The World Health Organization’s (WHO) chief, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, on Friday said his people in Ethiopia’s Tigray region are dying due to a systematic blockade that is obstructing supplies from reaching them, reported Reuters.
“People are dying because of lack of supplies,” Tedros told reporters.
He added that WHO cannot send supplies and medicines to Tigray because it’s under blockade, and the blockade is systematic.
The WHO chief, however, did not pinpoint anybody who he thought was stopping aid from getting through to Tigray.
Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s government has been engulfed in a year-long war with the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF). In recent months, the TPLF forces have pushed south and have not ruled out a possible march on the capital Addis Ababa.
The rebel Tigrayan forces are demanding an end to a de facto humanitarian blockade on Tigray, where hundreds of thousands of people are being forced to live in famine-like conditions.
The Ethiopian government has denied blocking aid supplies to Tigray and has said it is rebuilding infrastructure in the region.
The United Nations has repeatedly called on the government to get aid into the north, and has said that shortages of essential supplies there are “man-made”.
According to a weekly UN report on the humanitarian situation in Tigray, no aid has reached the region by road since 18 October, and that 364 trucks are stuck in the capital of Afar due to pending authorization from the authorities to proceed.
In the current situation, Dr. Tedros said, assistance from WHO and other aid organizations to the region had shriveled to almost nothing.
“So no medicine. People are dying. No food. People are starving. No telecommunication. They are isolated from the rest of the world. No fuel. No cash,” he said.
The WHO chief also lamented how Tigrayans across the country were arrested en masse.
