Tigray, Ethiopia
The most acute famine of the modern era – one that could kill as many as half a million people – is occurring in Ethiopia. And it has barely attracted a flicker of attention.
In Tigray, children are dying of hunger. It is almost certainly too late to prevent tens of thousands from starving to death in the coming months. Last month, aid officials estimated that 350,000 were in famine, almost 2 million on the brink, and almost all of Tigray’s 6 million people needed aid.
A hundred lorries of food were needed every day for three months. In the three weeks up to 19 July, just one aid convoy of 50 trucks crossed into Tigray. Without television pictures, it seems that human compassion is occluded. We know the numbers, we know how starvation takes its relentless toll on those small bodies, but neither the public nor governments are treating the calamity with the urgency it warrants.





