Situation in Ethiopia’s Tigray region ‘extremely alarming’, warns UN
Life for civilians in Ethiopia's embattled Tigray region has become "extremely alarming" as hunger grows and fighting remains an obstacle to reaching millions of people with aid, the United Nations said.
The conflict that has shaken one of Africa's most powerful and populous countries – a key US security ally in the Horn of Africa – has killed thousands of people and is in its fourth month, but little is known about the situation for most of ti gray' s six million people as journalists are blocked from entering, communications are patchy and many workers struggle to obtain permission to enter.
One challenge is that ethiopia may no longer control up to 40 per cent of the Tigray region, the UN Security Council was told in a closed-door session this week.
Ethiopia and allied fighters have been pursuing the now fugitive Tigray regional government that once dominated Ethiopia's government for nearly three decades. Now soldiers from Eritrea are deeply involved on the side of Ethiopia, even as add is ababa denies their presence.
On Thursday, US secretary of state Antony Blinken was the latest to pressure Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed directly, urging the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize winner in a phone call to allow "immediate, full and unhindered" aid access to Tigray before more people die.
Mr Abiy's brief statement on the call did not mention Tigray. Neither did his statements on calls this week with French President Emmanuel Macron and german chancellor angela Merkel as European countries also express concern over one of the world's newest crisis zones.
Neighbouring Sudan and Somalia could be sucked in, experts have warned.
A UN humanitarian report released late on Thursday includes a map showing most of the Tigray region marked as "in accessible" for humanitarian workers.
It says the security situation remains "volatile and unpredictable" more than two months after Mr Abiy's government declared victory.
The aid response remains "drastically inadequate" with little access to the vast rural population off the main roads, the report said, even as Ethiopia's government has said well over a million people in Tigray have been reached with assistance.
Some aid workers have reported having to negotiate access with a range of armed units, even Eritrean ones.
"Reports from aid workers on the ground indicate a rising in acute malnutrition across the region," the report said. "Only 1% of the nearly 920 nutrition treatment facilities in Tigray are reachable."
"Many households are expectedto have already depleted their food stocks, or to deplete their food stocks in the next two months," according to another report posted on Thursday by the Famine Early Warning Systems Network, which is funded and managed by the US.
The report said more parts of central and eastern Tigray are likely to enter emergency phase 4, a step below famine, in the coming weeks.
Health care in the region is "alarmingly limited", with just three of Tigray's 11 hospitals functioning and nearly 80% of health centres not functional or accessible, the UN report said. Aid workers have said many health centres have been looted, hit by artillery fire or destroyed.