At least 2 million people in the Tigray region of northern Ethiopia suffer from extreme food shortages, and the 15-month conflict between rebel and government forces is pushing families to the brink, the investigation found. UN emergency food agency.
In the first integral In the assessment that the World Food Program (WFP) has carried out in Tigray since the beginning of the war, it was found that 37% of the population were severely food insecure, meaning that they had sometimes run out of food and they would go a day or more without eating.
Families were found to be “exhausting all means of feeding themselves”, with 13% of Tigrayan children under the age of five and nearly two-thirds of pregnant and lactating women suffering from malnutrition.
“Before the conflict we ate three times a day, but now even once a day is difficult. I was borrowing food from my family, but now they’ve run out. We just sleep and hope we don’t perish,” Kiros, a single mother of six who lives on the outskirts of the region’s capital, Mekelle, told researchers.
The assessment, which was based on face-to-face interviews with 980 households in accessible parts of Tigray, was carried out from mid-November to mid-December.
However, investigators were unable to travel to areas where fighting impedes humanitarian access. Furthermore, since the assessment was carried out, the region’s needs are believed to have become even more acute, as no aid convoy has reached Tigray for some six weeks.
“This bleak assessment reconfirms that what the people of northern Ethiopia need is more humanitarian assistance, and they need it now,” said Michael Dunford, WFP’s regional director for East Africa.
“WFP is doing everything possible to ensure that our food and medicine convoys reach the front line. But if hostilities continue, we need all parties to the conflict to agree to a humanitarian pause and formally agreed transport corridors, so that supplies can reach the starving millions.”
In northern Ethiopia, where fighting has broken out in the Afar and Amhara regions, as well as in Tigray, WFP estimates that 9 million people are in need of humanitarian food assistance, the highest number ever.
In Amhara, hunger has more than doubled in five months, he says. In Afar, where fighting has intensified in recent days between the Popular Front for the Liberation of Tigray and forces loyal to Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, recent health screening data showed that malnutrition rates for children under five years were 28%, well above the standard emergency threshold of 15%.
Since the conflict broke out in November 2020, it has been difficult for the UN and other humanitarian organizations to gauge the level of need in Tigray due to lack of access and telecommunications on the ground. The UN has accused the federal government of preventing essential food and medical supplies from entering the region in a de facto blockade. The government denies it.
On Wednesday, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said it had made its first delivery of medical supplies to Mekelle since last September. The drugs are understood to have included enough supplies of insulin to last about a month, after doctors at the Ayder referral hospital raised the alarm about severe shortages.
Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, head of the World Health Organization, recently accused the Abiy government of imposing “hell” on Tigray by denying the entry of medical supplies.
“It is a great relief that this first shipment is reaching hospitals,” said Apollo Barasa, health coordinator at the ICRC delegation in Ethiopia. “This assistance is a lifeline to thousands of people, and I cannot stress enough how crucial it is that these deliveries continue.”
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George is Digismak’s reported cum editor with 13 years of experience in Journalism