can.

(Question-Buerk) How badly are some of the people who you do send away?

They will die within the night, maybe even.

In fact, they might be even too bad for us to take.

That's sometimes why we won't take them.

If they're too bad, we know they're going to die we send them to the hospital because there'sg we can do.

Food won't even help.

(Question) But making that decision day after day, does that do anything to you?

Yes, of course it does, What do you expect?

Yes, of course it does.

It breaks my heart.

But at least I can see some of the ones that I'm helping here.

And that helps when you do see the ones that survive.

(Voiceover-Bertschinger) I mean, the kids were screaming and some vomiting and some had diarrhea, and I was trying to feed them as far as I was concerned, these guys were just getting in the way.

I couldn't get rid of them fast enough.

And then Michael Buerk asked me this question.

So, Claire, how does it make you feel?

Having to choose who can come in or something like that.

And I just thought, God, what a stupid question.

What prat to ask that type of question.

I said, well, what do you expect It just it breaks my heart.

I thought she was an angel, and she thought I was a prat.

And I think we were probably both right.

It was unbearable, really.

You know, the idea that somebody so young should have the power of that power of life and death.

It brought, it brought hope.

But of course all that suffering on such a wide scale is emotionally overwhelming anyway.

But that dilemma was just very, very difficult to cope with.

And yet, yet illustrated the point so terribly well.

(VoiceoverBertschinger) I suppose because I've come out of it all right.

There█s so much in there that's just locked down.

I wouldn't necessarily bring it to the surface.

Might come out tonight when I'm trying to sleep.

Probably.

(Voiceover-Wooldridge) Both at Mekele, where we landed first, and then when we went on to Korem afterwards, I think I had exactly the same sensation, first of all, which was, how on earth can I possibly portray this?

I am so overwhelmed by what I'm seeing.

How can I put together the word pictures that could convey that to an audience in Britain and around the world?

(BBC Report) It's too late to save the lives of many of the people around me here in a corrugated iron shelter on the outskirts of Mekele.

A middle aged man has just died in front of me.

His grieving daughter at his side, has now lost most of her family in this famine.

A few minutes ago, we came across a small bundle in another corner of the shelter which contained the body of a boy of 4 or 5.

He was one of six children whose mother died last week.

Two more children died here this morning.

I had never been to anything like that before.

It is the most remarkable, the most chilling, but also the most disturbing story that I have ever covered.

Disturbing personally in so many ways.

You're immediately feeling, how on earth can it have come to this?

(Voiceover-Buerk) You're standing there, you're looking at it.

You're hearing the keening, the the, the, the, crying.

You can hear the groans that these people who are dying, you can smell the fear.

you're taking it all in with all your senses, and it's utterly overwhelming.

But at the back of your mind you're thinking, at the end of the day, I've got to make a television report out of this, and you know, it's going to go to people who are sitting there over their TV dinners, you know, in the safety of their living rooms.

It's October, you know, the curtains are drawn.

Everybody's feeling quite safe at home, you know, how how are you going to communicate the enormity of it?

How are you going to communicate the individual suffering?

How are you going to somehow illustrate the scale?

And I wasn't I wasn't convinced that we could do that.

You get so emotional, you get so overwhelmed that you actually want to make sure that this gets out.

This is seen.

♪ It actually almost moves from being I went to report to almost like you've become part of a crusade.

♪ (Voiceover-Amin) So I think that story on the Korem plateau transformed him in many ways.

♪ I think he went from being this hard nosed journalist ♪ that was only looking for a world exclusive to someone who understood the scale of this disaster.

♪ And was completely moved by the pride and dignity of these people that were undergoing such suffering through no fault of their own.

♪ [Dawn, and as the sun breaks through the piercing chill of night on the plain outside Korem it lights up a biblical famine.

Now in the 20th century...] (Narrator) The first television report about the famine aired on the BBC on October 25th, 1984.

[is the closest thing to hell on Earth...] (Narrator) With the support of NBC TV and other global broadcasters, millions of people around the world realized the extent of the crisis.

