UNITED NATIONS (AP) – UN agencies on Monday received the approval of the Ethiopian government to send another 25 staff members to the fighting in Tigray, a region where the United Nations says hunger is growing and that much of the territory was inaccessible to humanitarian workers.
UN spokeswoman Stephane Dujarric called the clearance “a first step in ensuring that aid workers in Tigray can respond and increase response, given the rapidly rising needs in the region.”
A UN humanitarian report released on Thursday said life for civilians in Tigray had become “extremely worrying” since the fighting began in early November, in which Ethiopian and allied forces opposed those of the Tigray region, which dominated the country’s government for almost three decades, before Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed. took service in 2018. Each side now considers the other to be illegal.
The government said more than 1 million people in Tigray had been reached with aid, but some aid workers reported that they had to negotiate with a range of armed actors, even from neighboring Eritrea, and that famine had become a major problem.
As fighting enters the fourth month, international pressure on Ethiopia, the second most populous country in Africa and the anchor of the Horn of Africa, has increased to allow aid workers, journalists and human rights activists into Tigray. Currently, communication is volatile and little is known about the situation for most of its 6 million people.
Dujarric pointed to recent “positive links” between the government and senior UN officials, including David Beasley, executive director of the World Food Program, who had just concluded a trip to Ethiopia.
Beasley reported that WFP accepted the government’s request “to help authorities and aid workers transport aid to and within Tigray” and also agreed “to provide food aid to up to one million people in Tigray,” Dujarric said.
The UN spokesman said humanitarian workers were “looking forward to receiving approval” for 60 UN staff members and aid agencies ready in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, to go to Tigray, as well as prompt approval of future requests.
According to the United States-funded and managed report by the Famine Early Warning Systems Network last week, “aid workers on the ground indicate an increase in acute malnutrition across the region.” It is said that ‘only 1 percent of the nearly 920 nutritional treatment facilities in Tigray are accessible. ”
“Many households are expected to have already depleted their food supply, or are expected to deplete their food supply in the next two months,” the report said. It has warned that more parts of central and eastern Tigray are likely to go into emergency phase 4, a step below famine, in the coming weeks. Healthcare in the region is also ‘worryingly limited’, the report said.
In a separate statement, UN special adviser on genocide prevention, Alice Wairimu Nderitu, said she had received reports of serious human rights violations in Tigray, including “extrajudicial killings, sexual violence, looting of property, mass executions and the disabled”. humanitarian access. “