Ethiopia’s national ombudsman has admitted that nearly 400 people have died of starvation in the Tigray and Amhara regions in recent months, a rare admission of hunger-related deaths by a federal body. Local officials have previously reported starvation deaths in their districts, but Ethiopia’s federal government has insisted these reports are “completely wrong.”
The ombudsman office sent experts to the regions, which are gripped by drought and still reeling from a devastating civil war that officially ended 14 months ago. They concluded that 351 people have died of hunger in Tigray in the past six months, with 44 more deaths in Amhara.
Only a small fraction of needy people in Tigray are receiving food aid, according to an aid memo seen by The Associated Press. Just 14% of 3.2 million people targeted for food aid by humanitarian agencies in Tigray this month had received it by Jan. 21, according to the memo by the Tigray Food Cluster, a group of aid agencies co-chaired by the U.N.’s World Food Program and Ethiopian officials.
The memo urges humanitarian groups to “immediately scale up” their operations, warning that failure to take swift action now will result in severe food insecurity and malnutrition during the lean season, with possible loss of the most vulnerable children and women in the region.
The U.N. and the U.S. paused food aid to Tigray in mid-March last year after discovering a “large-scale” scheme to steal humanitarian grain. The suspension was rolled out to the rest of Ethiopia in June. Donors have blamed Ethiopian government officials and the military for the fraud. The U.N. and the U.S. lifted the pause in December after introducing reforms to curb theft, but Tigray authorities say food is not reaching those who need it. Aid agencies are also struggling with a lack of funds.
Malnutrition rates among children in parts of Ethiopia’s Afar, Amhara, and Oromia regions range between 15.9% and 47%, with displaced children in Tigray at 26.5%. Tigray, home to 5.5 million people, was the center of a devastating two-year civil war that killed hundreds of thousands and spilled into neighboring regions.
(AP)
