NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) —
Ethiopia’s government is criticizing as “unethical” the statement by the World Health Organization’s director-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 color.
The spokeswoman for Ethiopia’s prime minister on Thursday told journalists that the comments by WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus were “unbecoming of such a high-profile position.” Billene Seyoum suggested that Tedros, himself an ethnic Tigrayan, should recue himself from his post if he wants to talk that way.
She spoke a day after the WHO chief in an emotional statement at a press briefing asserted that the 6 million people in Tigray have been “under siege” for the last 21 months because of the conflict that erupted there in late 2020 between Ethiopian and Tigray forces.
“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.
Ethiopia’s conflict has serious regional implications, with the potential to destabilize the strategic and sometimes turbulent Horn of Africa region.
Very little humanitarian aid was allowed into Tigray after Tigray forces retook much of the region in June 2021, and humanitarian workers and local health workers described people starving to death and basic medical supplies running out.
FILE - An Ethiopian woman argues with others over the allocation of yellow split peas after it was distributed by the Relief Society of Tigray in the town of Agula, in the Tigray region of northern Ethiopia on May 8, 2021.