News releases

ADDIS ABABA – The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) today warned that its life-saving food assistance operations in northern Ethiopia are about to grind to a halt because intense fighting has blocked the passage of fuel and food.

ADDIS ABABA –  The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) is facing a major funding shortfall over the next six months threatening its ability to meet the critical food and nutrition needs of millions of food insecure Ethiopians and refugees.

ADDIS ABABA – The number of people in need of humanitarian food assistance across northern Ethiopia has grown to an estimated 9.4 million as a direct result of ongoing conflict, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) announced today.

This is a summary of what was said by WFP Spokesperson Tomson Phiri – to whom quoted text may be attributed – at today's press briefing at the Palais des Nations in Geneva, Switzerland.


Geneva – The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) calls on all parties to the conflict in northern Ethiopia to respect humanitarian operations and assets and allow unimpeded passage of humanitarian relief to civilians in need.

CAIRO – The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) welcomes a donation package totalling €7.5 million (approximately US$8.1 million) from the Government of Belgium to support the food agency’s response to rising food needs in Ethiopia, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, and Syria.

ADDIS ABABA – The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), and ARRA, the national agency for Refugee and Returnee Affairs, appealed today for US$68 million to avoid food ration cuts for over 700,000 refugees in Ethiopia.

Rome/London – The World Food Programme (WFP) welcomes a contribution of US$ 2.75 million from Khalsa Aid International as part of a three-year programme to support school children in Yemen and refugees from the Tigray Crisis

ADDIS ABABA – The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has completed its first round of food distributions to people impacted by the spread of conflict into Afar and Amhara regions. However, a lack of supplies due to various impediments to the movement of humanitarian aid still sees distributions in Tigray lagging behind.

ADDIS ABABA –  As conflict spills across Northern Ethiopia, forcing 300,000 people from their homes and 1.7 million into hunger in Afar and Amhara provinces, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has announced an unprecedented funding gap of $US426 million across its operation in Ethiopia and appealed for funds to meet the needs of up to 12 million people this year.

ADDIS ABABA – The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) delivered food to over a million people in the north-west and parts of southern Tigray in June and July under the second round of distributions, despite numerous challenges. But severe shortages of food, cash, fuel and functioning telecommunications equipment mean WFP has only reached half of those it planned to reach, including communities on the verge of famine.

ROME – A United Nations Humanitarian Air Service (UNHAS) flight managed by WFP and operated by our longstanding aviation services partner – Abyssinia Flight Services - was forced to make a crash landing on the afternoon of Tuesday July 27, whilst transporting passengers between Jigjiga and Dire Dawa.

ADDIS ABABA – The first United Nations Humanitarian Air Service (UNHAS) passenger flight, which is managed by the United Nations World Food Programme, has touched down at Tigray’s Alula Aba Nega International Airport in Mekelle today.

ADDIS ABABA – A United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) convoy of 50 trucks arrived in the Tigrayan capital of Mekelle today with 900 metric tons of food as well as other emergency supplies. However, double this number of trucks needs to be moving in every day to meet the vast humanitarian needs in the region.

ADDIS ABABA – The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has resumed its operations in the Tigray region of Ethiopia after fighting halted the emergency response last week. However serious challenges are threatening the entire humanitarian response in the region.

ROME – Alarming new data has today confirmed the magnitude of the hunger emergency gripping Tigray, where at least 4 million people face severe hunger and 350 000 of them are facing famine. The lack of information on people’s food security in western Tigray in the IPC analysis is also deeply worrying.

10 June 2021, Rome - The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) and UNICEF call for urgent action to address the dramatic acute food insecurity in northern Ethiopia. The three agencies are particularly concerned about the situation in Tigray region where the risk of famine is imminent, unless food, livelihood assistance and other life-saving interventions continue to be scaled-up, unimpeded access is guaranteed, and hostilities cease.

MEKELE – The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has provided emergency food assistance to 1 million people since starting distributions in Northwestern and Southern zones of Tigray region in March.

ADDIS ABABA – The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) welcomes a US$400,000 contribution from the Government of the Republic of Korea to our operations in Ethiopia’s Tigray region to help provide food and nutrition support for thousands of people displaced by conflict.

ADDIS ABABA –  The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has begun providing emergency food assistance to vulnerable people in Ethiopia’s Tigray Region but urgently needs US$170 million to meet critical food and nutrition needs over the next six months, and to be able to cover any sudden increase.

ROME – Acute hunger is set to soar in over 20 countries in the coming months without urgent and scaled-up assistance, warn the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and World Food Programme (WFP) in a new report issued today.

ADDIS ABABA/ROME – The World Food Programme (WFP) affirms the need for strong partnership between the Government of Ethiopia and the entire humanitarian community to rapidly scale up a collective response to meet the immediate humanitarian needs of people in Tigray.

ADDIS ABABA/ROME - Today, the Executive Director of the World Food Programme, David Beasley, the United Nations Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Ethiopia, Catherine Sozi, and the Federal Minister of Peace of the Government of Ethiopia, Muferihat Kamil, completed a joint visit to Mekelle in Ethiopia’s Tigray Region, aiming to highlight the need for strong partnership to rapidly scale up a Government-led collective response to meet the immediate humanitarian needs of people in Ethiopia’s Tigray Region.

ADDIS ABABA – Eritrean refugees in two camps in the Tigray Region of Ethiopia received a month’s worth of food supplies through a joint distribution by the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and Ethiopia’s Agency for Refugees and Returnee Affairs (ARRA).

BEIJING - The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) and the Government of China have signed agreements to provide food assistance to vulnerable people in Ethiopia and Guinea whose food security is being further undermined by the socio-economic effects of COVID-19. The resulting loss of jobs in the casual labour market and the loss of remittances sent from abroad have had a huge impact on poor familes in many parts of the world.

Geneva/ Rome - UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, and the World Food Programme (WFP) are warning that severe underfunding, conflict and disasters – as well as supply chain challenges, rising food prices and loss of income due to COVID19 - threaten to leave millions of refugees across Africa without food.