The nearly two-year conflict in Ethiopia has left almost half the population of Tigray region in “severe” need of food, as aid groups struggle to reach the population because of insufficient fuel supplies, the World Food Programme (WFP) has said.
Even though the delivery of aid resumed after the federal government declared a unilateral ceasefire in March, malnutrition rates have “skyrocketed” and are expected to worsen, the United Nations agency said in an assessment on Thursday.
Services such as banking and telecommunications were cut in Tigray, home to around 5.5 million people, days after the national army and allied forces pulled out a year ago. They are yet to be restored, hampering the ability of people to buy food, the WFP said.
Half of the pregnant or lactating women in Tigray are malnourished, as well as a third of children under five, leading to stunting and maternal death, the report found.
Food aid
Across Tigray and the neighboring regions of Afar and Amhara, also affected by the war, an estimated 13 million people need food aid, a 44 percent increase from the previous WFP report released in January.
The United Nations said that since April 1 only 1,750,000 liters of fuel had entered Tigray, less than 20 percent of the monthly humanitarian needs in the region if all supplies were in. The impact of the fuel shortage can be seen in the increase in the number of people in Tigray needing food aid.
In January, when the region was under what the UN described as a de facto blockade for six months, 83 percent of people needed food aid.
Large-scale convoys started entering Tigray again in April but aid workers are struggling to distribute the food and the number of people needing it has risen to 89 percent, with those in “severe” needs up from 37 percent in January to 47 percent in August.
Peace talks
The fighting has displaced millions of people, pushed parts of Tigray into famine conditions and killed thousands of civilians.
Hopes for imminent peace talks between Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), the group that controls Tigray, are fading, as both parties accuse the other of not wanting to come to the table.
The government said earlier this month it wants talks “with no preconditions”, while Tigray’s government has called for the restoration of services to civilians first.
The World Health Organization’s director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who is from Tigray, suggested this week that racism was behind a lack of international attention being paid to the plight of civilians in the region.
