As conflict escalates in the surrounding regions, including neighbouring Afar, safe passage for humanitarian convoys into Tigray remains a primary concern for WFP and the humanitarian community.
WFP hopes to reach an additional 80,000 people in the northwest, warning that once distributed, food stocks are likely to run out thereafter.
Many came with almost nothing. And yet, “I don’t want to think of going back,” said 21-year-old Wegahta Weldie, a student from Mai Kadra, the scene of the six-month-old conflict’s first known massacre.
She recalled stepping on dead bodies there as her family hid in a maize field and then walked hundreds of kilometers (miles) to reach Mekele.
“Many people had been killed and it was very dark,” she said. “I could not tell whether they were my relatives or not.”
Of all the 5.7 million people in Tigray, should the offensive continue, at least 4.5 million people will face deadly shortages of food, medicine and water, Alex de Waal, executive director of the WPF tells The Africa Report.
But this can be stopped if the majority of the Tigrayan people, many of whom are are smallholder farmers, are able to farm in time for the rains in June.
