Addis Ababa, April 8, 2022(Walta) – The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) revealed that cargo flights are made on an almost daily basis to the Tigray region to transport medical assistance.
ICRC Ethiopia Delegation Public Relations Officer, Fatima Sator told ENA that 40 cargo planes have reached the Tigray region since the end of January 2022.
Asked about the recently declared humanitarian truce, she said the ICRC “welcomes the ceasefire because we were able to send humanitarian aid following those developments, and we are hoping and planning that this humanitarian assistance would be done on a regular basis.”
The public relations officer further stated that ICRC welcomes the development because it was able to send humanitarian assistance by road.
“However; we have been assisting the region through air transport,” Sator noted.
Accordingly, ICRC planes are leaving on an almost daily basis, and “we have just completed 40 flights bringing medical assistance to Tigray region.”
Elaborating on the assistance, she said the committee has been supporting all needy people in northern Ethiopia. The ICRC is responding to the whole of northern Ethiopia, Tigray, Amhara, and Afar regions, she pointed out.
“As I speak (today), we just sent a convoy of humanitarian aid to the Tigray region, and at the same time, we were able to assist 9,000 people internally displaced people (IDPs) in Afar by giving them food. We also assisted very recently, just in the last couple of days, 9,000 other internally displaced people by giving them essential household items. We are also very present in the Amhara region, where we just came back from donating medical supplies.”
As the trucks are now coming back to Addis Ababa, there is hope that this is going to be done on a regular basis.
We were able to provide medicine to hospitals, food to internally displaced people (IDPs), and rehabilitate water pumps whenever possible.
ICRC is responding to the needs of civilians and protecting them all over Ethiopia, Sator stated, adding that the committee will keep doing this and be close to the beneficiaries and communities.
Commenting on sanctions, she said, “we are always concerned about sanctions as human rights organizations, and the threat of sanctions always exacerbates the humanitarian situation and even harms citizens living in the affected country.”
Sator also pointed out that ICRC is mandated to respond to humanitarian situations, including those that are aggravated by sanctions.
It is to be recalled that the Government of Ethiopia declared an indefinite humanitarian truce on March 24, 2022, cognizant of the need to take extraordinary measures to save lives and reduce human suffering.