According to the national ombudsman, nearly 400 people have died of starvation in Ethiopia's Tigray and Amhara regions in recent months.
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Following the visit of experts to the affected regions, the Ethiopian ombudsman's office concluded that 351 people have died of starvation in Tigray in the last six months, and 44 more in Amhara.
Only a small portion of Tigray's needy population is reportedly receiving food aid, more than a month after aid agencies resumed grain deliveries after a long pause due to the thefts.
Just 14% of 3.2 million people targeted for food aid by humanitarian agencies in Tigray this month had received it by Jan. 21, according to a memo by the Tigray Food Cluster, a group of aid agencies co-chaired by the UN’s World Food Program and Ethiopian officials.
The memo urges humanitarian groups to immediately scale up their operations and warns that "failure to take swift action now will result in severe food insecurity and malnutrition during the lean season, with possible loss of the most vulnerable children and women in the region."
The UN and the U.S. paused food aid to Tigray in mid-March last year after discovering a “large-scale” scheme to steal humanitarian grain. The suspension was rolled out to the rest of Ethiopia in June. U.S. officials believe the theft may be the biggest diversion of grain ever.
Donors have blamed Ethiopian government officials and the military for the fraud. The pause was lifted in December after introducing reforms to curb theft, but Tigray authorities say food is not reaching those who need it.
Two aid workers said told the press that the new system – which includes fitting GPS trackers to food trucks and putting QR codes on ration cards – has been hampered by technical issues. Aid agencies are also struggling with a lack of funds.
According to a third aid worker, the food aid pause and the slow resumption meant some people in Tigray have not received food aid for over a year. “They went through multiple rounds of registration and verification, but no actual distributions yet,” the aid worker who spoke on the condition of anonymity said.
Some 20.1 million people across Ethiopia are in need of humanitarian food due to drought, conflict and a collapsing economy. The country is still recovering from a devastating civil war that officially ended 14 months ago.