At 57, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO), is in the unique position of having to manage a humanitarian crisis in which the survival of his own family is at stake. Originally from Tigray, the region of northern Ethiopia besieged for two years by federal forces and their allies, he expressed on Wednesday November 9 his desire that the peace agreement concluded last week between the Ethiopian government and the Tigrayan rebels would now make it possible to transport humanitarian aid quickly.

"Let's give peace a chance, but we also urge the immediate delivery of food and medicine" and basic services, urged Dr Tedros during a press briefing.

“After the ceasefire agreement, I expected the food and medicine to arrive immediately. That is not the case,” he says, considering that a week is quite a long time. To progress.

Dr. Tedros embodies in the eyes of the general public the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic and he uses the occasion of his audience to evoke the tragedy that his native region is experiencing.

There is no other situation 🌍 in which 6 million people have been kept under siege for almost 2 years like in #Tigray, Ethiopia.

This is a health crisis.

I urge the intl.

community to give this crisis the attention it deserves.

There is a narrow window now to prevent genocide.

pic.twitter.com/3M2vCtVHQQ

— Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (@DrTedros) October 19, 2022

Surrounded, the six million inhabitants of Tigray lack everything: fuel, food, medicine, communications or electricity.

"Yes, I am from Tigray, and yes, it affects me personally, I do not claim otherwise. Most of my relatives are in the most affected areas, more than 90% of them", had he launched, his voice choking with emotion, during a regular WHO press briefing on October 19.

Accused of having a partisan attitude

For two years, humanitarian aid has arrived in Tigray only in dribs and drabs and UN agencies have to deal with the authorities – whoever they are – in order to be able to operate in the country.

Dr. Tedros is no exception to this imperative and he exposes himself to the reproach of stepping out of his role when he evokes the situation in Tigray.

The Ethiopian government accuses him of having a partisan attitude and of abusing the loudspeaker given to him by his position.

For Addis Ababa, he "uses his position to advance his personal political interests to the detriment of the interests of Ethiopia".

The Ethiopian government is calling for a WHO investigation into what it considers to be serious shortcomings.

These charges did not prevent Dr. Tedros from winning a second term in May.

>> To see: "Ethiopia: the war in Tigray, one of the deadliest conflicts in the world"

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed launched the offensive against Tigray on November 4, 2020, accusing the region's ruling Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) of attacking federal army camps.

Dr. Tedros' life is intimately linked to the TPLF, of which he was a senior official.

The party was the dominant force in the four-party Ethiopian People's Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) coalition that controlled Ethiopian politics for three decades.

The current WHO boss was part of the nine-member executive committee of the TPLF until he took up his post in Geneva.

He also headed the Tigray Regional Health Office before becoming Ethiopian Minister of Health from 2005 to 2012. Tipped as a possible leader of the TPLF – and therefore potentially of Ethiopia –, he eventually became Minister of Foreign Affairs until in 2016.

When Abiy Ahmed came to power in 2018 after years of anti-government protests, he dissolved the EPRDF and formed the Prosperity Party.

The TPLF, from which the rebel leaders come, refused to follow the movement.

Marked by his childhood in Tigray

At a youth forum in 2020, Dr Tedros said that when he was seven years old – then a poor child in Tigray – he saw his younger brother die, possibly of measles.

"I didn't accept this situation at the time. Even now, I don't accept it," he explained: "It influenced me a lot."

Traditionally, Dr Tedros gives opening remarks at the WHO's weekly press conferences, and usually leaves it to his team to answer questions.

But when it comes to Tigray, he speaks up and often reveals emotion.

"I want to send them money, I can't send them money. They're starving, I know that, I can't help them. I don't even know who's dead or who's alive," he said in August, referring to the plight of his family.

And on November 1, he was the only UN official to mention the risk of "genocide".

The ceasefire agreement could offer the chance to end the bloodshed.

And all eyes will once again be on what Dr. Tedros has to say.

With AFP

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