Nearly 400 people have died of starvation in Ethiopia's Tigray and Amhara regions in recent months, the national ombudsman said Tuesday, a rare admission of hunger-related deaths by a federal body. Local officials have previously reported starvation deaths in their districts, but Ethiopia's federal government has insisted these reports are "completely wrong". They concluded that 351 people have died of hunger in Tigray in the past six months, with 44 more deaths in Amhara. The U.N. and the U.S. paused food aid to Tigray in mid-March last year after discovering a "large-scale" scheme to steal humanitarian grain. A third aid worker said the food aid pause and the slow resumption meant some people in Tigray have not received food aid for over a year.

Source: Ethiopian News January 31, 2024 18:14 UTC