In Ethiopia, the government declares an “unlimited humanitarian truce”

Published on: 03/24/2022 – 16:57 An “unlimited humanitarian truce” was decreed on Thursday by the Ethiopian government to “save lives and reduce human suffering”. More than nine million people are in need of food aid in the north of the country, where pro-government and Tigray rebel forces have been fighting each other since November 2020. The Ethiopian government declared on Thursday March 24 an “unlimited humanitarian truce” in its conflict with the Tigray rebels in order to allow “the free flow of humanitarian aid, to those in need of assistance” in this region of the north of the country, according to a press release. The Ethiopian Parliament had risen on February 15, so the state of emergency imposed in November, when Tigrayan rebels threatened to march on Addis Ababa. The truce is “effective immediately”, the government said in a statement, explaining its decision by “the need to take extraordinary measures to save lives and reduce human suffering”.>> To read also: “Ethiopia: the dam on the Nile is ‘a major victory which will not be enough to reunify the country'”However, “the commitment made by the government of Ethiopia can only have the desired effect of improving the humanitarian situation on the ground if the other party does the same”, continues the government, calling on the Tigrayan rebels to “refrain from any new act of aggression and to withdraw from the areas they occupy in the neighboring regions of Tigray”. sent the federal army to dislodge the authorities of the region, then governed by the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), which had been contesting its authority for months. More than 400,000 displaced in Tigray Quickly defeated, the rebel troops of the TPLF then, in the course of 2021, militarily recaptured Tigray and the conflict has since spread to the neighboring regions of Amhara and Afar. The nearly 17 months of conflict have caused a serious humanitarian crisis in northern Ethiopia, where more than nine milli Many people need food aid, according to the WFP. fuel in Tigray since mid-December,” the WFP explained recently. More than 400,000 people have been displaced in Tigray, according to the UN. “The government of Ethiopia hopes that this truce will considerably improve the humanitarian situation on the ground and will pave the way for the resolution of the conflict in northern Ethiopia, without further bloodshed,” the statement said. With AFP