KAMPALA, Uganda, Jan 31, (AP): Nearly 400 people have died of starvation in Ethiopia’s Tigray and Amhara regions in recent months, the national ombudsman said Tuesday, a rare admission of hunger-related deaths by a federal body.
Local officials have previously reported starvation deaths in their districts, but Ethiopia’s federal government has insisted these reports are "completely wrong”.
Ethiopia’s ombudsman office sent experts to the regions, which are gripped by drought and still reeling from a devastating civil war that officially ended 14 months ago. They concluded that 351 people have died of hunger in Tigray in the past six months, with 44 more deaths in Amhara.
Only a small fraction of needy people in Tigray are receiving food aid, according to an aid memo seen by The Associated Press, more than one month after aid agencies resumed deliveries of grain following a lengthy pause over theft.
Just 14% of 3.2 million people targeted for food aid by humanitarian agencies in Tigray this month had received it by Jan. 21, according to the memo by the Tigray Food Cluster, a group of aid agencies co-chaired by the UN’s World Food Program and Ethiopian officials.
The memo urges humanitarian groups to "immediately scale up” their operations, warning that "failure to take swift action now will result in severe food insecurity and malnutrition during the lean season, with possible loss of the most vulnerable children and women in the region.”
The US and the US paused food aid to Tigray in mid-March last year after discovering a "large-scale” scheme to steal humanitarian grain. The suspension was rolled out to the rest of Ethiopia in June. U.S. officials believe the theft may be the biggest diversion of grain ever. Donors have blamed Ethiopian government officials and the military for the fraud.
The UN and the US lifted the pause in December after introducing reforms to curb theft, but Tigray authorities say food is not reaching those who need it.
Two aid workers told the AP that the new system - which includes fitting GPS trackers to food trucks and putting QR codes on ration cards - has been hampered by technical issues. Aid agencies are also struggling with a lack of funds.
A third aid worker said the food aid pause and the slow resumption meant some people in Tigray have not received food aid for over a year. "They went through multiple rounds of registration and verification, but no actual distributions yet,” the aid worker said.