“There is famine now, this is going to get a lot worse,” said UN humanitarian chief Mark Lowcock, addressing the crisis in northern Ethiopia.
UN analytic study found that 350,000 people were living in “severe crisis” in the Tigray region. Tigray has been torn up by continuous war between government forces and rebels. This has displaced 1.7 million people since the fighting began in November 2020.
The food situation in the region has reached the level of a “catastrophe”, which it defines as starvation and death affecting small groups of people spread over large areas. Thus, UN’s World Food Programme (WFP), Food and Agriculture Organization and children’s agency Unicef have all called for urgent action to address the crisis.
‘Death is knocking on our door’
People in Qafta Humera, an isolated district in the west of Tigray, said that they were on the verge of starvation.
Tigray people, who have fled due to conflicts have received the food aid distributed by United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
“We don’t have anything to eat,” said an Ethiopian man, explaining their crops and livestock had been looted during seven months of war. They were being prevented from seeking aid by a militia fighting with government forces, he added. “We were eating small remains of crops that we managed to hide, but now we don’t have anything,” added a farmer.
In 1984, Tigray and the next-door province of Wollo were the epicentre of a famine caused by a combination of drought and war that led to between 600,000 and one million deaths.
Source: bbc.com