ADDIS ABABA — The
World Food Program (WFP) said its first aid convoy since the signing of a landmark peace deal between
Ethiopia’s government and Tigrayan rebels had arrived in the war-torn Tigray
region on Wednesday.
اضافة اعلان
Restoring aid deliveries to Tigray was a key part of
the agreement signed in South Africa on November 2 to silence the guns in a
two-year conflict that has killed untold numbers of people and unleashed a
humanitarian crisis in northern Ethiopia.
“WFP trucks are now rolling into Tigray with
critical food assistance — this is the first movement since the peace agreement
was signed,” the UN agency’s chief David Beasley said on Twitter.
The region of 6 million people has been suffering
from a severe lack of food and medicine, as well as limited access to basic
services including electricity, banking, and communications, with the UN
warning that many people were on the brink of starvation.
“Progress must continue. All sides must uphold the
agreement. Basic services must resume immediately,” Beasley said.
The WFP announcement followed the arrival on Tuesday
of a medical aid convoy from the
International Committee of the Red Cross, the
first ICRC trucks to arrive in Tigray since the deal between the Ethiopian
government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front.
A WFP spokeswoman told AFP that 15 trucks had
entered the region on Wednesday, with “more (expected) in the coming days”.
Aid deliveries
were forced to a halt in late August when fighting resumed in northern
Ethiopia, shattering a five-month truce and leading to the capture of key towns
in Tigray by pro-government forces.
Even before those clashes, Tigray was in the grip of
a hunger crisis, with the WFP warning in early August that nearly half of the
region’s population was “severely food insecure”, with some 90 percent of its
people requiring food aid.
The war erupted in November 2020 when Abiy, a Nobel
Peace laureate, sent troops into Tigray, accusing the TPLF of attacking federal
army camps.
The TPLF had dominated national politics for nearly
three decades until Abiy took office in 2018.
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