The United Nations has warned of an imminent famine in the Tigray region (northern Ethiopia) that threatens the death of hundreds of thousands, considering that the region has become a “besieged area”, and called for the withdrawal of Eritrean forces from there.
“Hundreds of thousands of people (Northern Ethiopia) are now in famine conditions, and this is the worst famine problem the world has seen in a decade,” Mark Lowcock, the UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, said in a statement on Saturday.
He also warned that the imminent famine would be the largest “since a quarter of a million Somalis lost their lives in the famine there in 2011,” adding that what is happening now there will have horrific echoes, and likened it to the “enormous tragedy” that occurred in Ethiopia in 1984.
It is reported that between 1984 and 1985, about two million Africans died of starvation or famine-related diseases, about half of them in Ethiopia.
“The economy has been destroyed in the region along with businesses, crops and farms, and there are no banking services or communications,” Lowcock noted, adding, “We are already hearing about starvation-related deaths.” He urged the international community to take concrete steps and provide funds to provide aid.
On the mechanism of delivering food and other humanitarian aid, he said, “It is very difficult for relief agencies. There are more than a million people in opposition-controlled places, and there have been deliberate, repeated and continuous attempts to prevent them from getting food.”
“There are places controlled by Eritreans and other places by militias, where it is very difficult to deliver aid, and there are no workers because of what armed men are doing, doing what their political masters are asking them to do,” the UN official added.
Lowcock said that all barriers must be withdrawn and that the Eritreans “who are responsible for so much must withdraw, so that aid can reach those facing starvation.”
The UN official called on Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, “to do what he said he would do, and to force the Eritreans to leave Ethiopia.” He also called on the leaders of the seven major industrialized countries to put the humanitarian crisis and the threat of widespread famine in northern Ethiopia on the agenda of their summit scheduled for next week in Britain.
bleak picture
In late May, Lowcock painted a bleak picture of the situation in Tigray since the start of the war there last year, where about two million people were displaced, and a large number of civilians were killed and injured, “the territory has also witnessed rape and other forms of “abhorrent sexual violence” on a large scale. It was extensive and systematic, and public and private infrastructure, including hospitals and agricultural land, was destroyed.
On March 26, the Ethiopian Prime Minister said that Eritrea had agreed to withdraw its forces from the Tigray region, and it is believed that Eritrean forces played a major military role alongside the Ethiopian army in the Addis Ababa military campaign against the Tigray forces.
On November 4 last, clashes erupted in the region between the army and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, before Addis Ababa announced on the 28th of the same month, the end of the “law enforcement” operation to control the entire region, despite reports of continued violations rights in the region to this day.