Hundreds of trucks carrying humanitarian aid "have not returned" from Ethiopia's war-ridden Tigray region since November 2020, making it difficult to meet the urgent needs of the population, said on Friday 17th September, the World Food Program (WFP).

Since July 12, 445 trucks chartered by WFP to deliver aid have entered Tigray, but only 38 have returned, UN agency spokeswoman Gemma Snowdon said in a statement.

"At the moment, this is the main obstacle to the delivery of humanitarian aid to Tigray. We are not able to put together any significant convoys due to the lack of trucks," said Gemma Snowdon.

WFP has no information on where the trucks are or what they are used for, she added.

>> To read on France24.com: Ethiopia: "The risk of regional destabilization is very real"

"Our main need is for these trucks to be made available again so that humanitarian deliveries to the region can take place on the scale required for an effective response," she said.

Tigray has been plunged into war for nearly a year, when Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed sent the army there to dismiss the regional authorities from the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), which he accuses of orchestrating attacks on federal military camps.

The 2019 Nobel Peace Prize declared victory at the end of November, but the conflict then bogged down and pro-TPLF forces regained control of most of the region at the end of June.

A "de facto blockade"

Abiy Ahmed then declared a humanitarian ceasefire and the Ethiopian army largely withdrew from Tigray.

But the region, where 400,000 people live in conditions close to famine, is still under a "de facto blockade" which runs the risk of "imminent disaster", says the UN.

Ethiopian authorities and Tigrayan rebels accuse each other of obstructing the access of humanitarian convoys.

A government Twitter account on Thursday raised "suspicions that the TPLF is seizing trucks for its own logistics."

>> To see on France 24: FOCUS - Ethiopia: the suffering of civilians in Tigray

But TPLF spokesman Getachew Reda spoke of the obstacles encountered by truck drivers when entering Tigray from the neighboring Afar region, saying these obstacles had "nothing to do with it. see "with the Tigrayan officials.

"UN-chartered truck drivers complain about the availability of fuel, [security] problems, harassment at checkpoints, being stranded in Afar for months, etc.," he said. he stated on Twitter.

A humanitarian official in Tigray, on condition of anonymity, told AFP that many drivers were Tigrayans and had been subjected to ethnically motivated harassment at checkpoints towards Tigray.

With AFP

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