Arthur Greene
People in Ethiopia’s war-torn Tigray region are forced to eat “only green leaves for days”, as widespread starvation becomes the latest chapter in the country’s devastating civil war.
A “de-facto humanitarian blockade” now surrounds Tigray, according to the United Nations, preventing any aid from reaching those who are at risk of starvation.
The UN reported last week that hundreds of trucks carrying aid into Tigray have gone missing. It’s humanitarian team said that out of a convoy of 149 trucks sent into the capital Mekele two weeks ago, not a single one has returned.
Since 12 July, only 38 out of 466 trucks that have entered Tigray have returned.
“Before the war, my daughter was in good physical and mental health… now look at her,” said the mother of a 20-month-old in the northern city of Adigrat, according to one testimony heard by AFP.
“It’s been weeks since she lost her appetite. Presently she cannot walk, she lost her smiley face.”
An estimated 2.2 million people have been forced from their homes and thousands have been killed in the country’s civil war which broke out last November when the government sent troops into Tigray.
Now, following months of heavy fighting which has produced reports of massacres and mass rape, the region is entering a new phase of fatalities driven by widespread famine.
An aid group reported last week that people have starved to death in every single one of the more than 20 districts in which it operates. Last week, a mother and her newborn starved to death at one of its health centres.
“It’s a silent killing. People are just dying,” Dr Hayelom Kebede, research director of Ayder Referral Hospital in Tigray’s capital Mekele, told AFP.
For the past month, the war has been stuck in a stalemate between the forces of the Tigrayan Defence Force on the one hand and the Ethiopian military, ethnic Amhara militia and Eritrean forces.
However, the Tigrayans have made decisive breakthroughs in the last few days. Not only have they cut the main road to Gondar, the Amhara capital, but now appeared poised to capture the city of Dessie that will open the way to Addis Ababa.
Image source: @UNEthiopia
