The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has commenced the distribution of food items in Ethiopia’s Tigray region following the peace deal which was signed in November 2022.
The agreement was a critical first step towards ending the devastating two-year-old conflict in which the lives and livelihoods of so many Ethiopians were lost.
In a post on social media, the ICRC confirmed that it had delivered the first food aid since the peace deal was signed.
‘We recently distributed food to conflict-affected communities and medicines to the hospital in Semema Tigray region’, the humanitarian organisation said in a tweet.
‘This was the first humanitarian assistance in the area since the peace agreement’.
The fighting started in November 2020 between the Ethiopian troops and the TPLF after the government initiated a swift armed mission to bring the rebellious state of Tigray in order.
This immediately degenerated into a humanitarian crisis, leaving about 5.2 million people in need of life-saving assistance.
Around 20.4 million people soon became food insecure with 4.5 million internally displaced as the effect of the conflict coupled with the impact of climate shocks took its toll on the most vulnerable communities.
According to data from the 2022 Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, over 350,000 people were facing catastrophic conditions in Tigray region.
Photo source: ICRC
