United Nations: The humanitarian situation in Tigray is horrific

The UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric, today, Thursday, said the humanitarian situation in the Ethiopian province of Tigray is extremely appalling.

Dujarric added, in statements to the “Al-Arabiya” channel, that “the fighting must stop in the Tigray region.”

المتحدث باسم الأمم المتحدة للعربية: الوضع الإنساني في تيغراي مروع للغاية #العربية_عاجل https://t.co/a1vIGVFnOW

— العربية عاجل (@AlArabiya_Brk) May 6, 2021

The United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator, Mark Lowcock, had said earlier, that “without a ceasefire, this truly grave humanitarian crisis will only get worse.”

Lowcock noted that “people are dying of starvation in the northern Tigray region, which has been struck by the conflict in Ethiopia, where the humanitarian situation has deteriorated and sexual violence is still being used as a weapon of war.”

“There is no doubt that sexual violence is being used in this conflict as a weapon in war, and as a means of humiliating, intimidating and traumatizing an entire people today, as well as for the next generation,” he said.

He pointed out that the majority of rapes were committed by members of the army, including “Ethiopian forces, Eritrean forces, Amhara Special Forces, and other irregular armed groups or allied militias.”

“The fighting must stop,” Lowcock said, calling for “a significant increase in the amount of humanitarian assistance.”

He reported that 9 out of 10 of the region’s 6 million residents the government estimates that they need emergency food aid.

Lowcock revealed that the number of displaced people in the Tigray region had risen to 1.7 million by the end of last March.

Clashes erupted in Tigray in early November 2020, after forces loyal to the then ruling party, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, attacked army bases in the region.

At the end of the same month, federal forces drove the front fighters from the provincial capital, and the Ethiopian government declared victory.

Thousands of people have been killed in the conflict, hundreds of thousands have been forced from their homes, and there has been a shortage of food, water and medicine in the region. The government says most of the clashes have stopped, but there have been some sporadic shooting incidents.