US says food aid runs out this week in Ethiopia's Tigray

The United States is warning that food aid will run out this week for millions of hungry people under a blockade imposed by Ethiopia’s government on the embattled Tigray region

NAIROBI, Kenya -- The United States is warning that food aid will run out this week for millions of hungry people under a blockade imposed by Ethiopia’s government on the embattled Tigray region. Samantha Power, the administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, said in a statement late Thursday that less than 7% of the needed food aid has been reaching the Tigray region of some 6 million people, and USAID and other aid groups “have depleted their stores of food items warehoused in Tigray” after nine months of war. “This shortage is not because food is unavailable, but because the Ethiopian Government is obstructing humanitarian aid and personnel, including land convoys and air access,” she said. USAID has warned that up to 900,000 people in Tigray face famine conditions in what has been called the world’s worst hunger crisis in a decade. The Associated Press has reported that scores of people have starved to death. Ethiopia’s government, on the defensive after resurgent Tigray forces retook much of the region in June, has accused humanitarian workers of arming and supporting the fighters, and aid workers have described intense searches and confiscation of personal medication, cash and communications equipment as they try to enter the region on rare convoys or flights. The government also suspended the operations of Doctors Without Borders’ Dutch section and the Norwegian Refugee Council, accusing them of spreading “misinformation.”