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What happens with the limited volumes of food aid that are sent to
Tigray?
Date: 13 February 2021
By: Tim Vanden Bempt en Jan Nyssen
Tim Vanden Bempt is a concerned citizen (Leuven, Belgium) who follows the war in Tigray closely,
documenting it on Twitter (@tvbempt). Jan Nyssen is professor of geography at Ghent University
(Belgium) with 25 years research experience in Ethiopia.
Since more than 100 days, civilians in Tigray bear the brunt of truly incredible levels of
violence that is increasingly targeting them. Moreover, in spite of the official line of the
Government of Ethiopia, ‘formal’ humanitarian aid does not reach most people who need it.
That has been recognised even by some government officials closer to the ground, and was
reiterated by senior humanitarian people in the past few days. We tried to see clear, and
contacted key informants in different woredas or districts of Tigray to get more information.
Then, we confront their testimonies with information from within the UN system. It are all
pieces of a bigger puzzle, yet to be fully reconstructed.
Official information on food aid delivery
Most detailed informtion is given for the town of Shire in northwest Tigray. The aid officially
brought to Shire came in two batches. On 20 december, food aid was reportedly delivered
by the National Disaster Risk Management Commission (NDRMC). According to UN OCHA
1
:
“The Ethiopian Government stated that the Government dispatched relief food and other
humanitarian commodities to the Tigray region, including 44 truckloads of food assistance
to Shire Town, 30 truckload of food supplies and three truckload of medical supplies to
Mekelle”.
2
For Shire this would correspond to despatched aid between 1100 tonnes and 1760 tonnes
(depending on the carrying capacity of the lorries, 25 or 40 tonnes). This assistance was
aimed at both the inhabitants of the town and the IDPs. In theory, with such volumes,
between 73 000 and 117 000 people could have been supplied with 15 kg each.
A second aid delivery to Shire was planned for the days after 25 January. It was brought in
by JEOP
3
and REST
4
, and claimed to be lasting for two months. According to UN OCHA:
1
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Aid
2
OCHA: ETHIOPIA - TIGRAY REGION HUMANITARIAN UPDATE - Situation Report 22 Dec 2020
3
JEOP: USAID Food for Peace supported Joint Emergency Operation
4
REST: Relief Society of Tigray
“JEOP/REST visited Shire town and is now working with the local administration to begin
food distributions in the coming week for up to 131,456 beneficiaries.”
5
Both quoted reports also mention volumes of aid delivered to Mekelle and to all zones of
Tigray, without giving the same detail as for Shire.
Testimonies on aid to the war-affected population
1) Shire
Notes based on a telephone call: “The initial wheat aid distribution was in December.
Distribution was handled by the Ethiopian government, and the aid did not get to all of
Shire’s residents. Furthermore, those that were given 7 kg of wheat were required to sign
for 15 kg. If they refused to sign for 15 kg they were denied the 7 kg. It’s important to
emphasize that there was no electricity. Hence, no way of grinding the grain. During this
period, he told me that three young men that were displaced, taking shelter outside the
warehouse, were killed after they were accused of stealing wheat, which was impossible as
these boys didn’t have a place to stay at and no means to prepare the wheat.”
“Second week of February, USAID labeled aid trucks have began to arrive and people have
been given 1 liter of cooking oil and 3 kg of split peas, and around 15 kg wheat per person.
There is gross shortage of food in Shire! People have to sell all they have at low prices to be
able to buy food; folks are literally starving to death.”
2) IDPs in Shire
There are currently around 80 000 displaced Tigrayans in Shire, spread across three
different schools. In January 2021, at Aksum University’s Shire Campus, there were more
than 40 000 displaced Tigrayans. The others are in the Shire Preparatory School and the
Primary School. Amongst the displaced at Aksum Uni’s Shire campus are pregnant women,
elderly, children and many sick people needing medical attention.
6
Notes from telephone
call: “The wheat aid given to the displaced was 15 kg for each. The staff handed out wheat
until 6 PM, until their workday was done. The next day as folks lined up early in the morning
they told them the wheat was stolen and used that excuse to not give more wheat. He says
that there is ample evidence that all the remaining wheat was transported to Eritrea by the
Eritrean soldiers.”
