- Ethiopia’s government has called the WHO director-statement general’s comments “unbecoming of such a high-profile position”.
- Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus is ethnically Tigrayan.
- The 6 million people in Tigray have been “under siege” for the last 21 months.
Ethiopia’s government has called the World Health Organization’s director-statement general that the crisis in the country’s Tigray region is “the worst disaster on Earth” and his assertion that the lack of attention from global leaders may be due to Tigrayans’ skin colour “unethical.”
On Thursday, the Ethiopian prime minister’s spokeswoman told journalists that WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus’ comments were “unbecoming of such a high-profile position.” Tedros, who is ethnically Tigrayan, should recuse himself from his position, according to Billene Seyoum.
She spoke a day after the WHO chief said in an emotional press conference that the 6 million people in Tigray have been “under siege” for the last 21 months due to the conflict between Ethiopian and Tigray forces that erupted there in late 2020.
“I haven’t heard in the last few months any head of state talking about the Tigray situation anywhere in the developed world. Anywhere. Why?” Tedros asked. “Maybe the reason is the color of the skin of the people in Tigray.” Earlier this year, he asked whether the world’s overwhelming focus on Russia’s war in Ukraine was due to racism, although he acknowledged the conflict there had global consequences.
After Tigray forces retook much of the region in June 2021, very little humanitarian aid was allowed into the country, and humanitarian workers and local health workers reported people starving to death and basic medical supplies running out.
Aid has begun to flow more significantly in recent months as a result of international mediation efforts, but the deliveries have been widely described as insufficient to meet the needs of the millions of people who are essentially trapped there. According to aid organizations, there are still significant fuel shortages to deliver supplies.
The restoration of basic services and banking remains a top priority for Tigray leaders. The prime minister’s spokeswoman said on Thursday that “an operable environment must occur” for the return of those services, including safety guarantees for service workers in the region.
She also mentioned a government proposal for “peace talks in the coming weeks,” emphasizing that they must be free of preconditions. She charged Tigrayan leaders with “looking for reasons to avoid these peace talks.”
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