Ethiopia Suspends Work of Two Aid Groups Active in Tigray

NAIROBI - Two international aid groups said Tuesday that the Ethiopian government had suspended part or all of their operations, while the United Nations humanitarian chief warned Ethiopian authorities that blanket accusations against aid workers in the country's embattled Tigray region and elsewhere are dangerous and must stop.

Martin Griffiths spoke to reporters amid a new push to get more badly needed food and other supplies into Tigray, where hundreds of thousands of people face famine conditions and Ethiopia's government has been accused of blocking assistance. He acknowledged that his own flights into and out of Tigray had difficulties with searches and delays. Separately, the aid groups Doctors Without Borders and the Norwegian Refugee Council said Ethiopia's government had suspended their operations on July 30. An NRC spokesman said the stated reasons were "public advocacy" and failure to obtain proper permissions for foreign staff and that all operations were suspended. A Doctors Without Borders spokeswoman said the operations of the charity's Dutch section, its largest in Ethiopia, were suspended for three months in the Tigray, Amhara, Gambella and Somali regions, and the group was "urgently seeking clarification from the authorities."