“In January, the same aid people arrived in Shire. This time they were handing 30 kg wheat
grains per person, only to the IDPs and none to the residents of the town. The IDPs were
told the 30 kg wheat was to last for next two months and to not expect any more for these
next two months.”
5
OCHA: ETHIOPIA - TIGRAY REGION HUMANITARIAN UPDATE - Situation Report 25 Jan 2021
6
Situation of internally displaced persons in Shire, NW Tigray. Report prepared by a well-informed person
(NGO worker) in NW Tigray in January 2021.
3) Addi Da’iro
Notes from telephone call: “Residents were denied food aid after the town’s inhabitants
refused to appoint PP
7
officials as administrators. The residents demanded the evacuation
of Eritrean soldiers instead.”
4) Aksum
“I heard there have been food aid of 15 kilogram of grain per family, and only once. Neither
I, nor my relatives have received aid. I am not so sure about how many families received
that 15 kilogram of food aid. How many days would that last? Who takes the rest? Of
course, the Eritreans?”
5) Adwa
“Last time, they made us sign 15 kg while giving only 7 kg”.
6) Adigrat
“They registered us four times saying they will give aid but none was given. We think that
the people who register us are taking the grain for themselves and resell it.”
7) Hagere Selam
“Mostly transport to and from Mekelle is possible. The road is closed from time to time
when battles occur in nearby areas. Here, food aid distribution has started, 25 kilogram of
grain per person. But it has been interrupted; I don’t know the reason. The aid was brought
by the Relief Society of Tigray. It was distributed by the appointed district administrator,
under supervision of the army. The new administrator is not dedicated at all, he is afraid of
the situation. People do not like him because he works with the soldiers.” He stresses: “The
administrator is not good, we do not like him; we are waiting for Woyane
8
to come back.”
8) Mekelle
“Some people that I know received food aid and they only got 8 kg of wheat and expired
corn flour, the so-called fafa.”
7
Prosperity Party, the party of Ethiopia PM Abiy Ahmed
8
A generic name for Tigray resistance and the Tigray government
9) Rural areas, away from the road
Largely: no information from rural dwellers, there is no network. Several urban people told
us: food aid only comes to towns and large villages along the main roads, in minimal
amounts; they do not bring it to the rural areas, and they do not call the people from the
rural areas to collect it in town.
Witness from within a local NGO
A staff member of a major local NGO:
9
“With our NGO, we have shifted back from
development activities to humanitarian assistance, because Ethiopia is attacking us so badly.
Food aid is only provided to towns and villages along the main roads, not to the rural areas.
We are responsible for transporting food aid in bulk, but we do not distribute it directly to
the beneficiaries. The names of beneficiaries and quantities are decided by others. We have
no control, no decision. If somebody wants to be a member of PP, they give him quintals
10
and quintals of grain. The poor get nothing. Those who manage to collect a lot of food aid
sell it on the black market later on.”
“We went to bring food aid to a town in a woreda
11
that is fully controlled by the Eritrean
army. All the food aid that we brought was taken by the Eritrean soldiers. I was so sad. On
that occasion, I discussed with some farmers. They told me that the Eritreans took
everything. They took all medicines from the hospital and sent it to their country. Over
there, the people are so suffering. People there die from the smallest thing.”
On 8 February, the Ethiopian government officially dissolved the boards of the two largest
local NGOs in Tigray,
12
which are largely trusted by people in the region. The Tigray
Development Association (TDA) and the Relief Society of Tigray (REST) will now formally be
governed by 'a caretaker administrative board', and hence de facto may become inactive.
Their assets also may be spoiled, just like what happened to the Tigray economic trust
EFFORT. This happens at the very moment when the Tigrayan aid agencies are more needed
than ever before.
UN internal documents
An age-old contact in the UN-system had a lukewarm reaction when I confronted them with
the above testimonies. I only received short comments and a screenshot of a UN assistance
document dated 1 February 2021 (Fig. 1). The title of the map is: ‘Woredas with completed
or ongoing response.’ A reverse search on www.images.google.com did not yield any
results. This tends to confirm that it is part of an internal document within the UN system
that is not publicly accessible.
9
Name of the organisation known by the authors, but not mentioned in order to protect the witness
10
The quintal is the commonly used measurement unit for grains and small pulses in Ethiopia. 1 Qt = 100 kg.