[...dulled by hunger, driven beyond the point of desperation] (Narrator) But TV and radio coverage were only the beginning of an international outcry and humanitarian support.

[...suffering, confused, lost.]

♪ ♪ [Feed the world...] ♪ ♪ [Feed the world...] (Narrator) Inspired by the BBC report, Irish musician Bob Geldof was moved to action.

♪ Geldof and colleague Midge Ure composed and recorded the charity hit single Do They Know It's Christmas.

With a supergroup of London based musicians called Band Aid.

(Voiceover-Wooldridge) Geldof did more than that.

He in a way became the activist.

I would argue he has done an awful lot in a very unconventional way to maintain interest not just in Ethiopia, but in Africa as a whole.

He clearly felt the outrage.

Of being able, in London, in the UK, to get up in the morning, do what you do and be in a band and eat good meal and go and get drunk with your mates.

And then people literally starving to death by the tens and tens of thousands.

I think it was a very clear sense that this is wrong.

We can't have this, this, this is not on.

I suspect it for Bob.

He's got an activist heart.

So he was like, okay, I'm going to do something about it because it's not enough to watch it and be outraged.

(Voiceover-Buerk) A key ingredient to the response, the nature of it, how long it lasted, and the extent of the response was the way people felt they could do something about it.

That was really different from what had preceded it.

And, and what is what has happen subsequently.

(Narrator) As a long time member of the United Nations Children's Fund, renowned singer Harry Belafonte was actively engaged throughout Easta Within weeks of Band Aid's recording, Belafonte launched an American effort to provide food relief for the Horn of Africa.

He joined forces with producer Quincy Jones, songwriters Michael Jackson and Lionel Richie, and artist manager Ken Kragen.

You know, it all really started with a call from Harry Belafonte We'd all been seeing these pictures on television that Mohamed Amin had shot.

The horrific pictures of children dying.

But Belafonte, typical of Harry, decided to take action.

Harry is the one who sounded the horn that we in America in the US have to do something.

I thought that there was a, a necessity for a much more impactful, campaign to broaden public understanding of the issue of the famine.

(Voiceover-Smith) It's obscenely unjust that anybody should ever be subjected to a famine.

And Harry Belafonte is the kind of guy who stands up for those who get the short end of the stick.

(Voiceover-Richie) It was Harry Belafonte calling me on the phone and saying these words: “It's amazing that we have white people saving black people We have no black people saving black people.

What do you think about that Lionel?” I met Lionel for the first time.

He and Michael got together and they came up with the song We Are the World.

You hire a manager for one reason only.

He can't keep a secret.

So Ken of course in his enthusiasm, started telling other people.

[Imitating Ken] "you know Michael, Quincy and Lionel are doing a song."

This song is really good because it doesn't mention Africa.

And believe it or not that is proven to be one of the major reasons why We Are the World is still such a loved, used, in demand song because it doesn't attach itself to Africa, it attaches itself to humanity.

There's a time in your career where you, the universe is speaking to you directly.

♪ [We're all a part of, gods great big family...] (Voiceover-Richie) There was no question that we were going to have a song.

We just didn't realize it was going to be that huge.

They called me to come hear it.

And I listened to it and I thought, it's a great anthem.

(Voiceover-Richie) What is the concept?

What are we all about?

You know, who are we trying to bring to this?

And we realized this is going to something for the world.

When you have that many artist involved we can actually say that, and make that statement.

(Voiceover-Kragen) You need a great producer to do this.

It's somebody like Quincy as a hook and somebody that everybody revered.

And sure enough the choice of him worked.

Because all the artists, well, he█s Quincy.

♪ [There's a choice we're making ♪ we're savings our own lives ♪ it's true we make a better day ♪ just you and me...] (Narrator) More than 40 of America's best known musicians convened in a t recording session in Los Angeles California on January 28th, 1985.

(Voiceover-Belafonte) Artists do have the reputation of being somewhat arbitrary and contentious.

