Over 90% in Ethiopia's Tigray need emergency food aid: UN

More than 90 percent of people in Ethiopia's troubled northern Tigray region need emergency food aid, the United Nations said Tuesday, as it appealed for $203 million to scale up its response. The UN's World Food Programme said it was alarmed at how the conflict had increased already-high levels of hunger in Tigray. ‘A total of 5.2 million people, equivalent to 91 percent of Tigray's population, need emergency food assistance due to the conflict,’ WFP spokesman Tomson Phiri told reporters in Geneva. Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, winner of the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize, sent troops into Tigray in November to detain and disarm leaders of the Tigray People's Liberation Front, the region's former ruling party.