Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Ethiopian of Tigrinya ethnicity and at the top of the World Health Organization, on April 12 expressed a strong criticism to the international community regarding the lack of attention paid to the ongoing crisis in Tigray, emphasizing on the contrary the great attention given to the conflict in Ukraine.
Ghebreyesus expressed very strong criticism, according to which in the world “there is not equal attention to the lives of whites and blacks”, as evidenced by the decreased interest of the international community for the conflicts and crises in Ethiopia, Syria, Yemen and Afghanistan.
According to the head of WHO, since the declaration of the Truce in Tigray a little less than a month ago, more than 2,000 trucks of humanitarian aid were supposed to reach the region, while in total only 20 trucks were actually allowed to transit.
This circumstance would have further worsened the seriousness of the humanitarian situation in Tigray, where there is a lack of food and medicines and where the population has been living for almost two years in extremely precarious conditions.
According to Ghebreyesus, the international press does not follow with the same attention the events of the many international crises in progress, failing to document the atrocities of the ongoing conflict in Ethiopia and neglecting episodes that should have been brought to the attention of the international public.
The statements made by the head of WHO have generated the immediate response of the Ethiopian and Eritrean governments, which have repeatedly accused Ghebreyesus in the recent past of “misconduct”, exploiting his role at the top of an international body to conduct an exclusively political agenda.
The Eritrean Minister of Information, Yemane Meskel, has also accused Ghebreyesus of lying about the evolution of the military crisis that led to the conflict, failing to mention how Eritrea was involved as a result of a missile launch against the capital Asmara in the early stages of the conflict.
