Over 5 million people face extreme hunger as the Tigray conflict surges past six months
Format
Planting season comes to a halt as thousands of farmers lost tools, seeds and livestock
Six months since the conflict erupted in Tigray, thousands of farmers have nothing to plant ahead of the rainy season as the crisis compounded by climate-fuelled locust devastated their tools and livestock and pushed over 5 million people to extreme levels of hunger, warned Oxfam today.
Gezahegn Kebede Gebrehana, Oxfam’s Country Director in Ethiopia said:
“Farming should be beginning now ahead of the long rainy season in June, but it has come to a total halt due to conflict and the absence of rain. Many farmers have no seeds to plant, and their oxen and tools were looted or destroyed in the conflict. Trade and market exchanges have stagnated as people fear a resurgence of fighting.”