The World Food Program suspended aid distribution in the northern Ethiopian town of Kombolcha after mass looting of its warehouses blamed Tigrayan forces, a UN spokesman said Wednesday.
Stephane Dujarric told reporters that there had been mass looting of warehouses across Kombolcha in recent days, reportedly by members of the Tigrayan forces and some members of the local population. Large quantities of humanitarian food supplies, including nutritional items for malnourished children, have been stolen and looted, he said, warning that the looting has increased food insecurity in northern Ethiopia.
An estimated 9.4 million people in the provinces of Tigray, Amhara and Afar are in need of food assistance, a significant leap from previous estimates, according to Dujarric.
The UN said that 5.2 million of them are in Tigray, 534,000 in Afar province and 3.7 million in Amhara province.
He said that the harassment of humanitarian staff by armed forces was unacceptable and that the World Food Program teams on the ground were not able to prevent the looting in the face of extreme intimidation. That resulted in the decision to suspend food distribution in Dessie and Kombolcha, two strategic towns on the road to the capital.
The Ethiopian government recently announced it had retaken the two cities, but Tigrayan forces said the army had only recovered abandoned areas after strategic withdrawals by the rebels.
In November 2020, the war began when Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed sent troops into Tigray to topple the Tigray People's Liberation Front TPLF, a move he said came in response to rebel attacks on army camps.
The rebels reclaimed most of Tigray by the end of June, before expanding into the neighboring regions of Amhara and Afar.
According to UN estimates, the fighting has killed thousands of people, displaced more than two million and forced hundreds of thousands into famine-like conditions.