NAIROBI, 27 June 2021, (TON): The United States estimates that up to 900,000 people in Ethiopia’s Tigray region now face famine conditions amid a deadly conflict, even as the prime minister says there is “no hunger” there.

Head of the US Agency for International Development, Samantha Power, said “the hunger crisis in Tigray is the world’s worst in a decade, and the new famine findings are terrifying, millions more people are at risk.”

The new estimate more than doubles the warning issued earlier this month by the United Nations and aid groups that more than 350,000 people face famine conditions in Tigray. Even as scattered reports emerge of people starving to death, the real number of people facing famine conditions is unknown because active fighting and access restrictions keep aid workers from reaching all parts of the region of 6 million people.

New USAID analysis says “Conditions will worsen in the coming months, particularly as Tigray enters the July-to-September lean season, unless humanitarian assistance reaches the populations most in need.”