Hello!
It’s another week of water watch as Ethiopia’s food crisis has worsened from drought, while reservoirs have fallen close to 16% of their capacity in the Spanish region of Catalonia.
Ethiopia’s food crisis has deepened in recent years as a result of war in the Tigray region and the Horn of Africa’s worst drought in decades, with the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) saying just over 20 million people are in need of assistance.
On and off fighting in Amhara, which has also experienced prolonged drought, between Amhara state forces and local militiamen became Ethiopia’s biggest security crisis since the end of a two-year civil war in Tigray in 2022.
Endale Haile, head of the Ethiopian Institution of the Ombudsman, which receives complaints from the public against government departments, said its investigations found that 351 people had died in the Tigray region, while another 21 had died in neighboring Amhara from drought-induced hunger in the last six months.
Endale said the findings were from a 10-day assessment in the two regions, and it was possible there were more deaths.
Legesse Tulu, government spokesperson, Mengasha Fentaw, spokesperson of Amhara region and Redaei Halefom, spokesperson of Tigray, did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the deaths.
