- Tigray faces severe famine
- Starvation claims many lives
- Aid delays exacerbate crisis
According to local authorities, since July, over 200 individuals in the town of Edaga Arbi, located in the war-torn and drought-stricken Tigray region of Ethiopia, have died of starvation.
An additional sixteen have perished in the neighbouring hamlet of Adwa.
The region is on the verge of a catastrophe not seen since 1984, according to officials in Tigray, which instigated the international fundraising music event Live Aid the following year.
Famine, however, is an extremely delicate subject in Ethiopia.
The central government in Addis Ababa denies the impending catastrophe and asserts that aid is in the works.
Humanitarians and medical professionals, however, assert that aid is not arriving quickly enough, rendering them incapable of saving lives.
“As a physician, I persistently observe patients passing away. It is in vain to possess knowledge and abilities if I am unable to assist my people,” declares Desta Kahsay, located in the city of Shire.
He compares the situation to “Doomsday” in which people perish unduly from avoidable causes.
Many of the dying are adolescents and infants.
Abrehet Kiros, a native of Tigray, informs the regional television station that she routinely visits her elderly neighbour, who is bereft of any family to care for her in the wake of the recent civil war-related loss of her grandson.
Everyone here is in dire straits; starvation affects us all. We solicit the support of everyone who is capable of doing so,” she declares.
In the spring of last year, the World Food Programme and USAID discovered allegations of food aid thievery in Ethiopia. As a result, they suspended aid to the country for several months before gradually resuming operations in December. Approximately 1,500 individuals reportedly perished in Tigray from malnutrition at that time.
The United Nations estimates that twenty million individuals in Ethiopia need food assistance due to drought, inundation, and conflict.
The Early Famine Warning Systems Network forecasts that the food crisis will escalate to an emergency status on a near-national level by mid-2024.
The food crisis is impacting the conflict-affected northern region of Amhara, portions of southern Ethiopia, and Tigray.
According to analyst Alex de Waal, the dire state of affairs in Tigray is the result of an assortment of factors.
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“It has yet to recover from the devastation and destruction of its assets, the mass displacement, the inability to pay salaries, and the loss of employment that the war caused.” He stated, “Additionally, there has been an extreme drought.”
He concurs that Ethiopia’s current food crisis has the potential to worsen to the extent that it did forty years ago and cautions that “if prompt action is not taken, at least 500,000 people could perish from starvation in the coming year.”
According to Dr Kahsay in Shire, many have already given up hope.
Assemblies of daily lament and funerals have become customary, and individuals have come to terms with the fact that death is an inevitable consequence.
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