People face ‘horrific’ situation in Ethiopia’s Tigray: WHO chief “The situation in Tigray, Ethiopia, is, if I use one word, horrific. Very horrific,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a news conference on Monday.“Many people have started dying, actually, because of hunger, and severe and acute malnutrition is becoming rampant,” he said.In addition, hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced from their homes, including more than 60,000 who fled into Sudan.The WHO chief also condemned indiscriminate killings and the widespread use of sexual violence in the conflict. “Rape is rampant. I don’t think there was that scale anywhere else in the world, actually,” he said.At the same time, health services have been looted and destroyed, he said, adding that “the majority of them are not functioning.”,
“For the most part, we’re not even in a position to discuss about COVID, to be honest, because there are more pressing issues.” One of the most urgent problems to address is getting full access for humanitarian workers and for aid. World leaders and aid agencies have repeatedly called for full humanitarian access to the crisis-wracked areas as fears grow of impending disaster. On Friday, the European Union condemned the continued blocking of aid to the region, denouncing “the use of humanitarian aid as a weapon of war”.
WHO emergencies director Michael Ryan warned on Monday that “access to victims in Tigray remains highly unpredictable”. This, he said, was creating “a huge barrier to access to the populations that need our help”.