Ethiopian Army Undertook Operation in Tigray Useful for Humanitarian Aid: EDF

June 15, 2021

Borkena

The Office of the Chief of Staff of the Ethiopian Defense Force on Tuesday said that the Defense Force has completed an operation that will create a conducive condition for humanitarian activity in the Tigray region of Ethiopia. 

“The Defense Force is relentlessly supporting people in the Tigray region of Ethiopia,” it was said, as reported by Ethiopian News Agency. 

 General Berhanu Jula, Chief of staff of the Defense Force, had a discussion with the World Food Program country director, Steven Were Omamo, regarding humanitarian work in Ethiopia’s Tigray region.

Ethiopian News Agency cited General Berhanu as saying that World Food Program officials need to understand that a conducive environment prevails in Tigray region of Ethiopia to deliver the humanitarian assistance and that the WFP needs to work with relevant authorities. 

He also recalled that the root cause of the problem was the attack that Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) launched against the Northern Command of the Ethiopian Defense Force in November 2020. 

Now, he added, federal and regional authorities are working together with a focus to facilitate humanitarian work and that conditions are conducive to undertake the humanitarian assistance now. 

Furthermore, the ENA report indicated that a committee drawn from the Defense Force, Tigray region provisional administration, the Ministry of Peace, from local and international humanitarian organizations is established to support facilitation for aid work.  

Soon after the end of the war, the Ethiopian government was, as disclosed by relevant authorities, providing more than 70 percent of the humanitarian assistance in the region which is said to have supported about 4 million people. 

Last month, however, the government announced that it could no longer provide 70 percent of the humanitarian assistance. 

In  March 2021, the Word Food Programme announced that it is seeking $US 170 million to respond to what it called “food security emergency” in the Tigray region of Ethiopia.