Thread by @TeklehaymanotG

It was a pleasure to be at The Hague Humanitarian Studies Centre @HSC_ISS earlier this month to speak about the failure (deliberate) of the UN's response to the catastrophe in Tigray.

‘Why did the UN response to the crisis in Tigray fail?’

humanitarianstudiescentre.nl/2024-conferenc…

@HSC_ISS “The UN was born out of the horrors of World War [II]. Rather than upholding its mandate and recognizing the spirit (of Never Again) under which the UN was founded[, w]e have top UN officials succumbing to the seductions of the Ethiopian government and accepting invitations....

...to lavish resorts as quid pro quo for silence.”
(FilsanAbdullahi Ahmed)

Why did the UN abandon the Tigrayans during one of the most desperate times in their history?

It was deliberate, not a mistake

"Northern Ethiopia", the democratization of violence, and disregard of the (genocidal) nature of the ongoing violence in Tigray.

And the spectacularization of access, not lack of it.

While the region remained besieged for most of the period of the war, aid agencies largely remained silent
Whenever pressure builds up, the government would allow them to bring a few truckloads of aid into the region.

The problem is these steps, the few moments when aid agencies gained access, are deliberately heavily promoted creating the sense that things have become better, contrary to the reality on the ground in which people were starving to death, suffering all kinds of sicknesses etc...

I conclude, @UNEthiopia, its current coordinator (@RamizAlakbarov), @OCHA_Ethiopia, @UNDPEthiopia, @UNFPAEthiopia and others know the scale of horrors in Tigray that still go on today, but choose to act like there is nothing abnormal.

On the UN, from 2022.