Shortages of fuel and cash have virtually interrupted humanitarian operations in Ethiopia’s Tigray region, which has been plagued by 15 months of war, a UN agency warned on Thursday (February 10th).
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The conflict between Ethiopian government forces and Tigray rebels has claimed thousands of lives and, according to the United Nations, has brought hundreds of thousands of people to the brink of starvation. A region of six million inhabitants, Tigray has been subjected for six months to what the UN describes as “de facto blockade of humanitarian aid“. Washington accuses the government of blocking the distribution of aid, while Addis Ababa blames the situation on rebel incursions.
Aid deliveries to Tigray have beenwidely reduced or suspended, including essential distributions of food, water, health services“, writes the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha) in a statement released Thursday. In addition, the agency points out that no fuel deliveries have been authorized in the region since August 2, 2021, with the exception of two trucks in November, while a cash crisis has left organizations to aim local nonprofits deeply in debt and struggling to pay salaries since last June.
New fights
Fresh fighting in the neighboring Afar region has also disrupted the distribution of emergency aid. This situation has prevented deliveries since December 15 along the main humanitarian aid corridor which stretches from Semera, the capital of Afar, to Mekele, the capital of Tigray. “A total of 1,339 trucks have entered the Tigray region from Semera since July 12, representing about 9% of the aid needed to meet the scale of humanitarian needs in Tigraywrites Ocha.
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Aid workers were able to airlift vital medical supplies to Tigray, but these fell far short of what was needed there, the UN agency said, with the population resorting to desperate measures such as use of sheets to make gauze. Malnutrition continues to skyrocket in Tigray, underlines Ocha, specifying that 6.4% of children screened were diagnosed with acute malnutrition between February 1 and 7.
The aids intended to deal with these cases are “completely exhausted or almost entirely exhausted“, warns this agency. Last January, the UN’s World Food Program (WFP) warned that almost 40% of the population was suffering from “extreme shortage of foodin Tigray.