International aid group Oxfam warned on Thursday of a worsening hunger crisis in Ethiopia’s Tigray region.
After two years of conflict, erratic rainfall during the planting season is threatening to plunge the Tigray region of Ethiopia into a deeper humanitarian catastrophe.
Oxfam’s director in Ethiopia, Gezahegn Kebede, stated that millions more people were “having to resort to unimaginable ways to stave off hunger and find their next meal.”
“It is morally and politically bankrupt to watch people starve […] Without an urgent and major inflow of aid and increased humanitarian efforts by donors, the lives of many more people are at risk.”
Ethiopia’s Disaster Risk Management Commission reported in January that nearly 4 million people, mostly living in drought-affected states, were in need of urgent food assistance. Afar, Amhara, Tigray and Oromia regions, as well as the southern and south-western parts of the country, are the most affected by the drought.
Oxfam’s warning comes against the backdrop of the war-stricken Tigray region, which is experiencing one of the worst humanitarian crises in decades.