11
Name of the woreda is known by the authors
12
Situation Report EEPA Horn No. 80, 09 February 2021
Fig. 1. Internal U.N. document: ‘Woredas with completed or ongoing response.’ Note: the
map uses the most recent woreda boundaries, as decided by the Tigray Regional
Government in January 2020.
Accessibility and territorial control
Commentary from the source within UN: “Everywhere on or north of the road Shire-Adigrat
is 100% controlled by Eritreans. In woredas south of that road, if there is no assistance that
is because of ongoing warfare.” We have drawn the mentioned line on the map below (Fig.
2). It might be interesting to contrast this interpretation of territorial control to maps
presented by MapEthiopia.
13
While this latter website frequently mentions the strong
presence of Eritrean soldiers, they do however not map the territorial control by the
Eritrean army.
13
https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=1ukq3h-
fUshA0a0ZDcSI22WHbfC6PnKtX&ll=13.601294334732511%2C38.97226253632812&z=9
Fig. 2. Accessibility and territorial control in Tigray. North of the green line, fully occupied by
Eritrea; coloured areas south of the line, towns and roads occupied jointly by ENDF
14
and
EDF; Western and Southern Tigray, occupied jointly by ENDF and Amhara forces; white areas
south of the line, major warfare areas between TDF and EDF-ENDF, according to our source
within the UN system.
Claimed and real assistance
We do not really know whether this map represents accessibility to woredas or whether the
UN claims that the mentioned assistance is really carried out. The above-quoted witnesses
all live in woredas coloured as “Food assistance” or “Food and non-food assistance” – yet,
what is received is really minimal.
Food aid as a weapon in the war against Tigray
Woredas near the Eritran border are represented as “Food assistance only”. Our witness
who was in charge of aid distribution in those places says: “it is taken by the Eritrean army”.
Another witness, from Irob woreda (extreme northeast of Tigray) mentioned to Associated
Press that Ethiopian authorities withholding food aid from families suspected of links to
Tigray fighters: “If you don’t bring your father, your brothers, you don’t get the aid, you’ll
starve”.
15
In many of the above testimonies the use of food aid as a weapon against the
Tigray resistance is like a red thread.
Starting 10 February, aid has been interrupted to the Hawzen and Tembien areas and lorries
had to return back to Mekelle by order of the ENDF. According to a witness in Mekelle, the
14
ENDF = Ethiopian National Defence Force; EDF = Eritrean Defence Force; TDF = Tigray Defence Force.
15
Associated Press, 12 February 2021: ‘We’ll be left without families’: Fear in Ethiopia’s Tigray
army is doing this following the heavy losses on the war fronts in the first half of February
2021 (TDF’s “Operation Seyoum Mesfin”).
16
Official statements
OCHA official Jens Laerke stated that it was “less of a problem” to deliver food aid which is
being warehoused in Mekelle. “The problem is access both to get into Tigray in the first
place and also getting from Mekelle into the countryside where most of the people in need
are.”
17
On 8 February, the EU has stated that it “remains very concerned by the tragic humanitarian
crisis unfolding in Tigray and its regional implications. Three months into the conflict,
despite small openings, the limitations to humanitarian access to Tigray continue to prevent
the provision of humanitarian assistance to address the immensity of needs, avert the risk
of famine and prevent further loss of life.”
18
In response to this statement, on 9 February,
the Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs basically replies that all is going well. Remarkably,
they do not deny the presence of Eritrean troops, and as expected there is no invite to
international journalists to visit Tigray.
19
16
Around Guya in Qolla Tembien, confirmed by satellite imagery:
https://twitter.com/MapEthiopia/status/1360168549323468803. Surroundings of May Kinet’al and Hagere
Selam: https://twitter.com/MapEthiopia/status/1360496166169792512
17
American Stock News, 5 February 2021: Aid agencies renew appeals for aid access to all areas in Ethiopia’s
Tigray
18
Ethiopia: Joint-Statement by High-Representative/Vice-President Josep Borrell, Commissioner Jutta
Urpilainen and Commissioner Janez Lenarčič
19
https://twitter.com/fanatelevision/status/1359205642989404160