Nearly 40 percent of Tigrayans are facing an ”extreme lack of food” as per the World Food Programme.
The assessment by the United Nations agency highlighted that no aid convoy has reached Tigray since mid-December last year.
The Ethiopian government said last week that 43 trucks would deliver food and other aid to Tigray, but no trucks have arrived as fighting rages along the border between the Afar and Tigray regions.
Fresh fighting in northern Ethiopia, which has been gripped by deadly conflict for almost 15 months, is also limiting avenues for getting in aid.
The report comes as humanitarian groups are forced to increasingly curtail activities because of fuel and supply shortages, with aid having to be delivered by foot.
The war broke out in November 2020 and pits the Ethiopian government and its allies against forces loyal to the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), the political party that controls Tigray.
The conflict has killed thousands and displaced millions across three regions in Ethiopia and into neighbouring Sudan.
Also see | What lies ahead for Ethiopia as war enters second year
OCHA spokesperson Jens Laerke told reporters in Geneva that aid groups operating in Tigray had told the agency that if there is no change in conditions, “they will be unable to provide anything by the end of February”.
“Families are exhausting all means to feed themselves, with three quarters of the population using extreme coping strategies to survive,” WFP said in a statement.
“Diets are increasingly impoverished as food items become unavailable and families rely almost exclusively on cereals while limiting portion sizes and the number of meals they eat each day to make whatever food is available stretch further,” it added.
WFP also sounded the alarm about rising hunger in neighbouring Amhara and Afar regions, which have been hit hard by fighting in recent months.
“WFP is doing all it can to ensure our convoys with food and medicines make it through the frontlines,” said WFP’s East Africa director, Michael Dunford.
“But if hostilities persist, we need all the parties to the conflict to agree to a humanitarian pause and formally agreed transport corridors, so that supplies can reach the millions besieged by hunger,” Dunford said.
(With inputs from agencies)
