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from: CARA ANNA, Associated Press
Posted: Sep 7, 2021 / 8:14 am CDT
Updated: 09/07/2021 / 08:14 AM CDT
A young girl from Tigrayan sits on sacks of wheat after the World Food Program (WFP) distributed food to around 13,000 people in the rural village of Zelazle in the Tigray region of northern Ethiopia on Monday, August 23, 2021. (Claire Nevill / WFP via AP)
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) – At least 150 people starved to death in Ethiopia’s contested Tigray region last month amid an almost complete blockade of food aid by federal and Allied authorities, the Tigray forces say, while nearly half a million people are at risk of famine Conditions.
The starvation occurred in six communities as well as in camps for hundreds of thousands of internally displaced people in the city of Shire, according to a briefing from the Tigray External Affairs Office late Monday. It is the largest public rating of starvation deaths to date, despite The Associated Press reporting at least 125 deaths in a single county earlier this year.
In Tigray, a region with a population of 6 million, food aid ran out last month as the United Nations reported intensive searches and delays in humanitarian cargo by Ethiopian authorities, who fear that Tigray troops fighting against Ethiopian and allied troops are fighting for the last 10 months after a political altercation.
“The complete depletion of food supplies has meant that the refugee camps receive no help and the host communities, which now have no more food themselves, are no longer able to support them,” said Tigray’s statement.
A spokeswoman for Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The government has claimed aid is reaching Tigray and blaming the Tigray forces and insecurity for all problems.
The International Organization for Migration, which says more than 2 million people have been displaced in Tigray, did not immediately respond to a question about starvation, but the agency noted last month that “the reception capacities of the local population appear to have reached their limits” . which most of them support.
The first aid convoy in over two weeks arrived in Tigray regional capital Mekele on Monday, but the World Food Program has said that such a convoy of around 100 trucks must arrive daily to meet urgent needs of more than 5 million Persons.
Telecommunications, electricity and banking services have been cut off again for Tigray since Tigray troops retook much of the region in June. While AP witnesses have said that access within the region is safer and easier, they say that with dwindling supplies of food, fuel and cash, it is becoming increasingly impossible to serve the hungry.
The war has since spread to Ethiopia’s neighboring regions of Amhara and Afar, displacing hundreds of thousands of people. Health facilities that are supported by the International Committee of the Red Cross in these regions “have taken in more and more wounded in recent weeks,” said the ICRC on Tuesday.
“If the fighting does not subside, we can only see a worsening of the situation in the next few weeks or months,” said WFP spokesman Gordon Weiss of the AP. “We knew that in June there were around 400,000 people on the verge of starvation-like conditions (in Tigray). We haven’t really managed to properly assess the situation since then, it was too difficult, but we can expect that the population has grown and its conditions have worsened. “
The United Nations, the United States and others are calling on the warring parties to stop fighting and find a way to negotiate peace, but the Ethiopian government this year declared the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, which once dominated the national government, a terrorist group.
Tigray leader Debretsion Gebremichael, in a September 3 letter, seen by the AP and sent to more than 50 leaders and multilateral organizations, calls for pressure on Ethiopia for the “immediate and unconditional lifting of the siege of Tigray.” “An internationally sponsored and all-encompassing negotiation” for a ceasefire.
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