But in this instance, I think the compelling force of the devastation of the starvation of millions of citizens was in itself, a humbling, of, energy.

Music is the universal language, and it motivates and it drives and it inspires.

[First I'd like you to meet Bob Geldof who is really the inspiration for this whole thing.]

[applause] On some of the camps you see 15 bags of flour for twenty seven and a half thousand people.

And it's that, that we are here for.

I don't want to bring anybody down but maybe it's the best way of making what you really feel, why you're really here tonight, come out through this song, so thanks a lot everybody.

[applause] (Voiceover-Warwick) Everybody in that room knew why we were there.

There was, the purpose was.

And what it was for.

It was a privilege to be a part of this particular project.

(Voiceover-Amin) There had never been this, this type of movement where musicians became such drivers of change and such amazing fundraisers.

I don't think they understood their own power until it was all brought together.

I think that, it opened up the door to more Black American artists, realizing that even individually they could do something collective, to contribute to the collective need.

(Voiceover-Abdellatif) They leverage their celebrity status, use their platform to encourage others to act.

Or incentivize their fans to contribute.

It's not that artists have some moral high ground or are better, smarter, and wiser than any of the rest of us about what we should do.

It's just that they've got platforms and they've got means of communicating, and people will listen.

♪ ♪ [There comes a time... ♪ [when we heed a certain call...] (Voiceover-Richie) The song, the effort, the cause.

It was meaningful.

It was actually meant to be.

How do we give back with all that talent?

What do we do with all of that fame and power?

And we decided to make a country out of ourselves.

And it worked.

♪ (Voiceover-Belafonte) So everybody just relaxed and had a great time.

Quincy then allotted groups to go off and learn the song.

And he recorded it in layers.

♪ [Gods great big family...] First there was the ensemble.

The entire gathering of celebrity to sing the song.

♪ [We are the world... ♪ we are the children... ♪ we are the ones to make a brighter day... ♪ so lets start giving...] He gave just one line or two lines at the most, to any number of artists who took solo moments in the song.

[But if you just believe, there's no way we can fall.]

[We are the world,] [We are the world, we are the children.]

It went so smoothly we were all stunned that ah, gee this was cool.

♪ [Well let's send them your heart,] (Voiceover-Warwick) You know, I had no idea that I was gonna have a solo until Quincy said, And this is what you're going to sing, I said okay.

You know.

♪ [As God has shown us... (Voiceover-Warwick) I found it a privilege to be the duet partner with Willie Nelson.

Everybody thought- “You're gonna sing with Willie Nelson?” Yeah, isn█t that something, I'm going to sing Willie Nelson.

♪ [We are the world, we are the children... (Voiceover-Kragen) Bruce Springsteen went up to the microphone and nailed his solo on the first try and then turned around to all of us and said, is that kind of like what you want?

♪ [We're saving our own lives... ♪ It's true we make a better day just you and me... ♪ When you're down and out there seems no hope at all...] (Narrator) The darkness and death, witnessed by Claire Bertschinger and chronicled by Mohamed Amin, Michael Buerk and Mike Wooldridge, was lifted by a chorus of gifted voices in an anthem of awareness and offering called We Are The World.

♪ [Stand together as one, ya ya ya ♪ We are the world, ♪ we are the children...] (Voiceover-Belafonte) There's a collective of one spirit, one thought, and that was to make sure that this thing is abated.

That that we stop it in its tracks.

♪ (Voiceover-Wooldridge) It was a world away, in some senses, from the struggles that people were still having around us, the very people we were reporting day in day out to, to recover.

We Are The World to me, the unity in it, the sound of it, what the artists involved in it said about their ambitions for that and the effect that it would have.

I think that really did inject, a new sense of hope if you like, if it doesn't sound too sentimental.

Into what was happening on the ground.

♪ Whether it's what Band Aid did in the UK or what USA for Africa, and the song did in the States is it was people.

It was artists that spurred governments to action.

