MOGADISHU, Somalia 

More than 860 people have died in Ethiopia’s war-torn northern region of Tigray due to hunger since September 2023, a regional official said on Friday. 

In an interview with Anadolu over the phone on Friday, head of the Tigray Communication Bureau, Redai Halefom, said the figures could exceed as there are unreported deaths due to the ongoing starvation in the conflict-plagued Tigray region of Ethiopia.

The official warned that the humanitarian situation in Ethiopia’s Tigray region continues to deteriorate as “this famine might be the worst of its kind in the modern history of Tigray.”

He added that people are still dying in the region due to a lack of adequate humanitarian intervention.

Getachew Reda, the Tigray regional administration interim president, said in late December that the situation is a “catastrophe” comparable to the deadly 1984 famine that left millions dead in Ethiopia.

The legacies of the destructive war in Tigray and drought-induced famine have created a deadly combination that exposed 91% of Tigray citizens to the risk of starvation.

Reda said thousands of Tigrayans have perished due to lack of food since the signing of the Pretoria Agreement that ended the conflict between the Ethiopian government and The Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) in November 2022.

His interim government has declared a state of emergency due to the ongoing humanitarian crisis in early December last year.