NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) – The lives of civilians in the Tigray region of Ethiopia have become “extremely alarming” as hunger increases and fighting continues to be an obstacle to reaching millions of people with help, says the Organization United Nations in a new report.
The conflict that rocked one of Africa’s most powerful and populous countries – an important ally of US security in the Horn of Africa – killed thousands and is now in its fourth month. But little is known about the situation of the majority of Tigray’s 6 million inhabitants, as journalists are barred from entering, communications are irregular and many aid workers struggle to get permission to enter.
One challenge is that Ethiopia may no longer control up to 40% of the Tigray region, the UN Security Council was briefed in a closed session this week. Ethiopia and allied fighters have been chasing the now fugitive Tigray regional government, which has dominated the government of Ethiopia for nearly three decades.
Now Eritrean soldiers are deeply involved on the Ethiopian side, although Addis Ababa denies their presence. Eritrea on Friday rejected “false and presumptuous claims” after the U.S. Embassy published an online statement on the need for Eritrean forces to leave.
On Thursday, United States Secretary of State Antony Blinken was the last to put pressure on Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed directly, asking the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize winner in a phone call to allow access to help ” immediate, total and unimpeded “to Tigray before more people die.
Abiy’s brief statement on the call did not mention Tigray. Nor do his statements in phone calls this week with French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, as European countries also express concern about one of the newest crisis zones in the world. Neighboring Sudan and Somalia could be sucked in, experts warned.
The new UN humanitarian report released on Thursday evening, it includes a map showing most of the Tigray region marked “inaccessible” to aid workers. He says the security situation remains “volatile and unpredictable” more than two months after the Abiy government declared victory.
The aid response remains “drastically inadequate”, with little access to the vast rural population off the main roads, the report says, even though the Ethiopian government said more than 1 million people in Tigray were reached with assistance. Some aid workers reported having to negotiate access with a number of armed actors, even those from Eritrea.
Civilians suffered. “Reports of aid workers on the ground indicate an increase in acute malnutrition across the region,” says the new report. “Only 1 percent of the nearly 920 nutritional treatment facilities in Tigray are accessible.”
Hunger has become a major concern. “Many families are expected to have already run out of food stocks or to run out of food stocks in the next two months,” according to a new report published on Thursday by the Famine Early Warning Systems Network, which is funded and managed by NOS
The report said 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 “alarmingly limited”, with only three of Tigray’s 11 hospitals functioning and almost 80% of health centers not functioning or accessible, says the UN report. Aid workers said many health centers were looted, hit by artillery fire or destroyed.
Much of two camps that have hosted thousands of refugees from neighboring Eritrea have been systematically destroyed, according to analysis of satellite images by the UK-based non-profit DX Open Network. Now, some 5,000 refugees who have arrived in the Shire community “live in dire conditions, many sleeping in an open camp on the outskirts of the city, without water and food,” says the UN report.
UN refugee chief Filippo Grandi, on a visit this week, asked Ethiopia to allow access by independent investigators to investigate alleged widespread human rights abuses, calling the general situation in Tigray “extremely serious”.