Skip to main content
UN humanitarian chief calls Ethiopia crisis a ‘stain on our conscience’ as people starve to death under government blockade
Ababa, 25, comforts her baby Wegahta, 6 months, who was identified as severely acutely malnourished, in Gijet in the Tigray region of northern Ethiopia

THE humanitarian crisis in Ethiopia is a “stain on our conscience” as people starve to death under a de facto blockade by the government, United Nations chief Martin Griffiths has said.

In an interview with the Associated Press, the UN’s emergency relief co-ordinator described the deprivation in the war-torn northern Tigray region, where the malnutrition rate is now over 22 per cent, comparing it to the Somali famine of 2011, which killed more than a quarter of a million people.

He said he hoped that the 1980s Ethiopian famine, in which a million people perished, would not be repeated.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
Similar stories
Transitional Prime Minister of Sudan Kamil El-Tayeb Idris addresses the 80th session of the United Nations General Assembly, September 25, 2025, at UN headquarters
Northeast Africa / 26 September 2025
26 September 2025
A Palestinian boy walks amid debris after Israeli military strikes in a tent camp for displaced people near Al-Aqsa Hospital, in Deir al-Balah, August 21, 2025
Gaza / 22 August 2025
22 August 2025
This June 2023 photo provided by the World Food Programme shows food distribution by the WFP for internally displaced persons at the Wad Almajzoub farm camp in Wad Medani, Gezira state, Sudan
Sudan / 2 July 2025
2 July 2025