MOGADISHU (Somaliguardian) – Ethiopia’s Red Cross said on Wednesday that 80 percent of the country’s conflict-torn Tigray region was cut off from humanitarian aid and warned tens of thousands might starve to death.
The assessment comes months after Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, the 2019 Nobel Laureate, ordered his troops to launch an offensive aimed to unseat the region’s former ruling party, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF).
“Eighty percent of the Tigray is unreachable at this particular time,” the president of the Ethiopian Red Cross Society, Abera Tola, told a press conference.
There have been reports of people in the region who have died due to starvation despite the government still remaining silent.
“The number today could be one, two or three, but you know after a month it means thousands. After two months it will be tens of thousands,” he said.
UN aid agencies had earlier demanded unfettered access to the northern Ethiopian region to provide those in dire living conditions with humanitarian assistance.
Abiy Ahmed declared victory in late November after TPLF rebels had been removed from major cities in the region and promised to send aid to relieve the hunger haunting the region.
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