Ethiopia: UN food shortages in Tigray region as 400,000 people face famine

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The agency confirmed that no food truck has been allowed in the area for two weeks.

They told CNN in a statement that 100 trucks were to arrive each day in order to meet “the region’s vast humanitarian needs” and that the shortfall had left “400,000 people on the brink of starvation.”

The situation comes a week after forces from Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region launched attacks in neighboring Afar, a move that marked the expansion of an eight-month-old conflict into an area previously intact.

David Beasley, Executive Director of WFP, initially warned earlier this week that 170 trucks full of food and supplies for Tigray had been stranded in Afar and prevented from leaving. “These trucks must be allowed to drive NOW. People are starving,” he tweeted on Tuesday.

The deputy spokesman for the UN secretary general said last week that the roads between Afar and Tigray via the town of Semera “remain blocked for security reasons”, preventing the entry of humanitarian personnel , stocks of food, fuel and other humanitarian goods.

Ethiopian forces from Tigray enter neighboring Afar region, says Afar

Thousands of people have died in the Tigray conflict so far, with an estimated 2 million people forced to flee their homes and more than 5 million dependent on emergency food aid.

And the situation worsens as the fighting continues. UNICEF estimated on Friday that more than 100,000 children in Tigray could suffer from life-threatening severe acute malnutrition next year, a ten-fold increase from the average annual figure.

“Our worst fears about the health and well-being of children in this conflicted region of northern Ethiopia are confirmed,” UNICEF spokeswoman Marixie Mercado said, adding that the humanitarian organization had does the math after reaching areas of Tigray that were previously inaccessible due to insecurity.

“This malnutrition crisis comes against a backdrop of significant and systematic damage to the food, health, nutrition, water and sanitation systems and services on which children and their families depend for their survival,” said Mercado . “Reversing the disaster in nutrition, health, water and food security requires a massive increase in humanitarian assistance. “

A communication breakdown in the region has made it difficult to determine the situation in Tigray and its capital Mekelle in recent months. But CNN reported earlier this month that food shortages in Mekelle were rife and most homes did not have access to running water.
The Tigray conflict has raged since November, when fighting broke out between the ruling Popular Front for the Liberation of Tigray (TPLF) and the Ethiopian army. CNN previously reported how Eritrean troops killed, raped and blocked humanitarian aid to starving populations, more than a month after the country’s leader, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate, pledged to the international community that they would leave.

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