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Humanitarian workers hoping to access Ethiopia’s Tigray region will have to overcome challenges such as the region’s damaged infrastructure to develop tons of relief items for those in need.
After nearly a month of fighting, the full extent of the damage to the state’s roads and airports is only now known.
On Wednesday, state television broadcast images purporting to show the looted terminal at Axum airport.
The Ethiopian army has accused the rebel forces in Tigray of damaging facilities and access roads in the region to delay their advance.
More television footage showed debris strewn on the fugitive with sections that appeared to have been dug up.
Humanitarian workers were given access
Ethiopia granted the United Nations access to deliver aid to the northern region of Tigray on Wednesday, following weeks of lobbying amid military operations there.
The agreement, signed by Ethiopia’s peace minister, comes four weeks after Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed sent troops and fighter jets in a campaign targeting leaders of the region’s ruling party, the People’s Liberation Front of Tigray (TPLF).
Food is running out
Before the fighting started, around 600,000 people living in Tigray were dependent on food distribution, including 96,000 Eritrean refugees.
The agreement notes that the region is also home to 42,000 malnourished women and children, as well as 100,000 internally displaced persons.
There are shortages of food, fuel and cash, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, while the International Committee of the Red Cross says basic medical equipment is lacking.
On Tuesday, the UN refugee agency warned that Eritrean refugees in Tigray were believed to have run out of food, saying concern for their well-being was “growing by the hour.”
Meanwhile, communications are returning to parts of Tigray.
Ethio Telecom, the country’s telecommunications provider, said on Wednesday that services had partially resumed in cities such as Humera, Dansha, Mai-Kadra and Mai-Tsebri.
