USAID Head Pushes for Humanitarian Aid Access in Tigray

U.S. Agency for International Development head Samantha Power is set to meet Wednesday with officials in Ethiopia as the United States urges the government to allow clear access for humanitarian aid to the Tigray region. 

Power on Tuesday met with refugees in Sudan who have fled Tigray, and she reiterated the position of the United States, the United Nations and others that ultimately what will help the people in the northernmost region of Ethiopia is an end to the war that has been ongoing for more than nine months.  “The U.S. has been pushing all parties in Tigray toward an immediate cease-fire in the hopes that people like the Ethiopians I met here will be able to return home,” Power said in a Twitter post Tuesday. “The conflict has brought harrowing attacks against civilians, it is impacting millions, and it has to end.”  She said specifically the United States is calling for the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, or the TPLF, to withdraw from the neighboring Amhara and Afar regions, for the Amhara regional government to pull its forces from western Tigray, and for neighboring Eritrea to immediately withdraw its forces from Ethiopia.