“Concerns are growing by the hour,” UN refugee spokesman Babar Baloch said on 1 December in Geneva. “The camps will have run out of food supplies by now - making hunger and malnutrition a real danger, a warning we have issued since the conflict began nearly a month ago. We are also alarmed by the unconfirmed reports of attacks, kidnappings and forced recruitment in refugee camps.
Source: agcnews
The United Nations says that the food has run out for the nearly 100,000 Eritrean refugees who took refuge in camps in northern Ethiopia, in the Tigray region, the scene of fighting between the central and local governments of Tigray. “Concerns are growing by the hour,” UN refugee spokesman Babar Baloch said on 1 December in Geneva. “The camps will have run out of food supplies by now - making hunger and malnutrition a real danger, a warning we have issued since the conflict began nearly a month ago. We are also alarmed by the unconfirmed reports of attacks, kidnappings and forced recruitment in refugee camps ».
It has been a month since Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed announced that fighting has broken out between federal and regional forces in the Tigray region, as each government now considers the other illegitimate due to an election dispute. during the pandemic, reports Ap . Communications and connections to the Tigray region have been interrupted, and the United Nations has called for humanitarian corridors to be created for the delivery of food and medicines.
Abiy, the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, rejected the idea of dialogue with the regional leaders of Tigray, now on the run. Under growing international pressure, Abiy said on November 30 that “my message to the friends of Ethiopia is that we can be poor, but we are not a country that will negotiate our sovereignty.” The Ethiopian government has said it will create and manage a humanitarian corridor for delivering aid, but the UN wants neutral, unhindered and immediate access.
The United Nations said about 2 million people in Tigray are in need of assistance - a doubling of what they were before the fighting - and about 1 million people have been displaced, including more than 45,000 Ethiopians who have fled to Sudan. The 96,000 Eritrean refugees are in camps in Ethiopia, near the border with Eritrea, from which they fled, and reports have emerged that some have been attacked or kidnapped. The UN refugee chief warned that, if true, any such action “would be a serious violation of international norms.”
Eritrea has remained silent, despite Tigray forces’ missiles hitting Eritrean targets, even though Tigray leaders accuse it of joining the conflict after Ethiopia’s request.