NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) – From “weakened” refugees to burned crops on the verge of harvest, famine threatens the survivors of more than two months of fighting in Ethiopia’s Tigray region.
The first humanitarian workers to arrive after seeking access to the Ethiopian government describe weak children who die of diarrhea after drinking from rivers. The shops were looted or exhausted weeks ago. A local official told a January 1 crisis meeting of government workers and assistance that hungry people had demanded “a single biscuit”.
More than 4.5 million people, almost the entire population of the region, need emergency food, participants say. At their next meeting on January 8, a Tigray administrator warned that without help, “hundreds of thousands could starve to death,” and some already had, according to The Associated Press.
“There is an extreme urgent need – I don’t know what other words used in English – to quickly expand the humanitarian response, because the population dies every day as we speak,” said Mari Carmen Vinoles, head of the Emergency Unit for Doctors Without Borders. , said AP.
But the pockets of battle, the resistance of some officials and pure destruction hinder a massive effort to deliver food. To send 15-kilogram (33-kilogram) rations to 4.5 million people, more than 2,000 trucks would be needed, according to the minutes of the meeting, while some local respondents are reduced to move on foot.
The specter of famine is sensitive in Ethiopia, which has become one of the fastest growing economies in the world in the decades since the images of famine in the 1980s led to a global outcry. Drought, conflict and government denial contributed to the famine, which passed through Tigray and killed about a million people.
The largely agricultural Tigray region, with about 5 million people, already had a food security problem amid a locust outbreak. when Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed on November 4 announced fighting between his forces and those of the defiant regional government. Tigray leaders dominated Ethiopia for nearly three decades, but were ousted after Abiy introduced reforms that earned him the Nobel Peace Prize. in 2019.
Thousands were killed in the conflict. More than 50,000 fled to Sudan, where a doctor said newer arrivals were showing signs of hunger. Others take shelter in rough terrain. A woman who recently left Tigray described sleeping in caves with people bringing cattle, goats, and grain they had managed to pick.
“It is a daily reality to hear people die with the consequences of the struggle, the lack of food,” wrote a letter from the Catholic bishop of Adigrat this month.
HOSPITALS and other health centers crucial to treating malnutrition have been destroyed. In the markets, food “is not available or extremely limited,” says the United Nations.
Although the Prime Minister of Ethiopia declared victory at the end of November, its military and allied fighters remain active amid troops from neighboring Eritrea, a bitter enemy of now-fleeing officials who once ruled the region.
Fear prevents many from venturing out. Others run away. Tigray’s new officials say more than 2 million people have been displaced, a number the US government’s Office of Humanitarian Aid calls “amazing”. The UN says the number of people affected by the aid is “extremely low”.
A senior Ethiopian government official, Redwan Hussein, did not respond to a request for comment on Tigray’s colleagues’ warning of hunger.
In northern Shire, near Eritrea, which has seen some of the worst fighting, up to 10 percent of children whose arms were measured met the diagnostic criteria for severe acute malnutrition, with dozens of children affected, he said. a UN source. Sharing the concern of many humanitarian workers about jeopardizing access, the source spoke on condition of anonymity.
Near the city of Shire are camps that house nearly 100,000 refugees who fled the Eritrean years. Some who have entered the city “are weakened, asking for help that is not available,” UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said on Thursday.
Food was a target. Analyzing satellite images of the Shire area, a UK-based research group found that two warehouse-type structures in the UN World Food Program complex in a refugee camp had been “very specifically destroyed”. The DX open network could not tell by whom. He reported a new attack Saturday.
It is difficult to verify the events in Tigray, as communication links remain weak and almost no journalists are allowed.
In the cities of Adigrat, Adwa and Axum, “the level of civilian casualties is extremely high in the places we could access,” said Vinoles, the emergency officer of Doctors Without Borders. She cited the struggles and lack of medical care.
Hunger is “very worrying,” she said, and even water is scarce: Only two of the 21 wells still operate in Adigrat, a city of more than 140,000 people, forcing many people to drink from the river. With the suffering of sanitation, the disease follows.
“I walk 10 kilometers from the city and it’s a complete disaster,” without food, Vinoles said.
Humanitarian workers are struggling to assess the degree of need.
“Unable to travel on the main highways, it always raises the question of what happens to people outside the borders,” said Panos Navrozidis, director of the Action Against Hunger in Ethiopia.
Prior to the conflict, Ethiopia’s national disaster management body classified some Tigray woredas or administrative areas as priority points for food insecurity. If some have already had a large number of malnutrition, “at two and a half months of crisis, it is a safe assumption that thousands of children and mothers need it immediately,” said Navrozidis.
The US-funded network of early warning systems on famine says parts of central and eastern Tigray are likely to be in emergency phase 4, one step below hunger.
The next few months are critical, said John Shumlansky, Ethiopia’s Catholic Relief Services representative. His group so far has offered up to 70,000 people in Tigray a three-month supply of food, he said.
Asked if the fighters are using hunger as a weapon, a concern among aid workers, Shumlansky rejected it by the Ethiopian defense forces and police. With others, he did not know.
“Still, I don’t think they have food,” he said.