Tigray Calls For Return Of Basic Services

Tigrayan forces in northern Ethiopia have called on the European Union to put pressure on the government in Addis Ababa to ensure the resumption of basic services in the embattled region.

The statement from Tigrayan forces comes after the recent visit to Tigray by the EU’s commissioner for crisis management and humanitarian aid, Mr. Janez Lenarčič.

During his trip to Tigray’s capital, Mekelle, he called for the “urgent scaling up” of humanitarian assistance and the restoration of basic services.

Much of the region has been without access to banking, electricity, and telephone service for months.

This is despite a humanitarian truce agreed between the warring parties in March.

Following the deal, there has been an increase in the amount of aid reaching Tigray, where a brutal civil war has left millions of people in desperate need of aid.

Tigrayan forces said they appreciated the EU’s position that aid was not “reducible to the number of trucks reaching Tigray in any given day.”

BBC/CO