Tigray is edging closer to famine

PEOPLE FLEEING war are often driven by a fear of bullets and shells. But in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region, where fighting broke out in November between government forces and the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), a former ruling party that reverted to being a guerrilla movement, guns are not the only weapons of war. The United Nations has received reports of rape by soldiers. Millions face the threat of starvation, owing in part to the actions of the Ethiopian government’s forces and its allies.

The suffering is widespread. Central and eastern Tigray, as well as parts of the north-west, are facing “crisis”or “emergency” hunger levels, according to the UN’s Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), meaning that households are suffering from acute malnutrition (see map). The next and final phase on the IPC scale is “famine” marked by an extreme lack of food, resulting in starvation or death. Before the conflict broke out, Tigray was largely free from hunger; now the UN estimates that 4.5m need food aid.