'All but two of my family were injured'

THE people of Tigray are emerging from a war that left their homeland scarred and broken.

- Steph Spyron

Two years of relentless fighting in Ethiopia's northern region from November 2020 has caused a humanitarian crisis of unimaginable proportions.

Children, their faces gaunt and eyes hollow with hunger, bear the brunt of this catastrophe. Families are plunged into the depths of malnutrition and starvation.

It is estimated that 4.5 million people need emergency food aid.

Fields once lush with crops have been reduced to barren wastelands because of drought. The spectre of famine looms large over Tigray, where everyday life is a battle against hunger and despair.

With millions of people displaced and up to 600,000 killed, communities that survived are now navigating the fragile process of recovery and rebuilding.

About one million people who were forced to flee their homes endure a daily struggle for survival in camps across the region.

The war was primarily fought between forces allied to the Ethiopian government and Eritrea on one side and the Tigray People's Liberation Front on the other.

A power struggle, an election and a push for political reform led to the crisis.

Many now grapple with the harsh realities of displacement, hoping to return to homes which could have been reduced to rubble.

The Gebru family, living in a former classroom at a camp for internally displaced people (IDP) called May-weyni in Tigray's capital Makelle, cling to memories of a life that war has torn apart.

An ethnic massacre in their farming town of Mai Kadra, near the Sudanese border, saw scores of people stabbed or hacked to death on the night of November 9, 2020.