Trucks have brought food to Tigray for 35,000 refugees from Eritrea. The United Nations is continuing its efforts to improve access to the crisis area.
For the first time since the Ethiopian military offensive began in Ethiopia’s northern region of Tigray, a United Nations aid convoy has reached the crisis area. With 18 trucks, 570 tons of food were delivered, UN spokesman Stéphane Dujarric said in New York. The food is to be distributed in the Adi Harush and Mai Ayni camps, where mainly refugees from Eritrea live.
The first shipment could feed 35,000 people over a month, the UN spokesman said. Other UN convoys were on their way to other camps, he added. Access to Tigray for humanitarian aid deliveries had still been blocked to the UN by the Ethiopian government in recent weeks. The United Nations was still seeking “unhindered and complete” access for its aid, Dujarric said. The International Committee of the Red Cross had also already managed to deliver an initial shipment of aid to Tigray. That convoy reportedly consisted of seven trucks. They brought medicines and medical equipment for the treatment of more than 400 people to the regional capital of Mek’ele.
Tigray had been virtually cut off from the rest of the world since the conflict began. Ethiopian government leader Abiy Ahmed had sent troops to Tigray in early November. In late November, he announced the capture of the regional capital, Mek’ele. However, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), which had previously ruled in Tigray, announced that it would continue the fight.
50,000 people fled to Sudan
Over the weekend, U.S. government reports indicated that troops from Eritrea had apparently entered the troubled region in northern Ethiopia. A spokesman for the U.S. State Department had said that there were “credible reports” of an Eritrean military operation in Tigray. He called this a “worrying development.” The soldiers would have to be withdrawn immediately.
The background to the conflict is tension between Tigray and the central government. The TPLF dominated Ethiopia for more than 25 years until Abiy came to power in 2018 and pushed the TPLF out. Many people in Tigray feel unrepresented by the central government and are demanding more autonomy. Ethiopia, with a population of about 112 million, has quite a few ethnic tensions.
Several thousand people have been killed so far in the fighting in Tigray, according to estimates by the conflict-focused International Crisis Group. Nearly 50,000 people have fled to Sudan. (AA)
by Basit Abbasi