Hunger and malnutrition a real danger for the nearly 100,000 refugees sheltering in Tigray camps, UN says as it calls for access.

Eritrean refugee children fetch water from a tap at Mai-Aini refugee camp near the Eritrean boarder in the Tigrai region in Ethiopia [File:Tiksa Negeri/Reuters]
The United Nations has sounded the alarm over the severe effect of food shortages on the thousands of Eritrean refugees sheltering in camps in Ethiopia’s restive Tigray region, requesting “urgent access” to be able to deliver badly needed aid.

Wednesday marks a month since Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed announced a military operation against forces loyal to the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), which ruled the northern region of six million people neighbouring Eritrea.
Communications and transport links to Tigray have since been severed, and the UN and humanitarian agencies have pleaded for access to provide food, medicines and other supplies in the camps that sheltered nearly 100,000 Eritreans before the hostilities began.

“We, as humanitarians, have lost access and contact with the refugees since the last month that this fighting has been ongoing,
and now there are worrying reports of attacks, of abductions and also of recruitments in and around these refugee camps,” UN refugee agency spokesman Babar Baloch told Al Jazeera on Tuesday.

“We are asking for urgent access to these refugee camps,” he said. “There are also worrying reports that many refugees may have left the camp looking for safety and assistance including food in other areas of the Tigray region.”

Addressing reporters in Geneva earlier on Tuesday, Baloch said “concerns are growing by the hour.”“The camps will have now run out of food supplies – making hunger and malnutrition a real danger, a warning we have been issuing since the conflict began nearly a month ago.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/12/1/un-says-food-has-run-out-for-eritrea-refugees-in-tigray-camps