When Harry's rallying call has always been artists have a responsibility to society, to use your art, your capability, the culture, to help make change happen.

So, yeah, there was a lot of firsts from We Are The World.

♪ [We are the ones who make a brighter day ♪ so lets start giving...] (Voiceover-Richie) That night we did something wonderful.

And so to turn around on that stage and see all these artists really happy to be there.

Not for the song, but for the cause.

♪ [It's true we make a better day just you and me...] (Voice over-Belafonte) Before that moment and since that moment, I've never been part of a cultural development, an enterprise that was fraught from beginning to end.

With such incredible goodwill.

We Are The World still continues to raise money, 40 years almost after its release.

(Narrator) The song We Are The World became a global hit.

Within weeks more than $60 million in sales were generated.

100% of the funds were donated to a newly founded charity called USA for Africa.

(Voiceover-Bertschinger) I remember going out to the airport, early in the mornings through several armed checkpoints.

To go and meet this plane arriving.

It was an old building and this big open space of a runway, and I climbed up stairs and stood on top.

A few herders on the runway and cattle and a few goats and things and just looking around.

And then in the distance, I could see this sorta of a spot in the distance coming closer.

Sort of jump over the mountain, get bigger and bigger and bigger And it's just a massive plane.

It was Hercules 130 that landed in a hail of stones and dust and everything, and I thought, oh wow.

♪ They opened the doors and it was just full of food.

♪ It was quite something, quite something.

Yeah.

♪ (Voiceover-Belafonte) Every public penny spent on getting this, the song, popularly distributed went right to the places that were most severely affected ♪ (Narrator) Musician Harry Belafonte and organizer Ken Kragen were among the first Americans to visit the famine ravaged area during June 1985.

(Voiceover-Belafonte) The 45 artists who came together to do We Are the World album, and recording did so with a great sense of honor and commitment, and with a great integrity, towards the cause of helping to relieve hunger and famine.

Where were we when all this was happening?

Where were all of us?

Where were we as a community?

That didn't come to this rescue long before this took place?

And when will it happen again?

And what will we learn from it?

I'm very glad I came.

I kind of thought we were doing the right thing when we put the song together.

Now I know we did.

♪ I think one of the things that so impressed me was the quiet kind of dignity of people in these camps.

And we came with supplies of all kinds.

It was very dramatic.

♪ (Voice over-Belafonte) The Polish Airforce gave us cargo planes and manned them with Polish pilots.

And we loaded up a lot of the goods that were acquired by the We Are The World campaign.

And we airlifted and went deep into the interior of inaccessible regions.

♪ So all obstacles were accounted for, targeted, met, reasonably dealt with, and everyone gave us, the success story that, We Are The World boasted.

♪ (Voice over-Thomas) I had never seen anybody suffering from not having food and water.

And I was so happy to be involved with an organization and with an effort that was really concerned with with what was happening and trying to contribute in every way possible.

♪ Having seen what starvation really looks like, even though I'd seen people go days without food, it was truly, truly emotional.

It was also the beginning of understanding that, the people who most suffer are the people who have the least.

♪ (Voiceover - Buerk) Many places are still as bad now as they were then, and famine will return if we become once again indifferent to of our fellow man.

Pop stars are spoiled perhaps, egotistical maybe, rich beyond the dreams of the ordinary, let alone the destitute.

But they are not indifferent.

Their weird and wonderful crusade has become a bandwagon that's saving lives.

(Stadium announcement) It's twelve noon in London, seven AM in Philadelphia, (Stadium announcement) and around the world it's time for Live Aid.

(Stadium announcement) Sixteen hours of live music in aid of famine relief in Africa.

(Narrator) Just days after the historic visit of the USA for , the outpouring of support continued with what many consider the greatest live concert event in global history.

♪ [Roxanne, you don't have to put on the red light..] (Narrator) Organized by Bob Geldof and Midge Ure, the Live Aid concert was held simultaneously in both London and Philadelphia.

♪ [Roxanne...] (Narrator) Approximately 72,000 people attended the London show.

