Band Aid saved my life after millions saw me starving to death on TV – here’s why critics like Ed Sheeran are wrong

Birhan Woldu is furious that her favorite Band Aid is being attacked and is slowly shaking her head in disdain.

With the elegance and dignity of an Ethiopian princess, the mother of two remarked, “That song helped keep me and thousands of others alive.”

Birhanis, who is understandably protective of the 40-year-old pop song that has proven to be a constant milestone in her life, spoke to me at her rented residence in the Tigray highlands.

The 43-year-old is also ready to defend the punk rocker from the 1970s, whose sense of injustice spurred a generation-defining social movement.

Birhan, Band Aid’s daughter, is called by Sir Bob Geldof.

He is like a second father to her.

Her picture in a television report as a starving child served to raise awareness of the catastrophe in Africa.

She has a heartbreaking message for the Boomtown Rats frontman today, forty years after she nearly died during Ethiopia’s biblical famine.

She said to Geldof, through the lens of Sunman Louis Wood’s video camera: Hi, dad. How are you? I would like to see you once again.

One day, I’ll have to show you my husband and kids.

I’m hoping we’ll cross paths again. I cherish you. I’m grateful, Bob.

She responds to opponents who claim that the re-released Do They Know It’s Christmas? is damaging Africa’s reputation by saying, “They are very wrong.”

The work of Bob Geldof is being misrepresented and misunderstood. It’s untrue.

I am aware of the reality.Hospitals and schools have benefited from Band Aid funding. It is crucial for Ethiopia, Tigray, and Africa.

Hard nuts were crying

Not long after I met Birhan on the day of the release of the new Band Aid single, my phone rings and the person on the other end had a distinct Dublin accent.

Robert Frederick Zenon Geldof, 73, is set to promote the most recent remixed version of Do They Know It’s Christmas on the BBC’s The One Show, some 3,700 miles away.

He told me that Birhan is the essence of Band Aid.

In 2004, Birhan and Geldof first met in Ethiopia during a meeting arranged by The Sun.

He remarked, “I was tired,” recalling our recommendation that Do They Know It’s Christmas? be reissued that year. I said, “I’ll do it if you f***ing organize it.”

Coldplay’s Chris Martin and Fran Healy from Travis joined The Sun’s then-editor Dominic Mohan, and it was a success.

The 2024 version is a mashup of the song’s four earlier iterations, including the 2004 version that producer Trevor Horn altered.

Geldof tells me: The new version is extremely terrific, completely gorgeous, just like he was when he exhorted Live Aid viewers to give us your f***in money in 1985.

When Zoe Ball played it on Radio 2, she was crying. She needed to pause and switch to a different music.

They were crying, I promise you, all the f***ing hard nuts in the control room. This song fragment has been transformed into a masterpiece by Trevor Horn.

Not everybody is in agreement.

Ed Sheeran stated that if permission had been requested, he would not have permitted the use of his vocals from the 2014 version.

The lyrics of Geldof’s 1984 have drawn a lot of attention.

Sheeran supported a statement made by British-Ghanaian rapper Fuse ODG, who accused Band Aid of eroding Africa’s pride, dignity, and identity while also promoting harmful preconceptions about the continent.

However, Geldof is not amenable to it, reminding me that it is a pop song and not a PhD thesis.

Birhan conducts Ethiopia’s coffee ritual for us in her tidy living room while her children, Claire, 13, and Ariam, 10, distribute popcorn.

From the sofa, her husband Birhane, 43, and father Woldu, 73, watch with pride.

The scent of the coffee beans roasting blends with the burning incense.

Wearing a traditional white shawl and clothing with embroidery, Birhan reflects on an incredible life.

She would later greet Madonna on the Live 8 stage in 2005, which was viewed by billions of people worldwide. She was born on a dried ox skin spread across the dirt floor of a mud-walled home.

She has appeared on the Oprah Winfrey Show and met Microsoft tycoon Bill Gates, Brad Pitt, and the Beckhams.

The lives of Geldof and her are closely linked to Band Aid.

