Samaritan’s Purse is providing critical food relief and other aid to displaced people in Tigray.
Violent conflict in Ethiopia’s northernmost region of Tigray has sent hundreds of thousands of people fleeing from their homes. Responding in Jesus’ Name, Samaritan’s Purse is working with local churches and other groups to identify and provide food for the most vulnerable families in their communities.
Our teams prepare for distributions of food and other items to displaced people in the Tigray region.
Our teams and partners, including church partners, are distributing food baskets with enough for a month’s supply of wheat flour, rice, beans, oil, and salt. Additionally, we are providing cooking and hygiene kits.
Right now we are working in an area that has become a hotspot for these hurting people. Many traveled nearly 200 miles to escape fighting. Families are temporarily sheltering in schools, churches or mosques in the area.
Some say they and their children have gone as long as three months without a reliable source of food.
When the armed conflict reached her hometown, Simret fled with her two toddler children. “We couldn’t find food for one week, and when we did find food, it was not enough for my babies.”
They slept in churches and schools along the way and arrived a few months ago severely malnourished. This is just one of thousands of such stories emerging from these dire circumstances.
Fending Off Malnutrition
This crisis has been especially hard on young children. To help the most vulnerable among the displaced, each family with children under age five receives ready-to-eat supplements to provide a month’s worth of adequate nutrition for each child.
This emergency intervention is critically needed to save the lives of children at risk of acute malnutrition.
“I am so happy and so thankful for this gift,” Simret said. “It will really help us.”
Simret is grateful for help from Samaritan’s Purse and is hopeful for peace and to be reunited with her family.
During our distributions, our medical teams are also conducting nutrition screenings to identify mothers at risk for malnutrition and provide them with additional nutritional supplements.
Simret hopes for peace and to be reunited soon with the rest of her family.
“I don’t know where my brothers are now. I cannot find them,” she said. “I hope that we will have peace so we can be together again soon.”
In the coming days, our teams will also begin distributing solar lanterns to families and sheets of tarp for repairing or constructing shelters.
Please pray for peace in Tigray and for the people who have suffered greatly in this area. Pray also for our teams as we share the love of Christ in the midst of a growing humanitarian crisis.
