Irish Envoy to UN Warns of Mass Mortality in Ethiopia if Assistance Not Scaled Up

UNITED NATIONS (Sputnik) - The humanitarian disaster in Ethiopia's Tigray region will soon lead to mass mortality, Irish Ambassador to the United Nations Geraldine Byrne Nason told reporters on Wednesday.

"We called this meeting because, frankly, we think we're staring into an abyss without immediate scaled-up humanitarian action. We're looking really at the prospect of potentially mass mortality on the ground," Byrne Nason said ahead of a UN Security Council meeting on the issue.

"People are actually, as we're all standing here, they're dying, they're starving, they're hungry, they don't have water, they don't have food, they don't have access to basic, fundamental human services,” she said.

Nason pointed out to the fact that the unfolding disaster in Tigray is not natural but caused by political decisions and requires a political action to be settled.

The ambassador said Ireland would like to see a full scaled up immediate humanitarian access, cessation to all hostilities and political dialogue.

Ethiopian government forces and the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) have been fighting for control in the region since November 2020 when the government accused the TPLF of attacking a military base and launched a counter-operation.