After witnessing the horrific 1984 reports from BBC correspondent Michael Buerk of thousands of people starving in a hell on Earth in Ethiopia, Bob was resolved to take action.

A Canadian CBC film crew, led by Brian Stewart, captured Birhan stick-thin among the suffering crowds, her milky eyes rolling back into her head in a state of apparent death.

Woldu, her father, recalls: Birhan was dying in my hands. I was unaware that I was being filmed.

Three-year-old Birhan had already had her grave dug and a tattered shroud put for her at a nun-run facility outside the capital of Mekele, Tigray.

She survived, though, and miraculously her pulse returned.

To their surprise, Birhan was still alive when the CBC team returned to the facility.

She claims that she doesn’t remember much of the famine days and that it upsets her to see my photo from that era.

The starvation claimed the lives of her big sister Azmera and mother Alemetsehay.

Back in Britain, Geldof had gathered pop and rock stars from the 1980s, such as Bono, Sting, and Boy George, to perform his words, which were set to music by Midge Ure of Ultravox.

The public’s mood was caught by the catchy pop record.

To send as Christmas cards, some purchased boxes of the single.

Others purchased fifty copies, retained one, and returned the others.

On Monday, Geldof informed me that Vlad, a Serbian, was the man who was taking me to all the studios today.

When he was twenty-one, he was watching Live Aid and believed Britain was so thrilling and wonderful that he simply left his home and came here.

Happy and healthy

At theWembley StadiumLive Aid concert the following summer in 1985, CBC s desolate footage of starving Birhan was played on the big screens with The Cars haunting track Drive.

The camera lingered on Birhan s apparent final moments on Earth.

It was the centrepiece of the gig watched on 85 per cent of the world s TVs.

After her unwitting brush with fame, Birhan carried on with her life, herding the family s goats in the parched mountains of Tigray.

She studied plant science in college and appeared on CBC and BBC documentaries.

Then in 2004, I travelled to Tigray and interviewed Birhan for a Band Aid anniversary piece.

Geldof andSir Tony Blairwere in Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa for a conference at the same time.

What would happen if The Sun arranged for the father of Band Aid to meet its daughter for the first time?

When Bob and the then Prime Minister clapped eyes on her, they both appeared close to tears.

Birhan presented Blair with a cross from Lalibela, Ethiopia s holiest Christian site.

Today she recalls: He was very happy. He said he d keep it at home.Bob hugged me and called me his daughter.

Sun Editor Dominic had called me moments before the meeting with the idea to ask Bob if he would re-record the Band Aid song.

Geldof gave his expletive-laden affirmative without missing a beat.

The Sun then flew Birhan over for the London recording and then for the massive Live 8 concert.

Backstage a host of celebrities queued up to meet her.

Brad Pitt quietly introduced himself, as did a chatty David and Victoria Beckham.

Then the world s richest man, Bill Gates, said hello.

At the time she did not realise who most of the famous faces were.

But when Jeremy Clarkson ambled past at the Hyde Park, London, supergig she shrieked with recognition. Top Gear was hugely popular in Ethiopia.

Back in Ethiopia, she married and had her two daughters.

Her marriage would break down, while she had to put up with assumptions from some in her community that fame had brought her wealth.

Then, in 2020, a civil war broke out in Tigray with widespread atrocities, including massacres of civilians and rape, in the following two years.

It resulted in famine and starvation again stalking the land.

Birhan recalled: Artillery was often passing over our heads.

To support her family, Birhan sold coffee beans on the street.

Some three years ago she met new husband Birhane while working for the World Food programme where he was a supervisor.

Today Birhan says she s happy and healthy .

Now the woman who has been an inspiration to so many wants to start her own charity to help children with disabilities.

To date, Band Aid Charitable Trust has raised almost 150million, with Geldof adding: The song s vigour after 40 years is astonishing.

An American newspaper said recently it s probably the most powerful song ever written in rock and roll.

Birhan now hopes Do They Know It s Christmas? will be a huge hit once more and that another Live 8-style concert will follow.

I want my daughters to come and see me take part, the daughter of Band Aid says.

It would make me so proud.

• In tomorrow s paper: how band aid s cash is still changing lives.

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