The UN Security Council is holding an emergency meeting today (AFP) to discuss Ethiopia’s announcement that it will expel seven top UN officials (NYT) for “meddling” in the country’s affairs. Earlier this week, the UN aid chief warned that Ethiopian restrictions on humanitarian aid to the country’s war-torn Tigray region are contributing to famine conditions for an estimated four hundred thousand people.
Washington threatened to sanction Ethiopia over the announcement. Last week, the Associated Press reported the first starvation deaths in Tigray since June, when the government imposed what the United Nations called a “de facto humanitarian aid blockade.”
Analysis
“What is chilling and revealing about the UN officials’ expulsion is that it comes when the UN and other aid agencies are needed most in most parts of Ethiopia, particularly Tigray, Afar and Amhara,” the European University Institute’s Mehari Taddele Maru tweets.
“The best that international pressure can do is clarify some of the economic and reputational stakes and the opportunity costs of continued conflict for those willing to reckon with the complex realities of the country’s crisis. An actual change in course will only happen when Ethiopians themselves insist on it,” CFR’s Michelle Gavin writes for the Africa in Transition blog.
