The head of the U.S. government’s humanitarian agency said aid workers would soon run out of food to deliver to millions of people going hungry in war torn Ethiopia’s Tigray region.
Samantha Power, head of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), said in a statement on Thursday night that “USAID and its partners as well as other humanitarian organisations have depleted their stores of food items warehoused in Tigray.’’
War broke out in November between Ethiopian troops and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), which controls the region.
The conflict has been marked by allegations of war crimes, killing thousands and sparked a humanitarian crisis in one of the world’s poorest regions.
The U.N. warned last month that more than 100,000 children in Tigray could die of hunger.
On Thursday, the U.N. Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres, called for an immediate ceasefire and unrestricted aid access in Tigray.
“People in Tigray are starving with up to 900,000 in famine conditions and more than five million in desperate need of humanitarian assistance,” Power said.
Spokespersons for Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and the government’s emergency task force on Tigray did not respond to requests for comments.
Abiy’s spokesperson told a news conference that 277 trucks of aid had entered Tigray, without specifying the time the trucks entered.
Billene Seyoum, the spokesperson, also said more than 10 international aid groups and United Nations agencies were active in humanitarian efforts in Tigray, and that the federal government was also providing support.
Power’s statement said 100 trucks carrying food and life-saving supplies needed to be arriving each day in Tigray to meet the “vast” humanitarian needs there.
Earlier, only about 320 trucks had arrived, less than seven per cent of what is required, the statement read.
The Ethiopian government declared a unilateral ceasefire in June after Tigrayan forces re-captured the regional capital, Mekelle, and retook most of the region.
The Tigrayan forces dismissed this as a “joke” and issued preconditions for truce talks.
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