By Stephanie Nebehay
GENEVA (Reuters) – Some 24,000 Eritrean refugee are trapped in two camps in Ethiopia’s Tigray region, cut off from humanitarian aid and where food rations may have run out, the United Nations refugee agency said on Tuesday.
Fighting between armed groups has escalated in and around the camps, Mai Aini and Adi Harush, and two refugees have been killed this month, it said, adding it not know who the groups are.
“The last food distribution to the two refugee camps was done during the month of June, the ration supplies then were only enough for 30 days,” Babar Baloch, spokesman of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), told a Geneva news briefing.
“There is a real danger of hunger among these refugees if supplies do not resume as they may have already run out of food supplies that were given to them,” he said.
Clean drinking water is also running out, he added.
“Health care services in Tigray are alarmingly limited, leaving hundreds of thousands of people, including those injured during the fighting, pregnant women and survivors of sexual violence, without adequate access to essential medicines and basic care,” said Fadela Chaib of the World Health Organization.
There has been a “significant and worrisome increase” in the number of reported cases of severe acute malnutrition among children in Tigray – which can be fatal, she said.
Conflict broke out between the Ethiopian central government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) in November. Three weeks later, the government seized control of Tigray’s capital Mekelle and declared victory.
But the TPLF kept fighting and in a stunning reversal of fortunes at the end of June retook Mekelle and most of Tigray after government soldiers withdrew.
UNHCR lost access to the camps on July 14, Baloch said.
(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; editing by Giles Elgood)