[Wembley will you please welcome America to Live Aid Day] (Narrator) With close to 90,000 in Philadelphia.

And a combined television audience of an estimated 1.9 billion people, representing about 40% of the world's population at the time.

[Crowd cheering] ♪ ♪ [Mama, just killed a man.

♪ Put a gun against his head, pulled my trigger now he's dead.

♪ Mama...] (Narrator) The rare assembly of artists included Queen, ♪ The Who, ♪ [How long, how long must we sing this song...] U2, ♪ Madonna, ♪ [Get into the groove, ♪ boy you've got to prove, your love to me...] ♪ Tina Turner and Mick Jagger, ♪ [You put me on my knees, please baby please...] (Crowd cheering) With singer Phil Collins performing in both shows on two continents, a global first.

♪ [I can feel it comin in the air tonight, ♪ oh Lord... ♪ ♪ well I've been waiting for this moment, all my life, ♪ oh Lord...] And of course, the whole aim of this evening is pledging the money.

Now, our phone lines are jammed solid at the moment.

I know that for a fact.

(Narrator) Viewers were urged to call in and donate to the cause by bringing much needed food supplies to famine impacted areas in northern Ethiopia, and Sudan.

♪ [There comes a time... ♪ when we heed a certain call ♪ when the world, must come together as one...] (Narrator) The final event in the U.S.

portion of the Live Aid concert was an ensemble performance of We Are The World.

♪ [the greatest gift of all...] (Voiceover-Smith) This famine invisible, right?

It's unfolding at warp speed.

The BBC boom does this thing that gives it visibility.

And then these huge amplifiers come along with Band Aid and USA for Africa and Live Aid, We Are the World and all of that.

And I think, again, the story is so outrageous.

Right.

It's 1984.

People are driving around in their cars.

They're buying fast food.

They're living their lives.

And here are these people starving to death.

♪ (Narrator) Live Aid raised more than one hundred million dollars.

We Are The World raised more than 63 million in its first year, with all royalties administered by USA for Africa.

Neither organization had experience in administering funds for a famine.

Especially not in a nation rife with corruption and locked in civil war.

Yet despite their inexperience, leaders from both organizations made courageous trips to Ethiopia, met with government officials, and spent time with famine victims.

(Voiceover-Bertschinger) I've been with Bob a couple of times in Ethiopia and I've seen how he interacts with the local people, how respectful he is and empathetic asking them what they think and how they think, and what's the best way to move forward.

(Narrator) Food aid played a vital role in ending the famine, and both Mohamen and Bob Geldof became household names in the northern provinces.

But ending the civil war took much longer.

As rebel fighters overtook the capital city of Addis Ababa in 1991, the dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam flew into exile.

As many as 1.5 million people died as a result of the war, with tens of thousands displaced from their homes.

Photojournalist Mohamed Amin documented the end of the regime from the streets of Addis Ababa.

With the city under siege, Mo lost his left arm to an explosion.

Sound engineer John Mathai perished near his side.

During the following two decades the northern provinces enjoyed a relative peace.

Small scale farming was encouraged by the elected Prime Minister, Meles Zenawi.

With an emphasis on sustainable practices and community education, the success of donor organizations like USA for Africa grew stronger through collaboration and support for local initiatives.

(Voiceover-Zenawi) Agriculture is not the past of Africa.

It is also the future of Africa.

70% or more of the population in Africa is composed of small scale farmers.

And so I think it's very important that all of us recognize that we have to do what we have to do on our own and then seek assistance if we can't get it.

If we get it, that's fine.

It's an expression of human solidarity.

If we don't, that's okay too.

This is not their country.

This is not their continent.

They don't have necessarily an obligation to provide us with with assistance.

So we need to get our act together and depend on ourselves more than on handouts from friends.

(Narrator) Prior to Zenawi█s death in 2012, fields near Mekele and the Korem Plateau were nourished by irrigation channels, massive reservoirs designed to help mitigate drought.

