Ethiopian government uses hunger as a weapon of war

Running for one's life is a primary human response to violence. When people move en masse, they often do so suddenly, with the clothes on their backs, abandoning their homes and livelihoods. When they arrive in a refugee camp, they depend on humanitarian aid to survive. They are often crammed into places with no access to drinking water and poor hygiene and sanitation conditions, which encourages the spread of disease and epidemics. When this situation is prolonged over time, it often leads to tensions with the host population. 

During a war, people often flee without having time to harvest their crops or miss planting periods. They abandon or lose their animals and working tools. Often, warring parties use crops as a military tactic by applying a "scorched earth" policy or by assiduously stealing livestock. One of the first military targets in a war is the communication routes, interrupting the supply of entire populations. Farmers are also unable to sell their produce in environments threatened by violence. Wars often trigger inflation. Armed conflict reduces a country's GDP by an average of 17.5%. Rising food and commodity prices have, in turn, lit the fuse for many of today's conflicts.  

It is difficult to see a bag of rice as a killer. Or barrels of water like grenades waiting to be thrown. War, however, has a lot to do with food. Or rather, the lack of it. Hunger is both a cause and a consequence of the fighting and, in short, it causes an inseparable spiral of malnutrition and violence. The usual order of the vicious circle begins with the explosion of violence, which leads to the displacement of the population. This is followed by the destruction of crops and markets or other means of communication. Until thousands of people are deprived of food.  

There are leaders who invest all their time and talent in creating a system so that their entire population eats. Others try to do the opposite. And there is something that kills more than bullets: it is the famine that is induced as a weapon of war. 

Drought and fear of attacks prevent families from going to the farm. In addition, millions of people have had to flee their homes in search of protection and food, leaving behind their land and the few resources they had to earn a living. Due to insufficient harvests, the price of commodities has increased (inflation has reached 800%). Families cannot buy food and survive on water lilies or seeds. 

Between three and four million people have no access to essential medical services in the central part of the Tigray region of Ethiopia due to the open conflict with the Ethiopian federal government since 4 November, Médecins Sans Frontières reported today. 

According to the statement, in many places visited by MSF, "the electricity supply has been cut off, the water supply is interrupted, telecommunications networks are down, banks are closed and many people are afraid to return to their places of origin because of the ongoing insecurity". 

Since the fighting broke out on 28 November, some 55,000 people have entered Sudan from this region, which borders Sudan and Eritrea, but many others have been displaced in towns and cities, but also in remote areas or trapped between pockets of violence, some 500 a day, according to the UNHCR, which is trying to rehouse them to decongest the border areas. 

The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) said it had finally gained access to two Eritrean refugee camps in Tigray, Ethiopia, which had been isolated after two months of conflict, and had found severe symptoms of malnutrition and lack of access to basic needs. 

Tens of thousands of refugees in Mai Aini and Adi Harush camps "are in desperate need of supplies and services after the conflict forced humanitarian workers to leave the region," UNHCR spokesman Babar Baloch told a press conference. 

The United Nations warned a few days ago of the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Ethiopia, where hundreds of thousands of people have still not been able to receive humanitarian aid since the conflict in the Tigray region began more than two and a half months ago due to restrictions on access to the region. 

"The lack of food, water and sanitation is affecting many people to the extent that an increase in malnutrition and dehydration-related diseases has already been reported," said Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, at a press conference. 

The coronavirus pandemic has exacerbated this situation, according to the report "The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World", prepared by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the World Food Programme (WFP) and the Agricultural Development Fund (IFAD) - all three based in Rome, as well as the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), warn that the health crisis is "intensifying the vulnerability and inequality of the world's food systems" from production through distribution to consumption.  

Beyond the pandemic, world hunger is a growing problem. Evidence shows that the number of chronically hungry people began to increase "slowly" in 2014 and continues to do so to date, after decades of decline.