Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Lord Benyon on 9 February (HL1953), whether they will now answer the question put; namely, what assessment they have made of reports by the Mekelle branch of the Ethiopian Ombudsman Institution on 24 January that in five camps of internally displaced people in Tigray, 900 had died due to starvation.

A press release relating to the Ombudsman's report was issued on 30 January. It did not state what evidence the Ombudsman team were basing their observations on or what methodology they had used to determine cause of death. We use all available data sources to assess the severity of food insecurity across northern Ethiopia. In his recent visit to Ethiopia in February 2024, Minister Andrew Mitchell saw firsthand the worsening humanitarian situation in Tigray and announced an additional £100 million to end preventable deaths, targeting three million people across Ethiopia including those who are most at risk in the northern regions.