UNITED NATIONS (AP) – UN agencies received approval from the Ethiopian government on Monday to send an additional 25 officials to Tigray, a region where the United Nations says hunger is growing and much of the area has been inaccessible to humanitarian workers .
UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric called the release “a first step towards ensuring that humanitarian workers in Tigray can provide and accelerate the response, given the growing needs in the region”.
A UN humanitarian report released on Thursday said the lives of civilians in Tigray have become “extremely alarming” since the fighting began in early November, pitting Ethiopian and allied forces against those in the Tigray region, which dominated the government. of the country for almost three decades before Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed took office in 2018. Each side now sees the other as illegitimate.
The government said more than 1 million people in Tigray received assistance, but some aid workers reported having to negotiate access with a number of armed actors, even from neighboring Eritrea, and hunger became a major concern.
As the fighting reaches its fourth month, international pressure is mounting on Ethiopia, Africa’s second most populous country and the Horn of Africa anchor, to allow aid workers, journalists and human rights experts to enter Tigray. Currently, communications are irregular and little is known about the situation of the majority of its 6 million inhabitants.
Dujarric pointed to the recent “positive commitments” between the government and senior UN officials, including World Food Program Executive Director David Beasley, who has just ended a trip to Ethiopia.
Beasley reported that the WFP accepted the government’s request “to assist authorities and aid partners in transporting aid to and within Tigray” and also agreed “to provide emergency food aid to up to a million people in Tigray,” he said. Dujarric.
The UN spokesman said humanitarian workers “are looking forward to receiving approval” for 60 UN officials and aid agencies in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, ready to go to Tigray, as well as the rapid approval of future orders.
According to last week’s report by the Famine Early Warning Systems Network, which is funded and administered by the United States, “humanitarian workers on the ground indicate an increase in acute malnutrition across the region.” He said that “only 1 percent of the nearly 920 nutritional treatment facilities in Tigray are accessible. “
“Many families are expected to have already run out of food stocks or to run out of food stocks in the next two months,” the report said. He warned that more parts of central and eastern Tigray are likely to enter Emergency Phase 4, one step below hunger, in the coming weeks. Health care in the region is also “alarmingly limited,” said the report.
In a separate statement, UN Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, Alice Wairimu Nderitu, said she had received reports of serious human rights violations in Tigray, including “extrajudicial executions, sexual violence, looting of property, mass executions and access prevented humanitarian aid. “