Eritrean soldiers are blocking and looting food aid in Ethiopia’s war-hit Tigray region, according to government documents obtained by AFP, stoking fears of starvation deaths as fighting nears the six-month mark.
Eritrean soldiers have also started showing up at food distribution points in Tigray, looting the supplies after “our beneficiaries became frightened and (ran) away.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Monday pressed Ethiopia to address what he called an impending “disaster” in Tigray, including rising fears of famine.
In a phone call with Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, Blinken voiced “grave concern about the deteriorating humanitarian and human rights crisis in the country” and the “growing humanitarian disaster” in conflict-torn Tigray, the State Department said.
The magnitude of the humanitarian crisis in its highest level was first acknowledged by Abraha Desta, Arena Tigray Party Chairperson who served as the Interim Administration’s social Affairs Bureau, mentioning that the scale of the danger could be “unprecedented in the region’s history” and that 4.5 million people were in need of immediate aid.
“IF WE CAN NOT GET A HARVEST THIS YEAR, BY THE NEXT 3 TO FIVE YEARS WE COULD FACE A VERY SERIOUS PROBLEM. AND IT MAY INDUCE FAMINE, IT COULD BE THE WORST HISTORY IN THE COUNTRY.”
All agencies must inform the National Disaster Risk Management Commission (NDRMC) 48 hours before any cargo is transported into the Tigray region. This is only if the cargo is going into locations inside Tigray and not to one of the Logistics Cluster hubs (Gonder, Kombolcha, Semera).
IOM achieved major milestones in Ethiopia in 2019. To list just a few, over 130,000 returning migrants were aUNICEF has denounced that over one million people have been displaced in Ethiopia’s Tigray region. Fighting is continuing after the Ethiopian government’s military offensive started on November 4, 2020.
“The personal statements I received from children who had been raped or testimonies of women who were victims of sexual violence were harrowing”,
Residents and officialsThe bodies of the two brothers were left for more than a day. Their families knew they were there, but the soldiers wouldn’t let them collect the bodies. The soldiers left behind witnesses, though: two boys, barely teens, tied to a tree nearby, after the soldiers forced them to spend the night on the ground, between the bodies of the murdered men.
“According to information we got from people who are displaced, we estimate that up to 200 people might have There have been massacres and mass executions. Jan Nyssen, a geography professor at the University of Ghent, and a team of researchers have compiled a list of 1,900 Tigrayans killed in approximately 150 mass killings since the fighting began.
The members of the Security Council expressed their deep concern about allegations of human rights violations and abuses, including reports of sexual violence against women and girls in the Tigray region and called for investigations to find those responsible and bring them to justice. They welcomed the joint investigation by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission into alleged human rights violations and abuses. The members of the Security Council also welcomed the engagement on this issue of the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights.
“The members of the Security Council expressed their deep concern about allegations of human rights violations and abuses, including reports of sexual violence against women and girls in the Tigray region, and called for investigations to find those responsible and bring them to justice,”
Eritrea told the Security Council on Friday that it has agreed to start withdrawing its troops from Tigray, acknowledging publicly for the first time its involvement in the conflict.
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The U.N. Security Council expressed concern Thursday about humanitarian conditions and human rights in Ethiopia’s Tigray region, marking the council’s first collective comment on the conflict that has raged in the region for six months.
Lowcock, meanwhile, told the council last week that some 4.5 million of Tigray’s 6 million need humanitarian aid and that “there is no doubt that sexual violence is being used in this conflict as a weapon of war.” He cited alarmingly numerous reports of rape and other sexual attacks, mainly by men wearing the uniforms of various forces.
As the conflict in northern Ethiopia’s Tigray region enters its sixth month, the U.N. Security Council broke its silence Thursday to call for scaled-up humanitarian access and “a restoration of normalcy.
The Tigray interim administration estimates that at least 4.5 million of Tigray’s nearly 6 million people need humanitarian assistance. The United Nations has appealed for $1.5 billion to assist 16 million people in Tigray and across Ethiopia this year.
