More than 60 days after food deliveries resumed in Ethiopia’s Tigray region, only 14% of the targeted 3.2 million people have received food aid, according to a confidential memo seen by The Associated Press. The document, drafted by the Tigray Food Cluster, a group of humanitarian aid agencies co-chaired by the United Nations World Food Program and Ethiopian officials, urges humanitarian organizations to immediately scale up operations, warning of harsh food insecurity and malnutrition during the lean season, with the risk of losing the most vulnerable children and women in the region.
The suspension of food aid to Tigray was put in place in March 2021 by the United Nations and the United States after the discovery of a large diversion of grain intended for humanitarian aid. Despite the resumption of aid in December following the implementation of reforms aimed at countering these thefts, authorities in Tigray say that food aid is not reaching people in need.
The new system implemented, including GPS tracking of food trucks and ration cards with QR codes, is encountering technical problems which are causing delays. Additionally, aid agencies face a lack of funding, further complicating the situation.
Some people living in the Tigray region have not received food aid in more than a year, despite multiple registration and verification procedures, according to anonymous aid workers interviewed by The Associated Press.
This food crisis adds to the already worrying situation in Ethiopia, where around 20.1 million people are in need of food assistance due to drought, conflict and a deteriorating economy. The US-funded Famine Early Warning System has warned that levels of food crisis or worse are expected in northern, southern and southeastern Ethiopia at least until beginning of 2024.
The neighboring Amhara region is also facing humanitarian challenges due to an ongoing rebellion since August. Furthermore, several regions of Ethiopia have been hit hard by a multi-year drought.
Malnutrition rates among children in parts of Ethiopia’s Afar, Amhara and Oromia regions reach between 15.9% and 47%, according to a presentation by the Ethiopia Nutrition Cluster. Among displaced children from Tigray, this rate rises to 26.5%.
Tigray was the scene of a devastating two-year civil war, which claimed hundreds of thousands of lives and spilled over into neighboring regions. A United Nations report has accused the Ethiopian government of using “starvation as a method of warfare” by restricting food aid to Tigray during the conflict.
The ongoing insecurity situation in the region also led to a significant decline in cultivated land last year, with only 49% of Tigray’s agricultural land planted during the main planting season.
Faced with this situation, the authorities of Tigray launched an appeal for immediate humanitarian action in order to avoid a food disaster comparable to that of 1984-1985, which caused the death of hundreds of thousands of people in the north of the country. Ethiopia.
However, the Ethiopian federal government denies the existence of a major food crisis. When Tigray leader Getachew Reda recently sounded the alarm about risks of mass deaths from imminent famine, a federal government spokesperson called the reports “inaccurate” and accused Getachew Reda of “politicizing the crisis”.
The situation therefore remains very worrying in Ethiopia, where millions of people struggle with hunger and malnutrition, while humanitarian organizations struggle to provide adequate aid due to logistical and financial difficulties. Continued attention and concerted efforts at the national and international level are needed to address this humanitarian crisis.