The World Health Organization (WHO) leader has suggested that world leaders are racist by ignoring the crisis in Ethiopia.
In an emotional intervention, the organization’s director-general, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, suggested that the conflict is “the worst disaster on Earth” — even that in Ukraine.
dr. Tedros – who is an ethnic Tigrayan – asked yesterday whether the reason world leaders have barely responded to the crisis is due to “the skin color of the people of Tigray.”
He outlined how 6 million people are “suffocating” in the drought and civil war-stricken region, which he says has been closed for 21 months and denied basic services.
dr. Tedros claimed that people are “under siege,” with no salaries, access to telecommunications or the ability to travel.
He described the Ukraine conflict as a crisis where the world community may be “sleepwalking into a nuclear war” that could be “the mother of all problems” – but argued that the Tigray disaster was much worse right now.
“I haven’t heard a head of state talk about the situation in Tigray anywhere in the developed world in recent months. Everywhere. Why?” he asked.
“Maybe the reason is the skin color of the people in Tigray.”
The conflict in Ethiopia started in November 2020 and little humanitarian aid arrived after Tigray forces recaptured much of the region in June 2021. Aid has increased significantly in recent months but is widely regarded as insufficient to meet the needs of the millions of people essentially trapped there.
The resumption of basic services and banking remains a key demand from Tigray’s regional leaders. Journalists are not allowed in.
Dr Tedros said the people of Tigray had no access to medicines and telecommunications and they could not leave the region. However, the International Committee of the Red Cross has reported shipments of some drugs in recent months.
“Nowhere in the world would you see this level of cruelty where it is a government (that) punishes 6 million of its people for over 21 months,” the WHO leader argued.
“All we ask is, ‘Can the world come back to its senses and sustain humanity?'”
dr. Tedros called on both the Ethiopian and Russian governments to end the crises in Tigray and Ukraine.
Yesterday, Ethiopia’s foreign ministry said a government peace committee had passed a peace proposal “that would lead to the conclusion of a ceasefire.”
He claimed basic services would return after a ceasefire.
Tigray spokesman Getachew Reda rejected the government’s statement, claiming in a tweet that “Abiy Ahmed’s regime has at least made it abundantly clear that it has no appetite for peaceful negotiations, except as delaying tactics.”
Tigray’s Covid-19 vaccination campaign was not launched until July.
It comes after a months-long period of hardship during which hospital workers described running out of essential medicines and tried to treat wounds with warm salt water.
dr. Tedros, who has intervened on the subject before, was Ethiopia’s foreign and health minister when the Tigray People’s Liberation Front dominated the country’s ruling coalition.
Map shows where families are most likely to fall into fuel poverty this winter
Earlier this year, the government of Ethiopia accused him of “misconduct” after his sharp criticism of the war and humanitarian crisis in the country.
He claimed he was using his office “to advance his political interests at the expense of Ethiopia.”
Commenting on his latest comments, the spokeswoman for the Prime Minister of Ethiopia said the intervention “is not befitting such a prominent position.”
Billene Seyoum suggested that Dr. Tedros, himself an ethnic Tigrayan, should step down from office if he wanted to talk this way.
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