Today, the United Nations warned that more than 30,000 children in the Ethiopian region of Tigray are suffering from malnutrition and are at risk of dying in hard-to-reach areas.

"Without the access of humanitarian teams to reinforce our response, an estimated 33,000 severely malnourished children in these hard-to-reach areas are at extremely high risk of death," said James Elder, spokesman for the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF). ".

Elder stated that UNICEF is working with other organizations to address the famine crisis in Tigray, but that it suffers from difficulty in reaching large areas in the region, and stressed that the world cannot allow the death of thousands of children as a result of starvation.

And international relief organizations have repeatedly complained that Ethiopian forces and others from neighboring Eritrea are preventing them from reaching the region.

steps away

The UNICEF spokesman's comments came a day after the United Nations announced that about 350 thousand people in Tigray face famine, adding that another two million people are steps away from exposure to these difficult conditions.

"There is currently famine in Tigray," said Mark Lowcock, the UN's humanitarian and emergency relief coordinator, adding that the new data indicated that the number of people classified as living in famine conditions was "higher than anywhere in the world at any moment since a quarter of a million Somalis died." year 2011".

The United Nations says that more than 90% of the more than 5 million people in Tigray need emergency food assistance, and has issued an urgent appeal to raise more than $ 200 million to strengthen its response to the food crisis in the Ethiopian region.

On the other hand, Ethiopian Foreign Ministry spokesman Dina Mufti said, in a press conference yesterday, that the government provides food aid and helps farmers in Tigray, adding, "They (the diplomats) liken it to the 1984 and 1985 famine in Ethiopia... This will not happen."

Crisis wallpapers

The deterioration of the humanitarian situation in Tigray came as a result of the battles last year between government forces and the so-called "Tigray Liberation Front", which was the ruling party in the region. Forces from neighboring Eritrea intervened in the conflict in support of the Addis Ababa government, killing thousands of civilians and displacing more than two million people. .

The fighting erupted last November and lasted for more than 6 months, resulting in atrocities, including widespread rape.

Many world leaders warned of a major catastrophe in the region.

On Thursday, the United States and the European Union issued a joint appeal to strengthen international efforts to deal with the imminent famine in Tigray.

Yesterday, Anadolu Agency quoted a diplomatic source that the UN Security Council will hold the first public session next week on the humanitarian crisis in Tigray, and Geraldine Byrne Nason, Ireland's permanent representative to the United Nations, said her country requested holding this emergency public session, stressing that there is no time left. To waste it to address the deteriorating humanitarian situation in the Ethiopian region.