Hunger is tightening its grip on more than 20 million Ethiopians who are facing conflict in the north, drought in the south and dwindling food and nutrition support beginning next month, the UN food relief agency has warned.

“The combination of conflict and drought have caused inflation to soar,” the World Food Programme (WFP) added, noting that as of April, the Food Price Index in Ethiopia was up by 43 per cent compared to the same month last year.

According to WFP, 19 months of war have left more than 13 million people in the north requiring humanitarian food assistance, mainly in conflict-affected zones in Afar, Amhara and Tigray regions. Over the past two months, since the Government announced a humanitarian truce, food and humanitarian supplies have been flowing into the Tigray region.

Additionally, the Ethiopian government has commissioned a UN agency to rebuild some of the destroyed infrastructure in Tigray, a region in conflict with Addis Ababa and controlled by rebel authorities, as part of a project funded by the World Bank (WB). The project aims to rebuild infrastructure destroyed by the conflict and improve access to basic services and make it easier for victims of gender-based violence to access assistance programmes.

Several of Ethiopia's international partners have suspended their aid since the start in November 2020 of a conflict between the federal government and rebels in Tigray, marked by numerous abuses and which has led to a serious humanitarian crisis in the north of the country.

In April, the WB became the first major financial institution to release funds to Ethiopia since the war began. Some observers saw a link with the announcement a few days earlier of a "humanitarian truce" in Tigray.

Since the truce, fighting has stopped in Tigray and the federal government has allowed desperately needed humanitarian aid to be delivered by road again after a three-month hiatus.

But the region remains without most basic services - electricity, telecommunications, banking - and several of Ethiopia's partners continue to press for their restoration.  A few days earlier, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said for the first time that he was open to negotiations with the Tigray rebels, who regained control of most of the region in 2021.

More:   Christian Aid,  Africa News,  UN.org    

Pray:

For those people who are facing the combined suffering of famine and conflict, that they may be provided for and supported in their struggles.
That the humanitarian truce will hold, allowing aid to flow to previously inaccessible areas of Ethiopia.
For the estimated 400,000 children in northern Ethiopia who are malnourished.
Prayer for East Africa (from Christian Aid)
Loving and compassionate God, When Famine stalks the land, nothing grows.
Plants cannot, people cannot, ideas and dreams cannot everything withers and dies.
It is a violent aberration of your will for the world and it is multiplied now by conflict, climate change and covid.
God of the flourishing field, there is enough to feed us all. Call us to that sacred sharing neighbour to global neighbour
Your gifts of food, water, a chance to live the life so delicately crafted by your divine spirit.
We will not turn away but turn towards each other with generosity and a justice-driven compassion
that searches for solutions.
Famine stalks the land, so may our outrage grow, may our determination steel itself, may our solidarity spur us into action.
God of the flourishing field, help us feed each other.
Amen