The first batch of international aid in three months has reached Ethiopia's war-torn region of Tigray, a week after a ceasefire between the government and rebels was agreed.
Hundreds of thousands of people are facing starvation in the area, where Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed's government and the Tigray People's Liberation Front have been at war for 17 months.
“WFP-led convoys to Tigray are back on the road & making steady progress!” the UN's World Food Programme said on Twitter.
“Just arrived in Erepti [in the neighbouring Afar region] & will soon cross into Tigray, bringing in over 500 mt [tonnes] of urgently needed WFP/partner food & nutrition supplies for communities on edge of starvation.”
The TPLF said the 20 aid lorries were now in territory under its control in Afar and on their way to Tigray's capital Mekele. While some aid was arriving in Tigray's capital Mekelle by air, it was insufficient, the UN Office for Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs Ethiopia office said.
“This is one good step in the right direction; the bottom line, though, isn't about how many lorries are allowed but whether there is a system in place to ensure unfettered humanitarian access for the needy!” TPLF spokesman Getachew Reda said on Twitter.
He told AFP in Nairobi that it was likely that the aid convoy would take “a few hours” to reach Mekele as the lorries may have to refuel.
The development comes just days after both sides accused each other of blocking an aid convoy headed for Tigray, which has not seen any humanitarian supplies arrive by road since December 15.
War has been raging in the region since November 2020.
Famine risk
UN: 'Worst fears confirmed' as 100,000 children in Tigray at risk of death from malnutrition
Malnutrition and food insecurity are rampant in northern Ethiopia, where an estimated nine million people across the Tigray, Amhara and Afar regions need critical food assistance due to conflict, WFP says.
OCHA said in a report on Thursday that food stocks in Tigray were “minimal” and as a result humanitarian workers had cut back or even halted their operations.
Tigrayan leaders have in the past accused federal authorities and regional governments in Afar and Amhara of blocking aid into Tigray, accusations they deny.
The UN has repeatedly called on Ethiopia's government to get aid into the north and has said that shortages there were “man-made” .
