Food aid in Ethiopia's Tigray region will run out this week, U.S. warns

• Less than 7% of the needed food aid has reached the Tigray region, where up to 900,000 people face famine conditions, according to Power.

What she's saying: "[Humanitarian workers] have encountered unacceptable delays at multiple checkpoints, some of which take hours to clear, as well as repeated intensive searches," Power said.

• "Aid workers are harassed, and we have seen an increase in troubling and harmful rhetoric coming from the Ethiopian Government against humanitarians," she added.
• "The U.S. calls on the Ethiopian Government to immediately allow humanitarian assistance to swiftly move into Tigray in order to prevent a catastrophic stop to food assistance that millions need to survive."

The big picture: The U.S. warning comes just hours after UN Secretary-General António Guterres described humanitarian conditions in the region as "hellish," AP reports.

• Ethiopia's government, which has accused humanitarian workers of arming and supporting Tigray fighters, has confiscated aid workers' personal medication, cash and communications equipment as they try to enter the region, per AP.
• Bank services and telephone and internet access are also cut off in the Tigray region.

• According to Thursday's U.N. humanitarian update on Tigray, 100 trucks of supplies — 90 of them with food — must enter Tigray every day to help meet the needs of more than 5 million people. But just 316 trucks entered the region between July 12 and last Sunday.
• Guterres said he spoke to Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed on Thursday and there "“there was a commitment things would improve, but we have to see what happens in the next few days," per AP.

Go deeper: 900,000 face famine in Ethiopia's Tigray region, U.S. says