By Jason Burke, JOHANNESBURG
South Africa
Humanitarian organizations have yet to reach millions in Tigray who face famine and disease, eight days
after Ethiopian
authorities vowed to lift their blockade to allow the free passage of
food, medicine, fuel and other desperately needed aid.A convoy organised by the World Food Programme travelling to Tigray in June. Humanitarian access to Tigray was part of the peace deal.
The World Health Organization
has called for a massive influx of food and medicines to the war-torn northern
region, saying aid had not yet been allowed despite humanitarian access being a
key element of the
peace deal signed between the Ethiopian government and the Tigray
People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) eight days ago.
The WHO director general,
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, welcomed the ceasefire agreement reached in
South Africa, but
said that after a week “nothing is moving in terms of food aid or medicines”.
He added: “Many people are
dying from treatable diseases. Many people are dying from starvation … I was
expecting that food and medicine would just flow immediately. That’s not
happening.”
In the deal, the federal government agreed to end the blockade on Tigray imposed at the beginning of the war two years ago, while the TPLF, the political movement in power in the region, said it would disarm its forces.
The blockade has cut almost
all communications and stopped banking and other commercial services.
Healthcare for Tigray’s 6 million inhabitants has been reduced to minimal
levels as facilities
shut and medication ran short. Food, fuel and electricity have been scarce.
Within hours of the news of
the deal last week, United Nations staff had begun talking to Ethiopian
officials about reopening roads closed for months. Logistics specialists said
they were able to begin sending convoys loaded with much-needed supplies
“almost immediately”.
Doctors and aid workers in the
region have
described a race against time to keep sick or malnourished patients alive
as they wait for humanitarian assistance.
The WHO emergencies director,
Michael Ryan, welcomed the notion of a humanitarian corridor into Tigray but
said experience in other crises showed it was vital that the corridor remained
open “and unrestricted”.
“The people in Tigray need
immediate, massive, overwhelming assistance now,” he said.
Representatives of Ethiopia’s government are meeting a delegation from the TPLF in Nairobi to discuss how to begin implementing the ceasefire. The talks in the Kenyan capital were scheduled to last three or four days but have been extended.
According to an official
familiar with the talks, both sides have recognised “the challenge of fully
communicating with all their units to stop fighting”. The delivery of aid is
also on the agenda.
In a statement on Thursday,
the Ethiopian government said it was “working to deliver on its commitment to
restoring services … in all towns in Tigray and the neighbouring Amhara and
Afar regions”.
Analysts have raised concerns
that the federal government could make access for humanitarian assistance
contingent on progress on disarmament by the TPLF, even though the issues were
not linked in the deal.
The agreement calls for the
disarmament of the TPLF’s substantial forces within weeks, but there is concern
about when other combatants who are not part of the deal will withdraw from
Tigray. These include forces from Eritrea, which neighbours the region, and
Ethiopia’s Amhara region.
There are unconfirmed reports
of sporadic fighting and some looting in recent days, particularly where
Eritrean troops allied with the Ethiopian government are concentrated. It is
unclear who initiated any clashes.
Eritrean forces have fought
alongside government troops and have
been blamed for some of the worst atrocities. All sides have been accused
of war crimes during the conflict.
Tedros, who is from Tigray and
was previously Ethiopia’s health and foreign minister, called for basic
services, such as banking and telecoms, to be reopened, and for journalists to
be allowed into the region.
The conflict between the TPLF
and Ethiopian central government forces began in November 2020 when Ethiopia’s
prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, sent troops into Tigray after accusing local forces
of an attack on government military bases.
A ceasefire agreed earlier
this year collapsed in August, leading
to bloody battles in which thousands have died and many more have been
displaced.
Researchers at Ghent
University, in Belgium, have calculated that several hundred thousand people in
Tigray may have died since the conflict began, including from a lack of
healthcare and from malnutrition.
More have died in neighbouring
regions and the total would put the war in northern Ethiopia among the most
deadly in recent decades.
The Ethiopian government
accuses the TPLF, which played a leading role in the country’s ruling coalition
until Abiy came to power in 2018, of trying to reassert Tigrayan dominance over
the entire country. Tigrayan leaders accuse Abiy of leading a repressive
government and discrimination. Both deny the other’s accusations.
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