UN Human rights chief regrets deteriorating situation in Ethiopia

The Geneva-based Human Rights Council gathered on Monday. As the 49th regular session continued, the U.N human rights chief Michelle Bachelet updated the council on the situation in Ethiopia.

In the war torn Tigray region, the UN high commissioner for human rights said the context had deteriorated in the past few months.

“I am alarmed by the growing humanitarian crisis. Hostilities and insecurity continue to block the delivery of humanitarian supplies into Tigray by the Semera-Abala-Mekelle road, which has not been accessible since 15 December last year”, Michelle Bachelet said.

Since the conflict broke out in 2020, it inexorably expanded in the Tigray, Afar and Amhara region. The Office of the UN commissioner received reports of “wide-scale human rights violations” and recorded cases of gang rapes, deaths in airstrike attacks and severe damageto health facilities.

If the Ethiopian parliament lifted wartime state of emergency last month, efforts continue in order to reach a ceasefire.

In the meantime, an estimated four out of every five people in the Tigray region were food insecure, while half of pregnant and breastfeeding women were malnourished, according to the World Food Program.