The situation is expected to worsen if the conflict deepens and not enough aid is available.
Roughly 350,000 people in the Ethiopian region of Tigray are suffering from famine, the UN says.
“There’s a famine in Tigray now,” the UN relief director Mark Lowcock said at a report release on Thursday, according to news agency Reuters.
He said more people in Tigray are now suffering from famine than anywhere else in the world, and more than ever since 2011, when there was a famine in Somalia.
The situation could worsen in the coming months, as more than 90 percent of the 5.5 million people in Tigray, which was already in the middle of the war, need food aid.
Fight broke out in Tigray in northern Ethiopia in November between Ethiopian central government and rebel state forces. Soldiers also arrived from the Eritrean side to fight the troops of the TPLF, which controls Tigray.
Thousands of civilians have died in the fighting and more than two million people have been forced to flee their homes.
UN according to the analysis, 350,000 of Tigray’s residents suffer from a level 5 famine, the highest alarm status.
The crisis has meant a build-up of problems when people have had to flee, their movement is restricted, humanitarian aid is not properly accessed and farmland is lost.
If the conflict deepens and humanitarian aid is disrupted, the vast majority of the Tigray region is threatened with famine, the UN warns. Even if aid is increased, the situation is expected to worsen in the coming months.
The Ethiopian government denied the allegations, saying the food shortage is not serious and that aid is being distributed.
Read more: More than a hundred dead in regional unrest in Ethiopia – Foreign Minister Haavisto to travel again to discuss Tigray situation
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source https://pledgetimes.com/2021/06/ethiopia-un-warns-more-than-350000-people-are-at-risk-of-starvation-in-tigray-ethiopia/
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