UN halts aid handouts in Ethiopia town after mass looting

UNITED NATIONS (AFP), 9 DEC, 2021 - The World Food Program has suspended aid distribution in the northern Ethiopian town of Kombolcha after “mass looting” of its warehouses blamed on Tigrayan forces, a UN spokesman said Wednesday.

Stephane Dujarric told reporters there had been “mass looting of warehouses across Kombolcha in recent days, reportedly by elements of the Tigrayan forces and some members of the local population.”

“Large quantities of humanitarian food supplies, including nutritional items for malnourished children, have been stolen and looted,” he said, warning that the looting risked increasing food insecurity in northern Ethiopia.

In the provinces of Tigray, Amhara and Afar, an estimated 9.4 million people “are now in critical need of food assistance,” Dujarric said, a significant leap on previous estimates.

The UN said that 5.2 million of them are in Tigray, 534,000 in Afar province and 3.7 million in Amhara province.