The risk of a humanitarian catastrophe in northern Ethiopia is growing, Andrew Mitchell, the UK’s Africa minister, said on his return from a two-day trip to the region.
“We have an opportunity to stop a looming humanitarian catastrophe in its tracks. But we must act and act now,” Mitchell said on Monday.
The country is suffering from the impacts of long-term El Niño-driven drought and brutal conflict, including the two-year war in the northern region of Tigray that ended in November 2022.
The UK, which has long made Ethiopia a priority country, is slowly reversing large cuts to its aid programme. On his trip Mitchell met the Ethiopian prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, in Addis Ababa and travelled to the Tigray regional capital, Mekelle. The underlying message of his trip was to warn that a famine can be averted but only if aid is prepared now.
Like many Foreign Office ministers, Mitchell has been preoccupied by the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, but fears equally important crises elsewhere – such as in Ethiopia – have lost the world’s attention.
“Across northern Ethiopia, millions of people are facing hunger,” he said. “War, including the conflict in Tigray and climate change, have crippled crop production and driven people off their lands.”
Mitchell was told that 1 million people had been displaced and 3 million plunged into a state of critical food security and hunger.
International donors have been trying to respond to an estimated 6.6 million people in need of help. Last week the UN said the number of critically food insecure people was likely to reach 10.8 million during the July-September lean season.
“Malnutrition rates in parts of Afar, Amhara and Tigray and other regions have already surpassed globally recognised crisis thresholds, although the situation is currently not reflective of famine-like conditions,” the UN said.
The UK has launched a fund for ending preventable deaths, targeted at children – particularly under-fives – as well as pregnant and postnatal women.
The £100m programme is intended to help more than 3 million Ethiopians through a network of 75 health centres tackle malnutrition and other preventable causes of death, such as malaria and cholera, by increasing access to family planning support, medicines, and childhood vaccinations.
Ethiopia has the fourth highest level of maternal mortality in the world, with 10,000 mothers a year dying from pregnancy and childbirth-related causes. Many of these deaths could be prevented by simple support before, during and after pregnancy with medicines, nutrition supplements, clean water and access to sanitation in health centres.
Mitchell said: “The crisis is a wake-up call to the world. Food shortages are at a critical level. War has displaced people and decimated vital infrastructure. Climate change and El Niño have fuelled local exoduses, with 400,000 displaced in the Somali region of Ethiopia last November alone.
“Millions are trapped in a destructive spiral of displacement, hunger and need. As ever the most vulnerable people, particularly women and children, are the first to be hit.
“The international community needs to come to Ethiopia’s side and work with our friends in the government and international partners to halt and reverse this crisis. In a region that has experienced the horrors of famine in the past, we must ramp up international efforts to avert a major crisis in the near future.”
Getachew Reda, the president of the interim authority in Tigray, has said that 91% of the population of the semi-arid region is exposed to the risk of starvation and death and has called on the federal government in Addis Ababa to help.
