The United Nations is deeply concerned about the people of the Tigray region of northern Ethiopia. Some 350,000 people are starving and millions are also threatened with a food crisis, the UN warns after research from the IPC, an organization that analyzes food scarcity.
“The number of people living in famine is higher than anywhere else in the world,” said UN envoy Mark Lowcock. He compares the situation with the famine in Somalia in 2011. The IPC does not speak of famine itself, but of “phase 5 of catastrophe”.
Crops have failed and the food that is left is unaffordable for many people. It is estimated that more than 90 percent of the crop has been lost to looting, fire or other destruction, and 80 percent of the region’s livestock has been looted or slaughtered.
Accumulation of conflicts
According to the IPC, the crisis in Tigray is an accumulation of disasters. “Conflicts, limited humanitarian access, crop failure and loss of livelihoods, and dysfunctional or non-existent markets.” The area has been difficult for aid organizations to reach since war broke out almost seven months ago between the Ethiopian government army and Tigres militias.
Hundreds of thousands of people have now been displaced. It is a war behind closed doors, because nobody knows exactly what is happening in the area. There are credible allegations of looting and murders, of abducted refugees and of an army invasion from neighboring Eritrea. Some even speak of genocide.
While there is overwhelming evidence of a major humanitarian crisis, the Ethiopian government previously denied that there have been deaths. The government locked the door, aid workers and journalists barely get in.
Denial
The UN has therefore made an urgent appeal to allow food aid. Whether this will be heeded remains to be seen. The findings of the report are still not recognized by the Ethiopian government. He denies the seriousness of the situation and says that help is indeed being provided.
“Diplomats compare the situation with the famine of 1984, 1985 in Ethiopia,” said a spokesman for the Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs according to Reuters news agency at a press conference. “But that’s not going to happen.”
Famine has been declared twice in the last ten years: in Somalia in 2011 and in parts of South Sudan in 2017. “If the conflict escalates further or if humanitarian aid is hampered, most areas of Tigray will also be at risk of famine” , according to the IPC. According to the institute, this will already be the case around September, if something doesn’t happen soon.
–
