As Ethiopia’s escalating hunger crisis falls on the world’s deaf ears, school meals are a matter of life and death for the children of Tigray

Introduction: The deadly conflict that raged in and around Tigray for two years is believed to have cost the lives of around 600,000 people and left millions displaced, hungry, and in dire need of assistance. The same northern Ethiopian region is now in the grip of drought, and people – including children – are already dying of hunger because they simply don’t have enough food to survive.

Mary’s Meals – a global school feeding charity which is currently serving daily school meals to more than 2.4 million children in some of the world’s poorest communities – began serving meals to schoolchildren in Ethiopia in 2017. Together with a trusted partner, the organisation is working with local communities to respond to the widespread and acute need in the region by providing nutritious meals to tens of thousands of children in schools across Tigray.

The following account provides an overview of the organisation’s response to Ethiopia’s hunger crisis and the long-lasting impact of its school feeding programme. As well as providing vital nutrition for children, these meals are encouraging them back to the classroom at a time when regional statistics show more than half of all primary-age children in the region (53%) are not currently enrolled.

The humanitarian crisis

Tigray is at the epicentre of Ethiopia’s catastrophic humanitarian crisis, as its people grapple with the aftermath of a brutal conflict, displacement, poverty – and now, drought. The two-year civil war that raged in and around the northern region of Tigray caused widespread devastation and left physical and mental scars on the people there, including millions of children. Those who survived the atrocities of the war now face crisis levels of food insecurity and hunger, as the majority of Tigrayans are expected to be experiencing ‘emergency’ levels of acute food insecurity, according to FEWS NET projections.

Many of us will remember the infamous famine that plagued the same region in the 1980s and the BBC documentary that shocked the world into action. The worldwide fundraising effort that followed also led to the 1985 Live Aid concerts, which changed the face of charity considerably.

Tigray was among the worst affected areas then, too.[1] Although a famine has not yet been declared this time, forty years on, reports from our local partner and local authorities underline the extreme levels of hunger already engulfing communities in the region. In just one month, almost 400 people, including 25 children, were reported to have succumbed to death by starvation,[2] and unless major international intervention happens soon, the situation will only deteriorate further. Getachew Reda, President of the Tigray Interim Regional Administration, told Channel 4 News: “…it is our responsibility to see to it that this unfolding famine doesn’t end up killing thousands, if not millions, because if we fail to address this problem, in time, whatever happened in 1985 would pale in comparison to what would happen now … I am in charge of the region, and I see people dying of hunger”.

Not only is there clearly a catastrophic hunger crisis unfolding in Tigray, but there is also another silent disaster emerging, and that is the destruction of children’s education. During the two-year conflict, millions of children were suddenly unable to go to school, and instead, caught up in dangerous and traumatic situations. A recent study found that 62% of children expected that they would be killed during the war.[3] Some fled to displacement camps, travelling many miles – sometimes alone – to escape the fighting. Others escaped to caves or other outdoor hiding places just to survive.

Our partner told us: “Children are so innocent, they didn’t know why this was happening, they cannot comprehend. They cannot understand, but they end up in circumstances that are so unfavourable for children – they end up hungry, they end up living in different places. Parents would take them anywhere, just to keep them alive.”

Schools in Tigray were attacked and looted, others were used as military bases. In and around Mekelle, many schools became temporary shelters for internally displaced people escaping from the fighting. Information from our partner suggests that although more than two thirds of schools have since reopened, roughly 25% are on the verge of closure because extreme hunger means that enrolment and attendance has plummeted. More than 550 school buildings remain under occupation and more than 100 are still being used as shelters for IDPs.   

Mary’s Meals began serving children in Tigray in 2017. Nutritious meals served at school help to meet children’s immediate need for food, and the promise of a reliable food source promotes access to education. Research has found that the meals also improve children’s energy and concentration levels, which stands them in good stead to build a brighter future for themselves and their communities through the opportunities that come from learning.

Despite more than three years of school closures in Ethiopia’s Tigray region because of Covid-19 and the war that followed, we continued to work closely with our local partner and were able to provide essential emergency support to children and families suffering unimaginable trauma and hunger. We provided daily hot meals and other practical items to more than 30,000 displaced people sheltering in camps around Mekelle as well as supporting our partner to deliver psycho-social trauma support. As people began returning home to their villages, our support continued in the form of community food distributions.

Today, school feeding has resumed in all the schools Mary’s Meals served before the war, and thousands more children are now receiving Mary’s Meals thanks to recent expansions to the programme. The relief that our school feeding programme offers was summed up by colleagues from our partner organisation, who spoke of the “great longing” among children to return to classes. They said: “All these empty stomachs will have something to sustain them. Children will have time and space to talk. It will be a reunion, to be able to see one another after years of separation, hopefully it will give them relief. These children were out of school for years [and] deprived of basic necessities. [Now they can] go to school and be fed, [and] get attention from teachers, attention from our staff members, and [spend time in] a place where they feel comfortable, where the environment is attractive to their needs. They are really overjoyed and very happy to start their school.”

The war has undone years of progress in Tigray’s education system and the impact of so many children missing years of learning is sure to be huge. For now, there is an urgent dual priority: ensuring that the children of Tigray don’t starve, and supporting them to reengage with education.

We are acutely aware of the desperate need in Tigray and are working tirelessly with our partner to scale up our reach.Before the war,there were more than 20,000 children receiving Mary’s Meals. This figure now stands at more than 45,000, and we have further plans to expand our programme into more schools in the coming months.

Hunger is not just an inevitable fate for the people of Tigray. Mary’s Meals works closely with communities to make it possible for tens of thousands of children in the region to receive a daily meal in school, but your support is urgently needed to help reach many more.

Amid the tragedy unfolding right now, these are not only daily meals – they are beacons of hope. As our partner so movingly questions: “…if you don’t help people from starving, from dying, now, when are you going to do it? Tomorrow is too late.”

Please donate to Mary’s Meals today.

[1] https://www.jstor.org/stable/4186321

[2] https://addisstandard.com/in-depth-famine-haunts-tigray-again-weak-response-conflicts-and-drought-threaten-millions-elsewhere-in-ethiopia/

[3] https://luminosfund.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Examining-Levels-of-Learning-Loss-Trauma-and-Resilience-in-Children-Parents-and-Teachers-in-Tigray-Ethiopia.pdf