Africa-Press-Ethiopia<\/p>\n
The U.N. humanitarian chief warned Thursday that the grave humanitarian crisis in Ethiopia\u00b4s embattled Tigray region is deteriorating, with no sign of Eritrean troops withdrawing and alarmingly widespread reports of systematic rape and other sexual violence mainly by men in uniform.<\/p>\n
Mark Lowcock told a closed Security Council meeting that the U.N. knows that 4.5 million of Tigray\u00b4s nearly 6 million people need humanitarian aid and the government estimates 91% of the population needs emergency food.<\/p>\n
He said his office received the first report earlier this week of four displaced people dying from hunger, and Thursday morning he received reports of 150 people in the Ofla district just south of Tigray\u00b4s capital Mekelle dying from hunger.<\/p>\n
“This should alarm us all,” Lowcock said in his briefing, obtained by The Associated Press. “It is a sign of what lies ahead if more action is not taken. Starvation as a weapon of war is a violation.”<\/p>\n\r\n