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The United Nations and Ethiopia reached a new agreement for joint missions to assess humanitarian needs in the northern region of Tigray, Secretary General Antonio Guterres announced Wednesday night.
The agreement, reached a week after a previous agreement, proved impossible to implement immediately, but “it will guarantee that there is full access to the entire territory and full capacity to initiate humanitarian operations based on real needs and without any discrimination,” he said. Guterres.
Friction between the Ethiopian government and the UN over access to Tigray has increased, and alarm has grown over the plight of civilians and refugees more than a week since the fighting was declared over.
Last week, the UN said it had signed an agreement with the Ethiopian government guaranteeing “unconditional access to humanitarian assistance.” In a sign of tensions over where and how aid agencies can operate in Tigray, Ethiopian forces fired at a UN team on Sunday and briefly detained it.
Guterres called for “unrestricted access to humanitarian assistance and the rapid resumption of the rule of law, in a safe environment and with full respect for human rights, paving the way for a true and lasting reconciliation.”
“The most urgent thing at the moment is humanitarian access,” said Moussa Faki Mahamat, chairman of the African Union Commission.
Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed ordered troops to enter Tigray on 4 November following alleged attacks by Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) forces on federal military camps in the northern region. The move marked a dramatic escalation of tensions between Abiy and the TPLF, which dominated Ethiopian politics for nearly three decades before anti-government protests brought Abiy to power in 2018.
