NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) – From “smeared” refugees to burned crops on the brink of harvest, famine threatens survivors of more than two months of fighting in the Tigray region of Ethiopia.
The first aid workers to arrive after applying for access to the Ethiopian government described the debilitated children dying of diarrhea after drinking in the rivers. Stores were looted or sold out weeks ago. A local official told a January 1 crisis meeting of the government and humanitarian workers that hungry people had asked for “a single cookie”.
Participants say more than 4.5 million people, almost the entire population of the region, need emergency food. At his next meeting on Jan. 8, a Tigray administrator warned that without help, “hundreds of thousands could starve to death” and that some had already done so, according to minutes obtained by The Associated Press.
“There is an extreme urgent need (I don’t know what other words in English to use) to quickly increase the humanitarian response because the population dies every day as we speak,” said Mari Carmen Vinoles, head of the Emergency Medical Unit without borders, he told the AP.
But fighting bags, the resistance of some officials, and utter destruction hamper a massive food delivery effort. More than 2,000 trucks would be needed to send 15-kilogram (33-pound) rations to 4.5 million people, according to the minutes of the meeting, while some local users are reduced to walking.
The spectrum of hunger is sensitive in Ethiopia, which has become one of the fastest growing economies in the world for decades since images of famine back in the 1980s sparked a global outcry. Drought, conflict and government denial contributed to the famine, which swept through Tigray and killed about a million people.
The Tigray region, largely agricultural, of about 5 million people, already had a food security problem amid a locust outbreak. when Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed on November 4 announced the fighting between his forces and those of the challenging 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 of people have died in the conflict. More than 50,000 have fled to Sudan, where a doctor has said newcomers are showing signs of fam. Others take refuge in rugged terrain. A woman who recently left Tigray described sleeping in caves with people carrying cattle, goats and grain they had managed to harvest.
“It is a daily reality to hear people die with the consequences of the struggle, the lack of food,” a letter from the Catholic bishop of Adigrat said this month.
Hospitals and other health centers, crucial to treating malnutrition, have been destroyed. In the markets, food “is not available nor is it extremely limited,” says the United Nations.
Although the Prime Minister of Ethiopia declared victory in late November, its military and allied fighters remain active amid the presence of troops from neighboring Eritrea, a bitter enemy of the now fugitive officers who once ruled the region.
Fear prevents many people from venturing out. Others flee. Tigray’s new officials say more than 2 million people have been displaced, a number the U.S. government’s Humanitarian Aid Office describes as “surprising.” The United Nations says the number of people being cared for with help is “extremely low.”
A senior Ethiopian government official, Redwan Hussein, did not respond to a request for comment on Tigray’s comrades warning of starvation.
In the northern part of Shire, near Eritrea, which has suffered some of the worst fighting, up to 10% of children whose arms were measured met the diagnostic criteria for severe acute malnutrition, with dozens of children affected. , said a UN source. Sharing the concern of many humanitarian workers to jeopardize access, the source spoke on condition of anonymity.
Near the city of Shire are camps where there are about 100,000 refugees who have fled over the years from Eritrea. Some who have entered the city “are emaciated, asking for help that is not available,” UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said on Thursday.
Food has been a goal. Analyzing satellite images of the Shire area, a UK-based research group found that two warehouse-style structures in the UN World Food Program complex in a refugee camp had state “very specifically destroyed.” DX Open Network didn’t know for whom. He reported a new attack Saturday.
It is difficult to check events in Tigray, as communication links remain poor and journalists are hardly allowed.
In the cities of Adigrat, Adwa and Axum, “the level of civilian casualties is extremely high in the places we have been able to access,” said Vinoles, emergency manager for Médecins Sans Frontières. He cited the fighting and the lack of health care.
Hunger is “very worrying,” he said, and even water is scarce: only two of the 21 wells still operate in Adigrat, a city of more than 140,000, forcing many people to drink from the river. With the suffering of sanitation, diseases occur.
“Go 10 miles from town and it’s a complete disaster,” without food, Vinoles said.
Humanitarian workers struggle to measure the extent of the need.
“By not being able to travel on major highways, the question of what happens to people still out of bounds is always raised,” said Panos Navrozidis, director of Action Against Hunger in Ethiopia.
Prior to the conflict, Ethiopia’s national disaster management agency classified some Tigray woredas, or administrative areas, as priority points for food insecurity. If some already had a high number of malnutrition, “two and a half months after the crisis, it is a safe assumption that thousands of children need it immediately,” Navrozidis said.
The U.S.-funded network of early warning systems on hunger says some parts of central and eastern Tigray are likely to be in emergency phase 4, one step below hunger.
The coming months are critical, said John Shumlansky, the representative of Catholic relief services in Ethiopia. His group has so far given up to 70,000 people in Tigray a food supply for three months, he said.
Asked if the fighters use hunger as a weapon, one of the concerns of the assistance workers, Shumlansky dismissed it by the Ethiopian defense forces and police. With others I didn’t know.
“I don’t think they have food either,” he said.