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The first convoy of international aid arrived in the capital of Ethiopia’s Tigray region on Saturday since clashes erupted more than a month ago, sparking a refugee crisis and humanitarian disaster.
The International Committee of the Red Cross said seven trucks brought medicine and medical equipment for 400 wounded, as well as relief supplies to Mekele, a city of half a million people that had been virtually isolated from outside aid since the conflict began on November 4th. .
“It is the first international aid to arrive in Mekele since the fighting broke out in Tigray more than a month ago,” the Geneva-based ICRC said, describing medical care facilities in the city as “paralyzed”.
Patrick Youssef, ICRC regional director for Africa, said the supplies “would reduce impossible life-and-death selection decisions” for Mekele doctors and nurses who had endured for weeks without running water and electricity, let alone essential medicines.
The convoy arrived as the United Nations voiced growing alarm over the plight of nearly 100,000 Eritrean refugees in Tigray and called for urgent access to help them and 600,000 others who depend on food rations.
Ethiopia had restricted access to Tigray and a communications blackout has made it difficult to assess the humanitarian situation on the ground.
Aid groups have been warning for weeks of an impending hunger crisis as food rations dwindled and life-saving aid was repeatedly delayed.
– Disturbing reports –
Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, winner of last year’s Nobel Peace Prize, said on Friday that his government would be in charge of managing the humanitarian response and access to Tigray, and that Ethiopia had shipped tons of food and other supplies this week. truck aid to Mekele. and other cities in the region.
Addis Ababa has rejected suggestions that outsiders could play a leadership role in relief efforts and a deal last week to allow the UN and aid agencies access to Tigray sank, deepening international alarm, before another deal was announced on Wednesday.
The UN refugee agency UNHCR said on Friday that it has yet to reach four Eritrean refugee camps since the announcement of a major military offensive against forces loyal to the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF).
Filippo Grandi, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, said UNHCR had received “an overwhelming number of disturbing reports” of refugees killed or kidnapped and returned to Eritrea, a secret country that borders Tigray to the north.
“If confirmed, these actions would constitute a major violation of international law,” Grandi said.
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Saturday that “any act of refoulement or forced return should be avoided” and urged aid groups to have “immediate, unhindered and unrestricted” access to Tigray.
The International Rescue Committee said on Friday that a member of its staff was killed last month in an Eritrean refugee camp in Tigray. The Danish Council for Refugees, which also helps Eritreans, said three of its guards died, but did not specify where.
– ‘Damage and hunger’ –
Ethiopia said on Friday that “misinformed” Eritrean refugees were returning to Tigray, heading for Addis Ababa to receive aid and live “legally and peacefully”.
“Forcibly sending Eritrean refugees back to the camps in Tigray puts them at unnecessary risk of harm and starvation,” Laetitia Bader, Horn of Africa director for Human Rights Watch said Saturday.
The UN migration agency, IOM, has denied that its buses were used to transport refugees “to an unknown destination” and rejected allegations that the Eritreans were being detained at one of its transit centers in Addis Ababa and prosecuted. For your return.
The International Organization for Migration said it was “extremely concerned” by reports of relocation of Eritreans against their will and “does not under any circumstances carry out the forced return of migrants and refugees.”
It said that one of its three transit centers in Addis Ababa was “seized” by Ethiopian authorities on December 3 and that IOM “had no authority to manage, supervise or participate in any activities carried out by the authorities at the center since that time. moment”.
In a sign of the depth of tensions over where and how aid agencies should operate in Tigray, a UN team attempting to visit an Eritrean refugee camp on December 6 was shot by Ethiopian forces and briefly detained.
A government spokesman said the team ignored instructions and controls for “some kind of adventurous expedition.”
Abiy declared the fighting in Tigray an end on November 28, saying that the army had captured Mekele from the TPLF and has dismissed reports of ongoing clashes as “sporadic shooting.”
Thousands of people have died, according to the International Crisis Group, and around 50,000 people have fled to refugee camps across the border in Sudan.
The United States on Friday cited “credible reports” that Eritrean forces had entered Tigray and urged them to withdraw. Ethiopia has repeatedly denied Eritrea’s involvement.
The TPLF dominated Ethiopian politics for nearly three decades and fought a brutal border war between 1998 and 2000 with Eritrea that left tens of thousands dead. Abiy came to power in 2018 and won the Nobel Peace Prize the following year, largely for his effort to initiate rapprochement with Eritrea.
