UN: Killings, girls raped, starvation as Eritreans stay
The UN humanitarian chief warned yesterday the grave humanitarian crisis in Ethiopia’s embattled Tigray region was worsening, with no sign of Eritrean troops withdrawing and alarmingly widespread reports of systematic rape and other sexual violence mainly by men in uniform.
Mark Lowcock told a closed Security Council meeting the UN knew that 4.5 million of Tigray’s nearly 6 million people needed humanitarian aid and the government estimated 91 per cent of the population needed emergency food.
He said his office received the first report this week of four displaced people dying from hunger, and yesterday he received reports of 150 people in the Ofla district just south of Tigray’s capital Mekelle also dying from hunger.
“This should alarm us all,” Lowcock said in his briefing. “It is a sign of what lies ahead if more action is not taken. Starvation as a weapon of war is a violation.”
No one knows how many thousands of civilians or combatants have been killed since months of political tensions between Ethiopian President Abiy Ahmed’s government and the Tigray leaders who once dominated Ethiopia’s government exploded in November into war. Eritrea, a longtime Tigray enemy, teamed up with neighbouring Ethiopia in the conflict.
Lowcock said humanitarian organisations had hoped things would improve after Abiy announced in late March that Eritrean troops would leave Tigray, but he said neither the UN nor the aid groups it worked with had seen any proof of withdrawal.
“We have, however, heard some reports of Eritrean soldiers now wearing Ethiopian Defence Force uniforms,” he said. “And regardless of uniform or insignia, humanitarian staff continue to report new atrocities which they say are being committed by Eritrean Defence Forces.”
As an example, Lowcock cited an Amnesty International report that Eritrean troops killed three people and wounded 19 on Tuesday “in an unprovoked, indiscriminate shooting attack on civilians in Adwa town”.
There are also reports of militias from neighbouring Amhara attacking civilians in western Tigray and driving them from their home while Amhara authorities restrict access to those who fled, he said.
As for reports of sexual violence, Lowcock said one unnamed agency reported that 30 per cent of all incidents against civilians involved some sort of sexual violence and nearly 25 per cent of reports received by another involved gang rape with girls as young as 8 years old being targeted.
“Cases reported have involved Ethiopian National Defence Forces, Eritrean Defence Forces, Amhara Special Forces and other irregular armed groups or aligned militia,” he said.
Without a cease-fire, Lowcock said, the humanitarian crisis “is only going to get a lot worse”.
Despite these difficulties, humanitarian organisations had reached more than 1.7 million people with some form of aid, but he said more funding was needed.
The Security Council has discussed the situation in Tigray behind closed doors before but has not been able to agree on even a press statement because of opposition from its African members and Russia and China, diplomats said. AP