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· Twenty five international staff are allowed to provide humanitarian assistance inside Ethiopia’s conflict-torn Tigray region
· The UN officials maintain that even with addition of more number of humanitarian workers, the work that has to be accomplished is huge necessitating more number of people and materials
Twenty five international staff are allowed to provide humanitarian assistance inside Ethiopia’s conflict-torn Tigray region. The UN agencies have received approval from the Ethiopian Government for undertaking such humanitarian activities. The UN has also sought approval for bringing another 60 humanitarian workers to the region. It is expected that in the coming days humanitarian works will be ramped up in the region, where there are a number of affected people, according to Stéphane Dujarric, UN representative in charge of the humanitarian works.
In the recent days, there were a spate of positive interactions among the officials of the Ethiopian government and senior UN officials, including with Filippo Grandi, High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Gilles Michaud chief of UN Safety and Security and most recently, David Beasley, Executive Director of the World Food Programme (WFP). Importantly, WFP has also agreed to provide emergency food aid for up to one million people in Tigray.
The conflict between the Government and regional forces of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) began in early November, when the Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed ordered a military offensive after rebels attacked a federal army base. Government forces reported that the region had been secured at the end of November. However, there are reports that TPLF resistance is still continuing amid accusations of extrajudicial killings and rights abuses. The UN officials maintain that even with the addition of more humanitarian workers, the work that has to be accomplished is huge, necessitating more number of people and materials.
