UNITED NATIONS (PA) – The crisis in Ethiopia is a “stain on our conscience,” said the UN humanitarian chief, as children and others die of hunger in the Tigray region. under what the UN has called a de facto government blockade of food, medical supplies and fuel.

In an interview with The Associated Press on Tuesday, Martin Griffiths issued one of the sharpest criticisms to date of the world’s worst food crisis in ten years after nearly a year of war. Memories of the 1980s famine in Ethiopia, which killed some 1 million people and whose images shocked the world, are vivid in his mind, “and we fervently hope that is not happening now,” a- he declared.

“That’s what’s keeping people from sleeping at night,” Griffiths said, “is worrying whether that’s what’s in the pipeline, and in the pipeline soon.”

He described a landscape of deprivation in the interior of Tigray, where the rate of malnutrition is now over 22% – “about the same as we saw in Somalia in 2011 at the onset of the Somali famine”, that killed over a quarter of a million people.

The war in Ethiopia began last November on the brink of harvest in Tigray, and the UN has said at least half of the upcoming harvest will fail. Witnesses said Ethiopian and Allied forces destroyed or looted food sources.

Meanwhile, only 10% of necessary humanitarian supplies have reached Tigray in recent weeks, Griffiths said.

“So people ate roots, flowers and plants instead of a normal regular meal,” he said.

“Lack of food means people will start to die. ”

Last week, the PA, citing testimony and internal documents, reported the first famine deaths ever since the Ethiopian government imposed the blockade on the region of 6 million people in an attempt to prevent support from reaching Tigray forces.

But the problem isn’t just hunger.

The UN humanitarian chief, who recently visited Tigray, cited the lack of medical supplies and noted that vulnerable children and pregnant or breastfeeding mothers are often the first to die of illness. Some 200,000 children across the region have not been vaccinated since the start of the war.

And the lack of fuel – “almost to zero now,” Griffiths said – means the UN and other aid groups are finding it virtually impossible to reach people all over Tigray or even know the true extent of the needs.

Telephone, internet and banking services were also cut, effectively hiding the crisis from the world. The community of Mekele University in the regional capital warned in a letter to the UN, the European Union and others that Tigray “is experiencing a form of man-made famine which is minimizing starvation. of 1984 in its severity ”.

In the letter, shared by the Tigray Office of Communications Affairs on Wednesday, the community called for urgent intervention.

Billene Seyoum, spokesperson for Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, Nobel Peace Prize winner, did not answer questions. The government blamed the problems of delivering humanitarian aid on Tigray forces, which dominated the national government for a long time before Abiy sidelined them. Abiy’s government has also alarmed UN officials and others by accusing aid workers of supporting Tigray fighters.

Griffiths called such allegations unacceptable and unfair. He said he told the government to share any evidence of misconduct on the part of aid workers so that the UN can investigate, but “as far as I know we have not had such cases before us. “.

Aid workers boarding flights to Tigray are urged not to bring any items, including multivitamins, can openers and medicines, even personal ones. The UN humanitarian chief said he too was searched during his visit to Tigray, with authorities examining everything in his bag and even wondering why he was wearing headphones.

The Ethiopian crisis has led the UN, the United States and others to urge the belligerents to stop the fighting and take steps towards peace, but Griffiths warned that “the war does not seem to want to end anytime soon. early”.

On the contrary, in recent weeks it has spread to the neighboring region of Amhara. Griffiths said active battle lines made it difficult to get aid to hundreds of thousands more.

Ethiopia will see the formation of a new government next week with another five years in office for the prime minister. Griffiths, who said he last spoke with Abiy three or four weeks ago, expressed hope for a change in leadership.

“We would all like to see, with this electoral inauguration, that we would see new leadership lift Ethiopia out of the abyss it is now leaning into, the national dialogue process it has discussed with me in the past, and his MP spoke with me last week, it has to happen, ”Griffiths said.

“It has to be consistent, it has to be inclusive and it has to be soon.”

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Anna reported from Nairobi, Kenya.