Food aid arrives in Tigray as Rebel launch fresh offensive

The World Food Programme says a convoy of 50 trucks has arrived in Mekelle, the Tigray capital, with 900 metric tons of food as well as other emergency supplies.

Farhan Haq, Deputy Spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, said this while briefing correspondents at the UN headquarters in New York.

Unobstructed aid deliveries are crucial in the northern Ethiopian region where the World Food Programme says that four million people need emergency food assistance, after more than eight months of conflict between regional and central government forces.

29 of the truckloads transported food commodities comprising wheat, split peas and vegetable oil, enough to cover the most pressing urgent food needs of 200,000 people for a week.

The World Food Programme said it needs $176 million to continue to scale up its response in Tigray to save lives and livelihoods to the end of the year.

Despite the challenges of access, the UN agency has allocated $1.9 million for malaria, cholera and nutrition treatments.

In June, the World Health Organization warned that conflict between Ethiopian Government troops and those loyal to the dominant regional force, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), had left hospitals “barely functioning”, people displaced and famine looming.

In another development, the Tigrayan forces said it has launched a new offensive in the conflict-torn northern region of Ethiopia, two weeks after the federal government declared a unilateral ceasefire in the face of rebel advances.

A spokesman for the Tigrayan forces said they had seized Alamata, the main town in southern Tigray, after launching the offensive on Monday.