The Ethiopian Red Cross said Wednesday that 80 percent of the country’s conflict-hit Tigray region was cut off from humanitarian assistance and warned tens of thousands could starve to death.
The grim assessment underscores fears of a humanitarian catastrophe three months after Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, the 2019 Nobel Peace laureate, announced military operations aimed at toppling the region’s former ruling party, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF).
“Eighty percent of the Tigray is unreachable at this particular time,” the president of the Ethiopian Red Cross Society, Abera Tola, told a press conference.