The United Nations (UN) led agencies and aid groups have warned that more than 350,000 people in Ethiopia’s Tigray region are suffering famine conditions, with millions more at risk, reported Africa News.
According to an analysis by UN agencies and aid groups, the ongoing conflict is to be blamed for the worst food crisis in a decade.
“There is famine now in Tigray,” the UN aid chief, Mark Lowcock, said on Thursday after the release of the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) analysis update.
“The number of people in famine conditions … is higher than anywhere in the world, at any moment since a quarter-million Somalis lost their lives in 2011,” Lowcock said.
The update was presented at a meeting on Monday of the Inter-Agency Standing Committee, comprising 18 U.N. and non-U.N. organizations.
As per the analysis update conducted in Tigray and the neighboring zones of Amhara and Afar, that over 350,000 people are in Catastrophe (IPC Phase 5) between May and June 2021. This means households are experiencing famine conditions, but less than 20% of the population is affected and deaths and malnutrition have not reached famine thresholds.
It is estimated that most of the 5.5 million people in Tigray are in urgent need of food aid.
Fighting broke out in the region in November between government troops and the region’s former ruling party, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front. The violence has killed thousands of civilians and forced more than 2 million from their homes.
Commenting on the report, the Ethiopian government said food shortages are not severe and aid is being delivered.
During a press conference on Thursday, the Ethiopian foreign ministry spokesman Dina Mufti said that the government was providing food aid and help to farmers in Tigray.
“They [diplomats] are comparing it with the 1984-1985 famine in Ethiopia,” he said. “That is not going to happen.”
