The director general of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has accused the Eritrean Army of killing one of his uncles during an attack in the northern Ethiopian region of Tigray, despite a cessation of hostilities agreement between Addis Ababa and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF).
«Last week I learned that my uncle was killed by the Eritrean Army in his own home. It is another painful loss for my family due to the violence in Tigray, Ethiopia. Peace is all that people and families need,» he said in a message on his Twitter social network account.
Tedros, a native of Tigray and accused by the Ethiopian authorities of being close to the TPLF, has detailed in a press conference that «in the same locality more than 50 people were killed, arbitrarily», without giving more details about when or where the event took place.
He also expressed his wish that the cease-fire agreement signed in November in South Africa be respected so that «this madness stops», after nearly two years of conflict. Eritrea has deployed military personnel in Ethiopia to support the Ethiopian Army’s operations against the TPLF.
Addis Ababa has repeatedly criticized Tedros for his statements on the conflict and has even accused him of «violating the principles and values of the organization by issuing unfounded communiqués and false accusations against the government.»
The conflict in Ethiopia erupted in November 2020 following a TPLF attack on the main army base in Mekelle, after which Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed ordered an offensive against the group following months of tensions at the political and administrative level.
The TPLF accuses Abiy of whipping up tensions since his arrival to power in April 2018, when he became the first Oromo to take office. Until then, the TPLF had been the dominant force within Ethiopia’s ruling coalition since 1991, the ethnically-supported Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF). The group opposed Abiy’s reforms, which it saw as an attempt to undermine its influence.
