The government of Ethiopia on Monday said it has distributed 282,934 metric tons of food aid to people in need of humanitarian food assistance in northern Ethiopia since October 2022.
The humanitarian food aid is being delivered to people affected by the conflict in northern Ethiopia’s Tigray, Amhara and Afar regions and it will continue in an enhanced way, Debebe Zewdie, public relations director of the Ethiopian Disaster Risk Management Commission, said
The number of people requiring humanitarian assistance across northern Ethiopia surpasses 8.3 million, said the director, noting that 5.2 million of them are in the Tigray region.
Of the people in need of assistance in conflict hit northern Ethiopia, more than 2.4 million of them are in the Amhara region and over 715,000 of the affected people dwell in Afar region, the director said.
The director said those people who are requiring food assistance reside in all zones of Tigray region, in North Gonder, North Wello Zones and Wag-Hemra Nationality Administrative Zones as well as in 2, 4 and 5 zones of Afar region.
Together with the second round of the food aid delivery, a total of 282,934 metric tons of humanitarian food assistance has been distributed across the conflict-hit areas of the three regions, Zewdie indicated.
Out of the total food aid delivered to the needy, the government has covered 15,666 metric tons while the partner organizations have delivered over 267 metric ton, Zewdie said, further noting that 5,938 metric tons of nutritious food has also been distributed among vulnerable social groups of affected people.
Ethiopia, Africa’s second most populous nation, has seen a devastating conflict between government-allied troops and forces loyal to the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) since November 2020, which left thousands of people dead and millions more in urgent need of humanitarian assistance.
The Ethiopian government and the TPLF on Nov. 2, 2022, signed a cessation of hostilities to end the conflict.
MG/abj/APA