The UN has encountered huge obstacles delivering aid to the affected areas, while there has been a communications blackout in Tigray so it is impossible to know the true scale of the suffering. The conflict has killed thousands of people, displaced more than two million and driven hundreds of thousands into famine-like conditions, according to UN figures. 'We couldn't treat them because the supplements had been looted by the TPLF ,' social worker Temesgen Muche told the news agency.

There had also been a shortage of food, which left about 290 children malnourished. The airport in Lalibela, a popular tourist site, was ransackedĭoctors arranged for medicine to be brought on donkeys from a nearby town to treat patients with chronic conditions like HIV and tuberculosis, residents were quoted as saying. Residents told AFP news agency that banks, government offices, the airport and hospital had been looted by rebels. The government has also retaken control of Lalibela, a Unesco world heritage site famous for its 13th Century rock-hewn churches. VIEWPOINT: Why Tigray is starving, but no famine declaredĪFRICA LIVE: Updates on this and other stories But the rebels said the army had only recovered areas they had abandoned.ĮXPLAINER: Ethiopia's Tigray war - and how it eruptedĪNALYSIS: Why is desperately needed aid not reaching Tigray? The Ethiopian government recently announced that it had recaptured the towns from the Tigray rebels. The Tigrayan rebels have not commented on the allegations that their fighters stole food aid. The lack of security led to the decision to halt food distribution in Kombolcha and nearby Dessie, two strategic towns in Amhara that sit on the road to the capital Addis Ababa. The spokesman also accused military personnel of commandeering three WFP humanitarian trucks and using them for their own purposes. It undermines the ability of the United Nations and all of our humanitarian partners to deliver assistance when it is most needed.' He added: 'Such harassment of humanitarian staff by armed forces is unacceptable. Northern Ethiopia is facing mass starvation amid an ongoing civil war between Tigrayan and government forces.Īfter more than a year of fighting, more than nine million people are in need of critical food supplies in the Tigray, Amhara and Afar regions, the UN says.Ī spokesman for the UN, which runs the WFP, said its staff there had faced 'extreme intimidation' during days of looting in the industrial hub of Kombolcha in Amhara.

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