WFP warns over 80% of Tigray residents suffer from food insecurity
The United Nations had warned of the threat of violence to the people of Tigray, and now the WFP estimates the severity of the threat to the Tigrayan people is devastating.
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A two-year-old Tigrayan child is treated for malnutrition at the Ayder Referral Hospital in Mekele, in the Tigray region of northern Ethiopia, May 6, 2021 (AP)
83% of people in Ethiopia's Tigray region are food insecure after 15 months of war, and nearly 75% of families experience a severe lack of food, the World Food Program (WFP) said Friday.
The Tigray Emergency Food Security found that "83% of people are food insecure. Families are exhausting all means to feed themselves, with three-quarters of the population using extreme coping strategies to survive."
According to the WFP, diets in Tigray are increasingly impoverished as food items become more scarce and unavailable, with families relying almost exclusively on cereals of limited portion sizes. The number of meals consumed per day is also being rationed just like portion sizes in order to make available food stretch further.
Due to the ongoing conflict between the Tigray People's Liberation Front and the Ethiopian government forces, the WFP said it estimates families in the northern region received less than 30% of their daily caloric needs throughout the past several months.
The conflict and the insufficient caloric intake exacerbated the food crisis, meaning families and individuals will require humanitarian food assistance through the end of this year, the WFP revealed.
Not only is the population impoverished, but the fighting has prevented humanitarian aid convoys from reaching Tigray since mid-December despite the population needing the help.
Conditions on the ground have posed a threat to the safety of staff and food supplies, the WFP clarified.
Several states have urged the UN Human Rights Council to send international investigators to Ethiopia last month amid warnings of looming generalized violence.
Addis Ababa has accused the countries calling for the investigation of hijacking the process to "exert political pressure."
The United Nations Security Council called in November for a ceasefire in Ethiopia, expressing its "deep concern" over the intensification of fighting in the north of the North African country.
