Press statement from the Government of Tigray on the expulsion of High-Level UN officials by the Ethiopian government United Nations
The Government of Tigray strongly condemns the decision by the Ethiopian government to expel seven high-level United Nations officials. This unprecedented and alarming decision is very much
in line with the activities of the Ethiopian regime, which has consistently hindered the delivery of humanitarian aid and violated International Humanitarian and Human Rights Laws for the last
eleven months, including by expelling humanitarian organizations like Médecins Sans Frontiéres (MSF), the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), and the Al Maktoum Foundation.
Since the onset of the war on Tigray, and particularly after experiencing military setbacks in June that forced the Ethiopian National Defense Forces to retreat from Mekelle and large parts of
Tigray, the Ethiopian regime has orchestrated a man-made famine through the systematic and deliberate destruction of livelihood and a total blockade on all essential goods and services into
Tigray. The decision to weaponize starvation in a bid to collectively punish the people of Tigray was publicly articulated by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed in an address in which he blamed the
people of Tigray for the defeat suffered by his forces and declared that the Federal Government could not be expected to render services or aid while they “sided with the TPLF”. As a result of
this decision, all efforts by international humanitarian organizations to deliver aid and requests by the international community for the lifting of the blockade have deliberately been conflated with an assault on national sovereignty and the will of the Ethiopian regime.
This attitude continues to be reinforced at all levels through an intense propaganda campaign that has sought to criminalize all humanitarian activities and actors leading to the routine
obstruction of aid convoys, harassment of drivers, unfounded allegations against aid workers of abetting Tigrayan fighters, and a bureaucratic nightmare designed to create as much red tape as
possible to halt or slow down humanitarian operations. The decision to expel UN workers is only the latest addition to the criminal behaviors that the regime has adopted as acceptable tactics.
The Government of Tigray is especially appalled that the same regime which has invited a foreign army to devastate its own country is now, without a hint of irony, cloaking its decision to expel the officials in the language of sovereignty. This speaks to the intentional and cynical manner in which the Ethiopian regime routinely takes advantage of international norms particularly as they pertain to the principle of non-interference to continue committing heinous crimes against humanity and acts of genocide with impunity.
We urge the international community to accept this latest assault on established humanitarian norms as irrefutable evidence that the Ethiopian government is committed to its course of action, namely to weaponize starvation against millions of Tigrayans in a bid to annihilate what its leader considers to be a “troublesome” ethnic minority. This regime is neither a rational nor a reliable actor and any efforts to continue to treat it as such will only worsen the unfolding humanitarian catastrophe in Tigray and the worst hunger crisis the world has seen in a decade. Today nearly a million Tigrayans are under active famine conditions and millions more have been rendered vulnerable to preventable deaths as a result of acute shortage of basic medicines, fuel and other essential goods and services, directly attributable to the siege on Tigray imposed by the Abiy Ahmed government.
We ask the United Nations Security Council to invoke UNSC Resolution 2417 (2018) and all other relevant protocols without delay to address the burgeoning humanitarian crisis and to enact a
regimen to address the gross violation of humanitarian and human rights precepts by the Ethiopian regime. Every day of inaction by the world is another day in which hundreds of innocent children, women, and men perish needlessly from a man-made famine.
Digital Weyane ዲጂታል ወያነ
ወያናይ ትግራይ ሚዲያ 