Macron calls for the lifting of all restrictions on the delivery of aid to Tigray

Women around a well, in Ethiopia's Tigr region.

May 2021. © RFI / Sébastien Németh

Text by: RFI Follow

4 min

The French president called on Saturday the Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed as well as Abdallah Hamdok, the head of the Sudanese government.

Two interviews to underline, according to the Élysée, France's concern about the upsurge in fighting in northern Ethiopia and the evolution of the humanitarian situation in Tigray.

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Emmanuel Macron says he is concerned about the upsurge in fighting, especially since the Tigrayan counteroffensive and the massive mobilization of militiamen in the neighboring Amhara region, arousing fears of a civil war.

"

The French president indicated that the very degraded humanitarian situation and the need to deliver aid to the populations of Tigray require strong measures

 ," said the Elysee in a press release released in the early afternoon.

Among these measures, "

 the lifting of all restrictions on the delivery of aid

 ".

The roads leading to Tigray have been blocked by the Ethiopian government since July 18 and the attack on a World Food Program convoy.

Hundreds of WFP trucks cannot get food there, even though a month ago famine affected one in six people in the province.

According to the UN,

90% of the region's inhabitants live on external aid

.

The opening of a corridor rejected by the Ethiopian government

In this context, Paris says it supports the efforts of Martin Griffiths, the director of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs

who is currently in Ethiopia

. After meeting on Friday Déméké Mekonnen, the Ethiopian Deputy Prime Minister, the UN representative is due to visit Tigray and the neighboring region of Amhara. For their part, the United States will dispatch Samantha Power, the director of USAID, the American international aid agency which is expected in Addis Ababa in the coming hours.

At the center of these visits, the same request: the opening of a humanitarian corridor to reach Tigray and its six million inhabitants. This request for openness was rejected by the Ethiopian deputy foreign minister, according to whom it is akin to a lure of the West to actually deliver weapons to the Tigrayan rebels. An accusation raised several times by the Ethiopian government without ever providing proof, notes our correspondent in Addis Ababa,

Noé Hochet-Bodin

.

International pressure is therefore increasing on the Ethiopian authorities.

During his interview with Abiy Ahmed, Emmanuel Macron not only pleaded for the arrival of humanitarian aid in Tigray, “ 

he also indicated,

according to the Elysee,

that the evolution of the situation would require negotiation of '' a cessation of hostilities and the opening of a political dialogue between the parties to the conflict and c

e,

with respect for the integrity and unity of Ethiopia.

 "

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• France

• Ethiopia

• Abiy Ahmed

• UN