UN warns of threat of humanitarian disaster in Tigray | News

Due to the impossibility of getting food, fuel and financing to the area, the World Food Program (WFP) of the United Nations (UN) warned that the Tigray region of Ethiopia may be on the brink of a humanitarian disaster. .

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The WFP said that the international body's aid is about to stop due to the increasing fighting that continues to block the passage of aid convoys.

They have also revealed that nutritionally fortified food reserves to treat malnourished women and children have been depleted, as well as cereals, legumes and oil must run out next week.

WFP Regional Director for East Africa, Michael Dunford, stressed that the organization needs immediate guarantees to create safe humanitarian corridors through all routes in northern Ethiopia.

Likewise, the senior official warned that due to food and fuel shortages they have only been able to access 20 percent of the population that should be reached according to the latest distribution in Tigray.

According to the issued press release, the agency plans to reach more than 2 million people in Tigray, 650,000 in Amhara; and 534,000 in the Afar region.

Similarly, the WFP warned that soon millions of people across the Ethiopian nation may be left without assistance due to an unprecedented lack of funds.

In November 2021, the UN warned about the growing risk of a civil war and recalled that in a nation like Ethiopia with more than 110 million people, more than 90 different ethnic groups, and 80 languages, it is extremely difficult to predict what the tensions between the government, pro-government military and armed groups in the Tigray region.

At the same time, the international organization foresaw that the rise in violence would increase the nation's humanitarian crisis and that the ban on humanitarian flights to Ethiopia (which took place in October) would reduce the scope of the UN to help at least the most people in need.

Some details of the conflict

It is also worth mentioning that in September 2021, the president of the United States, Joe Biden approved a package of sanctions against the parties involved in the Tigray conflict (including Eritrea), an issue that was rejected by the Russian representative at the UN, Anna Evstigneeva, alleging that economic pressure would not be the way to resolve this conflict.

Hostilities between the Government of Ethiopia and the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) (which ruled the country for 27 years until 2018) flared up in November 2020, and Eritrea decided to intervene in the conflict in favor of the administration. official of the African nation led by the Prime Minister of Ethiopia and Nobel Peace Prize winner, Abiy Ahmed.

The conflict erupted when Ahmed accused TPLF members of attacking federal army targets in the area near the border with Eritrea, decreed a state of emergency, and reported that a military operation would be carried out against the Tigray authorities.