NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) – Life for civilians in Ethiopia’s controversial Tigray region has become “exceedingly alarming” as hunger intensifies and struggles remain an obstacle to reaching millions with aid, the United Nations said in a new report.
The conflict that has shaken one of the most powerful and populous countries in Africa – a major American ally in the Horn of Africa – has claimed the lives of thousands and is now in its fourth month. But little is known about the situation of most of Tigray’s 6 million people, as journalists have been blocked from entering, communication is patchy and many aid workers struggle to get permission to enter.
One challenge is that Ethiopia may be out of control to 40% of the Tigray region, the UN Security Council was told in a session behind closed doors this week. Ethiopia and the Allied fighters are 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 Ethiopian side, even though Addis Ababa denies their presence. Eritrea rejected “false and suspected charges” on Friday after the US embassy there posted a statement online about the need for Eritrean armed forces to leave.
On Thursday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was the last to directly pressurize Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, calling on the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize winner in a phone call to grant “immediate, full and unimpeded” access to Tigray. grant before more people die.
In Abiy’s brief statement on the call, Tigray was not mentioned. Nor were his statements on calls this week with French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, as European countries also expressed concern over one of the world’s newest crisis zones. Neighboring countries Sudan and Somalia could be sucked, experts warn.
The new UN humanitarian report released Thursday, contains a map showing most of the Tigray region, marked “inaccessible” to humanitarian workers. It says the security situation remains “volatile and unpredictable” more than two months after Abiy’s government declared victory.
Aid remains “drastically inadequate” with little access to the vast rural population off main roads, the report says, while the Ethiopian government has said more than 1 million people in Tigray have been reached with aid. Some aid workers have reported having to negotiate access with a range of armed actors, even Eritrean.
Citizens have suffered. “Reports from on-site emergency workers point to an increase in acute malnutrition in the region,” the new report said. “Only 1 percent of the nearly 920 nutritional treatment facilities in Tigray are accessible.”
Famine has become a major concern. “Many households are expected to have already depleted their food supplies, or are expected to deplete their food supplies in the next two months,” said a new report released Thursday by the Famine Early Warning Systems Network, which is funded and operated by the US
More parts of Central and Eastern Tigray are likely to enter Emergency Phase 4 in the coming weeks, a step below the famine, according to the report.
Health care in the region is “shockingly limited,” with only three of Tigray’s eleven hospitals functioning and nearly 80% of health centers not functioning or accessible, the UN report said. Emergency workers have said that many health centers have been looted, hit by artillery fire or destroyed.
According to satellite image analysis by UK-based nonprofit DX Open Network, large parts of two camps that once hosted thousands of refugees from nearby Eritrea have been systematically destroyed. Today, some 5,000 refugees who have come to the Shire community “live in dire conditions, many sleeping in an open field on the outskirts of the city, without water and without food,” the UN report said.
A visit to UN refugee chief Filippo Grandi this week urged Ethiopia to grant independent investigators access to investigate alleged widespread human rights violations, calling the overall situation in Tigray “extremely serious”.