Northern Ethiopia is again sliding into starvation

Bullet holes riddle the door and walls of Tedesse’s grain shop in Yechila, a small town in the northern Ethiopian region of Tigray. During the recent civil war, Ethiopian and Eritrean soldiers looted his stores and emptied his cash box. Now peace has returned but buyers have not. He scoops up a handful of maize and lets it slide through his fingers. People cannot afford even to buy this much, he explains.

From 2020 until 2022 war raged across northern Ethiopia, pitting Tigrayan forces against the Ethiopian and Eritrean armies and regional militias. A land pillaged by soldiers is now parched by drought. Some farmers have harvested enough to last for a few months; others nothing at all. The next main harvest is still eight months away. Viewed from the crumbling hillsides, the barren terrain has the same sepia tint as an old photograph. On the maps drawn by aid workers, it is coloured in shades of red.