POPE Francis demanded today that humanitarian aid reach hungry people in Tigray, where Ethiopian and Eritrean soldiers are blocking food deliveries and other assistance.

The pope called for an immediate end to the fighting in the war-torn region of northern Ethiopia, the return of social harmony and for “all food aid and healthcare assistance to be guaranteed.”

Speaking at his Sunday afternoon blessing, Pope Francis said he was thinking of the people of Tigray who have been “struck by a grave humanitarian crisis that has exposed the poorest to famine. Today there is famine, there is hunger.”

The United Nations and aid groups say more than 350,000 people in Tigray face famine and two million more are a step away from the worst famine since 2011 in Somalia.

Farmers, aid workers and local officials say food has been turned into a weapon of war, with soldiers blocking or stealing food aid.

More than two million of Tigray’s six million people have already fled, unable to harvest their crops.

The war in Tigray started in November, shortly before the harvest season, as an attempt by Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed to disarm the region’s rebellious leaders.

On one side are guerillas loyal to the ousted and now-fugitive leaders of Tigray. On the other are Ethiopian government troops, allied troops from neighbouring Eritrea and militias from Ethiopia’s Amhara ethnic group, who see themselves as rivals to the Tigrayan fighters.