{"id":12128,"date":"2021-10-02T12:53:00","date_gmt":"2021-10-02T12:53:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/axumawian.com\/?p=12128"},"modified":"2021-10-07T10:59:24","modified_gmt":"2021-10-07T10:59:24","slug":"why-ethiopia-wants-to-expel-un-officials-sounding-the-alarm-on-famine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/axumawian.com\/?p=12128","title":{"rendered":"Why Ethiopia wants to expel UN officials sounding the alarm on famine"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Ethiopia\u2019s federal government has blocked humanitarian aid for the embattled Tigray region.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Source: Vox<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

October 2, 2021<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Ethiopian government moved to expel seven United Nations officials<\/a> from the country on Thursday, in a dramatic move that threatens to exacerbate the region\u2019s ongoing humanitarian crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A civil war between Ethiopia\u2019s federal government and the country\u2019s northern Tigray region, which began late last year, has led to widespread<\/a> atrocities<\/a> and created famine conditions<\/a> in parts of the country. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed\u2019s decision to expel UN officials from the country comes after they raised concerns about the worsening humanitarian situation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

UN officials have repeatedly warned that Ethiopia\u2019s government is blocking the movement of critical supplies \u2014 like medicine, food, and fuel \u2014 into the Tigray region, with as little as 10 percent of the needed humanitarian supplies<\/a> being allowed in. Those accusations were echoed this week by the head of the UN\u2019s humanitarian aid arm, as well as by a UN report finding the region on the brink of famine<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Abiy\u2019s Thursday announcement, which gave the officials just 72 hours to leave the country, is a rare departure from international norms. While it\u2019s not completely unprecedented for a nation to kick UN officials out, it is unusual \u2014 and according to the New York Times<\/a>, Abiy\u2019s decision would be among the largest such expulsions of UN officials in history, outpacing Syria\u2019s removal of three UN officials in 2015.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As of Saturday, however, it\u2019s unclear whether the seven officials have left the country \u2014 and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has already pushed back on the move, saying in a statement<\/a> Friday that the UN is \u201cnow engaging with the Government of Ethiopia in the expectation that the concerned UN staff will be allowed to continue their important work.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

US officials have also condemned Abiy\u2019s push to expel UN officials.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe expulsion is counterproductive to international efforts to keep civilians safe, and deliver lifesaving humanitarian assistance to the millions in dire need,\u201d\u00a0Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a Thursday statement<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nhttps:\/\/twitter.com\/PowerUSAID\/status\/1443690457603641344?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1443690457603641344%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.vox.com%2F2021%2F10%2F2%2F22705570%2Fethiopia-expel-un-officials-famine-civil-war\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Abiy\u2019s government has justified the expulsion order by accusing UN officials of \u201cmeddling\u201d in Ethiopia\u2019s affairs, but it comes just two days after the head of the UN\u2019s Organization for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, or OCHA, raised concerns about famine in Tigray, home to about 6 million people. The official directive from the Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs came Thursday, the same day OCHA released a report<\/a> finding that 79 percent of pregnant or breastfeeding women in Tigray are malnourished, and that fuel and medicine haven\u2019t reached the region since July.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the UN, 5.2 million people<\/a> in Tigray \u2014 about 90 percent of its population \u2014 are in need of humanitarian assistance in order to survive, necessitating a flow of about 100 supply-laden trucks into the region per day. Yet only 606 such vehicles have made it into the state since July 12, the New York Times reports<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is not the first time the government has forced a humanitarian group out of Tigray for opposing the official government narrative on conditions there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Dutch arm of M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res<\/a> \u2014 MSF, or Doctors Without Borders \u2014 suspended its activities in west and northwest Tigray for three months starting in early September after the Ethiopian Agency for Civil Society Organizations <\/em>directed them to do so in late July. The Norwegian Refugee Council<\/a> was issued the same order July 30 and suspended its Ethiopia operations in early August; Ethiopian authorities<\/a> had accused the groups of backing the Tigrayan political cause, even claiming that aid workers armed members of the Tigrayan People\u2019s Liberation Front, or TPLF.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ethiopia ended one war and started another<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The expulsion of the UN officials is the latest development in the Ethiopian government\u2019s ongoing war in the Tigray region. For the past 11 months, since Abiy sent in the Ethiopian National Defense Forces<\/a> into Tigray to retaliate against a TPLF attack on a military base there, Tigray has slid further toward disaster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That initial skirmish, as Vox\u2019s Jen Kirby<\/a> explained in April, was widely seen as a pretext for the national government to invade the Tigray region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Conflict between the Tigray, the name of an ethnic group as well as a region of the country, and the Abiy administration seemed inevitable almost since Abiy took power in 2018. Abiy\u2019s rise to power ended nearly 30 years of domination by the Tigrayan wing of the Ethio\u00adpian People\u2019s Revolutionary Democratic Front, or EPRDF.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prior to Abiy, protests against government corruption and human rights abuses were mounting in Ethiopia; in particular, Kirby writes<\/a>, the Oromo and Amhara ethnic groups were frustrated by the Tigray grip on positions of power in the government and military, even though only 6 percent of Ethiopians are Tigray.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2018, Abiy \u2014 a member of the Oromo group and a relative political newcomer \u2014 was elected head of the EPRDF and assumed the role of prime minister. He came into the power promising democratic elections and the freeing of political prisoners, and\u00a0even brokered peace with neighboring Eritrea<\/a>, ending a 20-year war. The following year, he was awarded the\u00a0Nobel Peace Prize<\/a>\u00a0for ending that conflict \u2014 only to precipitate a brutal civil war a year later.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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