Ethiopia’s government has ordered the expulsion of seven senior United Nations officials from the country for “meddling” in its internal affairs.
The move on Thursday came as humanitarian workers have been sounding the alarm about limited access to the embattled Tigray region, which has been racked by conflict for nearly 11 months.
The seven, who include individuals from the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA), have been declared “persona non grata” and given 72 hours to leave the country, a statement by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Thursday.
.@mfaethiopia declared ”persona non grata” for seven individuals who have been working for some #UN humanitarian agencies in #Ethiopia for meddling in the internal affairs of the country. They must leave the country within the next 72 hrs. 30 September 2021 pic.twitter.com/IDHv6AD145
— MFA Ethiopia🇪🇹 (@mfaethiopia) September 30, 2021
Grant Leaity, deputy humanitarian coordinator for OCHA, and Adele Khodr, UNICEF representative in Ethiopia, were among those expelled. OCHA’s Kwesi Sansculotte, Saeed Moahmoud Hersi, Ghada Eltahir Midawi and Marcy Vigoda were also ordered to leave, along with Sonny Onyegbula, of the UN Office of the high commissioner for human rights.
Fighting in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region has been raging between federal forces and those aligned with the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) since November 2020.
On Tuesday, UN aid chief Martin Griffiths said a nearly three-month-long “de-facto blockade” has restricted aid deliveries to 10 percent of what is needed in the region of some six million people.
Memories of the 1980s famine in Ethiopia, which killed around one million people and whose images shocked the world, are vivid in his mind, “and we fervently hope is not happening at present,” Griffiths said.
Separately, the deputy humanitarian coordinator for OCHA, Leaity warned this month that stocks of relief aid, cash and fuel were “running very low or are completely depleted” and food stocks had run out in late August.
In turn, Ethiopian authorities have accused unnamed aid workers in the country of favouring and even arming Tigrayan forces, although they have provided no evidence to back their allegations.
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