And local markets thriving on corn, tomatoes, sorghum and teff.

The current prime minister, Abiy Ahmed Ali has encouraged economic development and investment.

And Addis Ababa has become one of Africa's most prosperous and modern cities.

Tourism has become a significant financial resource.

Including cultural and religious sites like the ancient rock churches in the city of Lalibela.

In July 2020, new fighting broke out in both Tigray and Amhara provinces.

Journalists were again restricted from covering the crisis, and food shortages continue to threaten lives throughout the region.

♪ Today, Ethiopia remains a land of conflict and complex governance.

Driven by language, economic and cultural differences, unity remains elusive.

The work of both USA for Africa and the Band Aid Charitable Trust continues to this day.

During the past four decades, USA for Africa has continued its role in funding not for profit organizations throughout the African continent Whether it's a global pandemic, natural disaster or war, food security continues to be a vital concern for USA for Africa.

During the early 1990s, their program support expanded beyond the Horn of Africa to include all parts of the continent.

(Voiceover-Amin) They found good organizations, did their due diligence on them, and then partnered with them to be their boots on the ground and I think that model was revolutionary, was ahead of its time, and to this day continues to be the way they operate and why they're so successful, insuring that I'll say 99% of everything that they raised has gone to the right people on this continent.

(Voiceover-Abdellqtif) What you're doing is you're empowering the community.

By doing this, you give them a voice and a tool to engage with the government.

Second, you rely on their knowledge and expertise, and it has significant impact more than the monetary itself.

♪ (Voiceover-Thomas) You know, we've probably funded over 600 different projects on the continent or more, and the ones that have always been the most successful are the ones that were run by or set up for the purpose of improving the situation for women and young people, which is pretty much the way the world works, period.

♪ (Narrator) Today, USA for Africa also provides support for education.

♪ The arts, women's empowerment, and cultural heritage.

(Voiceover-Thomas) Which is a tribute to Harry Belafonte because he always said that culture is an essential element for social change.

(Narrator) So what inspired the global response to the famine?

Was it musicians like Harry Belafonte, Lionel Richie and Bob Geldof who motivated fellow artists to help raise consciousness and money?

♪ Was it Red Cross nurse Claire Bertschis commitment to serve?

♪ [The situation in Ethiopia has gone well beyond the stage at which words like tragedy and disaster have any meaning.]

(Narrator) Was it the elegant words of Michael Buerk and Mike Wooldridge?

Or perhaps the images of photojournalist Mohamed Amin?

♪ The commitment of health care workers, frontline journalists and musicians driven by empathy did not eliminate war.

They did not stop rogue nations from using food as a weapon.

But during the four decades since the famine and humanitarian response, the actions have helped define what is possible.

♪ [well well well lets realized ♪ oh that a change can only com, ♪ when we, stand together as one, ya ya ya ya... ♪ Chorus - We are the world...] (Voiceover-Bertschinger) We Are The World, that song brought people together to fight for a common cause.

And they fought in a peaceful way.

They fought getting together, motivating the whole of USA to do something positive.

We Are The World, you're speaking on behalf of the whole world.

Very few songs will ever give you that much power.

But then when you have that many artists standing with you making that statement, then it is actually a powerful statement.

(Voiceover-Kragen) It's a song where the lyrics have meaning to this day, for all kinds of reasons.

They appeal to people, they resonate.

It has inspired two generations of artists now to also utilize their talents to to make the world a better place in their own way.

There's a lot of work to do.

The world is certainly not right.

So I think it reinforced what is fair and what isn't.

And how in any small way can I be part of making the world fairer than it is?

The thing is, helping people is not just giving it just for one day or one year.

You have to support people, whether it's your brothers or your sisters or your the village scouts or whatever.

It's part of life supporting each other, caring for each other.

I cannot think of anything that could happen to the human race that would command another mobilization to do a We Are The World.

I don't think we'll ever see another devastation quite like the starvation that we saw in Africa.

But one never knows.

♪