Humanitarian aid is almost suspended in this region in the prey to war and famine. Each camp returns the responsibility for this “facto blockade”.
Le Monde with AFP
Humanitarian operations in the Ethiopian region of the Tiger, diving for fifteen months in a bloody civil war, have been almost interrupted by fuel and liquidity shortages, alerted Thursday, February 10, a UN agency.
The conflict opposing the Ethiopian government forces at the Tiger’s rebels made thousands of deaths and, according to the United Nations, has led hundreds of thousands of people on the verge of famine.
Region of six million inhabitants, the Tiger has been submitted for six months to the UN qualifies as “de facto blockade of humanitarian aid”. Washington accuses the government to block the distribution of aid, while Addis Ababa impute the situation at rebel incursions.
Tiger assistance deliveries have been “largely reduced or suspended, including essential distributions of food, water, health services,” writes the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA in a statement broadcast Thursday.
In addition, the Agency stresses that no fuel delivery has been authorized in the region since August 2, 2021, with the exception of two trucks in November, while a cash crisis has left the Local non-profit organizations deeply indebted and struggling to pay wages since last June.
“Extreme food scarcity”
New fights in the neighboring Afar region also disrupted the distribution of urgency help. This situation prevents deliveries since December 15 along the main hallway of humanitarian aid stretching from SEM will, the Afar capital, Mekele, the capital of Tiger. “A total of 1,339 trucks have entered the Tiger region from SEMERA since July 12, representing about 9% of the aid needed to meet the magnitude of humanitarian needs in Tiger”, writes OCHA.
Humanitarian workers have been able to transport vital medical supplies to Tiger, but these have been well below the on-site needs, highlighted the UN agency, the population using desperate measures Like the use of sheets to make gauze.
Malnutrition continues to skyrocket, stresses OCHA, stating that 6.4% of the screened children have been diagnosed with acute malnutrition between the er and 7 February. Aids intended to treat these cases are “completely exhausted or almost entirely exhausted”, alerts this agency. Last January, the UN Food Program (WFP) had warned that nearly 40% of the population suffered from a “extreme food scarcity” in Tiger.