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Thursday February 8, 2024
Families still reeling from the aftermath of a two-year
conflict in Tigray are now resorting to increasingly desperate measures to
survive. The conflict and erratic rainfall has further exacerbated the planting
season which threatens to plunge the region into deeper humanitarian
catastrophe if nothing is done, warns Oxfam.
Hareyat (50), a mother of four girls in Kola Tambien at
Meles Preparatory school which is now sheltering displaced people, said: “We
are hungry, our children have nothing to eat sometimes for an entire day.
Pregnant women and mothers with small babies are suffering. The hunger is so
unbearable that mothers are forcing their children to sleep for longer hours to
avoid hunger pains since there is nothing to feed them. Mothers are also having
to feed their children roots meant for animals in order to survive.”
Nearly 400 people according to the national Ombudsman in the
Tigray region – mostly children and elderly – have already died of starvation
in the last six months. 3.5 million people in Tigray are in urgent need of food
assistance with one million people facing acute hunger. Unless humanitarian
efforts are drastically scaled-up, the region could risk plunging into further
starvation.
Oxfam in Ethiopia’s Country Director Gezahegn Kebede said: “It
is morally and politically bankrupt to watch people starve. This is only the
tip of the iceberg, millions more people are having to resort to unimaginable
ways to stave off hunger and find their next meal.”
Food shortages are at critical level as millions face
extreme challenges accessing food in parts of eastern, southern, and central
Tigray, and more people are expected to follow from now to May, according to
FEWSNET.
Despite the ceasefire between Ethiopian government and the
Tigray forces in November 2022, the ongoing conflict in parts of the Amhara
region have forced over 1.55 million people to flee their homes, leaving 9.4
million people – or one in three people in northern Ethiopia – in extreme
hunger.
The drought, the shortage of seeds and the desert locust
invasion which started in late 2023 and persisted to the first weeks of 2024,
has halved the harvest from the planned 1.32 million hectare to 660,000
hectares. Even worse, of the reduced harvest, at least 132,000 hectares of
crops have died, and tens of thousands of livestock have perished during the
current dry season. If the rainy season is delayed further, millions of people will
be pushed into further destitution.
The drop in production of crops has caused food prices to
surge to a five-year-high and caused a shortage of seasonal farming work,
making food unaffordable for millions of people. Many farmers have also lost
their main source of income due to these successive and compounded shocks.
Despite being one of the worst humanitarian crises in the
world, the Northern Ethiopia remains unfunded. Only 34% of the $4 billion UN
appeal for Ethiopia last year was funded.
USAID and WFP suspended food aid for six months, in response
to allegations of food diversion in 2023, which has deteriorated the food
security, cutting the lifeline of emergency food supplies to millions of people
displaced by conflict and climate change. Even though aid has resumed, it’s
only a drop in the desert given the immensity of the needs.
“Without an urgent and major inflow of aid and increased
humanitarian efforts by donors, the lives of many more people are at risk .”
said Kebede.
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