NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) – The United States says it has decided to “unty” its suspension of millions of dollars of aid to Ethiopia from that country’s dispute with Egypt over a major hydroelectric dam project.
But the State Department said on Friday that this does not mean that all of the approximately $ 272 million in security and development assistance will begin to flow immediately, and that depends on more recent “developments” – an apparent reference to deadly conflict. in the Tigray region, Ethiopia.
The State Department said humanitarian assistance remains exempt from the suspension of aid. He said he informed the Ethiopian government. A spokeswoman for Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Ethiopians were furious after former President Donald Trump last year ordered the suspension of aid to his country in a rare example of his direct involvement in an African issue. Ethiopia left an attempt led by the United States to mediate the dispute with Egypt, alleging bias. Trump also caused an uproar by saying that downstream from Egypt would “blow up” the dam project that Cairo considers an existential threat.
Ethiopia says the $ 4.6 billion Ethiopian Renaissance Great Dam, which is almost completed on the Blue Nile River, is essential for the development and lifting of millions of people out of poverty. Egypt says it threatens its water supply.
The State Department said the aid pause “affected approximately $ 23 million in security assistance, as well as about $ 249 million in development assistance, which includes health, education, economic growth and democracy programs.”
Ethiopia is now under pressure from the United States and others, including the European Union and the United Nations, due to deadly fighting in the northern Tigray region, where about 6 million people have been virtually cut off from the world since the beginning of fighting in November between Ethiopian and Allied forces and the Tigray.
Witness reports emerged of massacres, people starting to starve to death and the presence of thousands of soldiers from neighboring Eritrea, which the Ethiopian government denied.
The United States said Eritrean soldiers should “immediately” leave Ethiopia. And earlier this week, a State Department spokesman said “we remain gravely concerned about the widespread humanitarian suffering and reported human rights abuses in the Tigray region.”
The spokesman called for “an immediate end to fighting in Tigray, full and unhindered humanitarian access, an independent investigation into human rights violations and abuses and for those responsible to be held responsible”.
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Matthew Lee in Washington contributed.