MSF warns of food crisis in southern Ethiopia

Doctors Without Borders (MSF) warned Thursday that areas in southern Ethiopia where ethnic violence has driven nearly a million people from their homes into squalid camps have been reported by severe malnutrition.

Over the past two weeks, MSF has treated more than 200 severely malnourished children in Gedeo, where renewed violence among these minorities has forced families to flee.

MSF field coordinator Markus Boening said some parents arrived at their clinics with children who were hooked on life and suffering the worst form of malnutrition.

"Many of them are coming a lot, way too late … We lost children because of that," he told AFP, without providing a global figure for the dead .

Violence between the largest Ethiopian minority, the Oromo and the Gedeo people have affected areas of southern Gedeo and western Guji since April 2018, shortly after the inauguration of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed.

The fighting stopped at the end of the year and nearly one million people displaced by the conflict began to return to their homes in Gedeo and West Guji, essential coffee production areas.

But a new surge of violence in March saw families take over, many leaving behind their only source of income as they piled into impoverished IDP camps.

"The situation in the camps is quite disastrous, from my point of view, in terms of housing, water and sanitation," Boening said.

"It can become catastrophic."

Elected by the ruling party in Ethiopia after more than two years of anti-government unrest, Abiy announced popular reforms such as the end of hostilities with neighboring Eritrea and the hosting of banned groups in the country.

But his first year in power was marked by violence between Oromo and Gedeo – among other ethnicities – while 1.8 million people fled their homes in 2018, the highest displacement rate on the planet.

Boening warned that those trying to survive in camps in southern Ethiopia would face new difficulties when the rainy season began in the coming weeks.

"To improve the situation, we need absolutely more help," he said.