Tigray crisis: A new ‘famine’ in Ethiopia
The conflict that began between Ethiopia’s federal government and the ruling party in the Tigray region in the country’s north last September has since blown up into a full scale crisis in the Horn of Africa. Now, hundreds of thousands in Tigray are facing famine, and millions more are at risk, UN agencies have said.
In November, local government officials in Tigray had told Reuters that some 2.2 million people had been displaced by the fighting and many forced to flee to neighbouring countries. Although Ethiopia’s federal National Disaster Risk Management Commission disputed the number of displaced people, independent observers had agreed that it was exceptionally high.
Reports have emerged of sexual violence against girls and women in the region. In April, the UN said investigations by news organisations and independent observers had revealed that sexual violence was being used as a “weapon of war”.
This week, UN emergency relief coordinator Mark Lowcock said Tigray was now also witnessing widespread famine. The term ‘famine’ was used after the release on Thursday of an Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) analysis update, which uses a standardised scale originally developed by the UN, integrating “food security, nutrition, and livelihood information into a statement about the nature and severity of a crisis”.