In the two months since the US and the UN suspended food aid to Ethiopia’s war-ravaged Tigray region, at least 728 people have died, according to the regional government.
Most of those who died were children, pregnant mothers, and people with underlying health conditions, says Gebrehiwot Gebregziaher of Tigray’s Disaster Risk Management Commission.
He says that although USAid and the UN World Food Programme (WFP) officially froze aid in April – after discovering shipments were being stolen and re-sold – in reality many Tigrayans had been without aid for much longer.
People feel they are “dying of famine in the dark even though it is declared to the world [that] peace is flourished,” said Dr Gebrehiwot, referring to a peace deal made in Pretoria in November last year between Ethiopia’s government and TPLF rebels after two years of civil war.