Nearly 400 Ethiopians have died of starvation

Subject: IR

Sec: Places in news

Context:

The Ethiopian national ombudsman has reported nearly 400 starvation deaths in the Tigray and Amhara regions, acknowledging hunger-related fatalities amidst a backdrop of drought and the aftermath of a civil war that concluded 14 months ago.

Details:

The slow pace of aid distribution is compounded by logistical and technical challenges, including the introduction of new systems like GPS trackers for food trucks and QR codes for ration cards, which have faced implementation difficulties.
The pause in food aid by the U.N. and the U.S. last year, due to a large-scale theft scheme, significantly exacerbated hunger levels.
The recent conflict in Tigray, which resulted in significant casualties and displacement, has led to accusations against the Ethiopian government of using starvation as a method of warfare.
The current crisis threatens to mirror the catastrophic famine of the mid-1980s unless immediate action is taken to scale up the aid response, despite federal government denials of a widespread hunger crisis.

Tigray war:

The Tigray War was an armed conflict that lasted from 3 November 2020 to 3 November 2022.
The war was primarily fought in the Tigray Region of Ethiopia between forces allied to the Ethiopian federal government and Eritrea on one side, and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) on the other.