Issue No. 215

Famine looms in Tigray

Over a year has passed since the signing of the Pretoria agreement, yet the humanitarian situation in Tigray is rapidly deteriorating as famine takes hold. The displaced and rural population across the region, particularly in central and eastern Tigray, is almost uniformly facing immense hunger due to a confluence of the suspension of international food aid, poor harvest and drought, and the systematic destruction of food infrastructure during the Tigray War.
 
International and domestic reaction has been largely muted. There appears to be an unwillingness to acknowledge the scale of the damage inflicted by the 'pause' in humanitarian aid from May 2023 by USAID and the World Food Programme (WFP). Thousands of people have since starved to death, and thousands more are expected to die in the coming weeks. While the tragedy unfurling in Tigray was predictable, a plentiful harvest could have staved off some of the hunger. Instead locust swarms and drought ended these hopes. In the Eastern zone, the punishing drought has seen entire rivers dry up; dozens died in districts like Atsbi and Abergele in November and December, usually a time of plenty.
 
Food aid was meant to have resumed region-wide by this time, except in occupied areas, but reports suggest there has been little aid delivery outside of Mekelle to date. The TIA has said that USAID's new case load in Tigray will be only 20% of its pre-suspension level.  While USAID has not yet confirmed this, and details surrounding the 20% are murky, it is nonetheless a deeply alarming figure.
 
Negotiations over reforms to aid delivery dragged on for months as the federal government delayed, eventually landing on a compromise that may end up being unworkable in Tigray. USAID has insisted that aid distribution must now be carried out with no government input, including at the most local level. However, officials at the lower administrative levels in Tigray, below the woreda (district), were not been implicated in the theft of aid. They are integral to their communities, including effectively identifying who is most in need of aid within them.
 
Many of Tigray's most extreme areas of starvation are hours of walking from the nearest asphalt roads; aid distributors will surely require guidance to locate them. There is also a gaping lack of data about the variation between the pockets of starvation in Tigray from village to village. However, according to Joint Emergency Operation Programme data from October, the Irob, Adwa, Adet, and Atsbi districts are all experiencing 60% or higher child malnutrition – well above rates indicative of famine.
 
Some communities may be able to stave off starvation for a short time, but many more need immediate support, some of which is unlikely to arrive. While the consequences of starvation and malnutrition are well-known, the long-term economic and social consequences of asset loss are less often considered. Households are being forced to strip their homes, including remaining livestock, for cash to buy food at inflated prices.
 
The domestic and international response has been lacklustre. The TIA was forced to allocate ETB 50 million from its limited budget to some of the most vulnerable citizens in cash aid due to the immediacy of the problem. The federal government disaster agency has also offered several million in USD. Meanwhile, USAID and the WFP are not the only humanitarian agencies that have scaled down operations in Tigray, despite the escalating crisis. Armed conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza continue to pull the attention and funding of multilateral institutions and humanitarian organisations away from Tigray.
 
The WFP and USAID have barely commented on the humanitarian situation since they suspended aid to Tigray in late April. Yes, measures needed to be taken to prevent the misappropriation of food aid, but their extreme response has compounded the suffering of innocent people. Moreover, their refusal to publish internal reports that led to the suspension of aid has generated deep suspicion of these organisations in Tigray. Particularly disturbing is the drop in critical nutritional supplements for the most vulnerable children and mothers in Tigray that they had promised to sustain.
 
More specific data is now urgently needed. Precise figures on the most recent harvest, which communities are most in need of food aid, and the scale of sales of personal belongings and livestock can all help formulate an adequate emergency response. The tragic reality is that this could all be too little, too late. The demand is too high and the current capacity too low; it is even unclear whether enough transport capacity exists to truck aid to those who need it.
 
The failings of a variety of actors have led us to this point in Ethiopia. The consequences of the devastating Tigray War continue to roll on with little reconstruction in sight and with western Tigray, one of the most fertile areas of production in northern Ethiopia, still embargoed. The deeply corrupt aid management system at the regional and federal levels saw the theft of huge quantities of aid intended for starving communities. And there has been a clear unwillingness of the international community to push for the full implementation of the Pretoria agreement, instead preferring to normalise relations with Addis. While the situation is particularly dire in Tigray, other states, particularly Amhara and pastoral communities in Oromia and the Somali region, are also facing rapidly rising malnutrition and starvation. Thousands of Ethiopian citizens are now dying at a rate not seen in nearly 40 years. 

By the Ethiopian Cable team