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Confirming the details of the deal at UN headquarters in New York, spokesman Stéphane Dujarric said that the safe passage of aid supplies and personnel also extends to the Ethiopian regions of Amhara and Afar, on the border with Tigray, where fighting between federal and regional forces has impacted around six million people in the past month.
Until now, supplies have not been allowed into the conflict zone, which has displaced thousands, many of them across the border into Sudan.
Nairobi-based UN Humanitarian Coordination Office (OCHA) spokesman Saviano Abreu told local reporters earlier that the first mission to carry out a needs assessment would begin on Wednesday.
He added that the UN promised to collaborate with “all parties to the conflict” and ensure that aid is distributed “strictly according to need.”
‘Globally agreed principles’
Mr. Dujarric said that all aid distribution would be carried out “in accordance with globally agreed principles of humanity, impartiality, independence and neutrality. This includes working to ensure that people affected by the conflict are assisted without distinction of any kind other than the urgency of their needs ”.
Many Ethiopians have also been internally displaced from Tigray, seeking refuge in Afar and Amhara, and the UN needs assessment would aim to reach those affected by the conflict, Dujarric added.
On Monday, the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) asked Ethiopia for urgent access to help some 96,000 Eritrean refugees in the Tigray camps, who were estimated to have practically run out of food.
Geneva spokesman Babar Baloch said concerns were growing “by the hour, with” hunger and malnutrition a real danger. “
Communications with the Tigray region continue to be cut off, along with transport routes, and Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has reportedly rejected dialogue with Tigray regional leaders, who are said to be on the run, after that the federal forces entered the regional capital last weekend.
The UN estimates that some two million need help in and around Tigray and about a million have been displaced by the fighting, including more than 45,000 who have fled across the border into Sudan.
