The Ethiopian government on Thursday declared an indefinite humanitarian truce with immediate effect to help hasten the delivery of emergency aid into the Tigray region, where hundreds of thousands are facing starvation, reported Reuters.
Thousands of people lost their lives, and millions remain displaced since the war broke out in northern Ethiopia in November 2020. The conflict has expanded from Tigray to the neighboring regions of Amhara and Afar.
In a statement, the Ethiopian government said it is committed to exerting maximum effort to facilitate the free flow of emergency humanitarian aid into the Tigray region.
“To optimize the success of the humanitarian truce, the government calls upon the insurgents in Tigray to desist from all acts of further aggression and withdraw from areas they have occupied in neighboring regions,” it said.
The statement said the government hopes that the ceasefire will improve the humanitarian situation on the ground and pave the way for the resolution of the conflict in northern Ethiopia.
The conflict erupted when Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed sent troops into Tigray to topple the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), the region’s former governing party. He asserted that the move was in response to rebel attacks on army camps.
The fighting has resulted in a humanitarian crisis in Tigray in neighboring regions as accounts have emerged of mass rapes and massacres, with both sides accused of human rights violations.
In June Ethiopia’s government cut off almost all access to food aid, medical supplies, cash, and fuel in Tigray. The aid in the war-hit region has been severely limited under what the United Nations described as a “de facto humanitarian blockade
There has been growing international pressure on the Ethiopian government to ease restrictions on the flow of humanitarian aid into Tigray.
The World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has repeatedly urged Ethiopian authorities to allow free humanitarian access into Tigray.
