UN Weighs Suspending Relief to Ethiopia’s Amhara after Aid Workers Attacked, Document Shows

The United Nations is considering suspending relief operations, including food aid deliveries, in Ethiopia’s Amhara region, following deadly attacks on humanitarian workers, according to a draft proposal seen by Reuters and verified by two diplomats. Five aid workers were killed in the first six months of 2024, 10 were physically assaulted or injured and 11 kidnapped by unidentified criminal groups, according to the document which is dated August 2024…A cessation of relief operations would have a dire impact on more than 2.3 million people in Amhara who rely on food aid to survive, two donor nations and an NGO opposed to the suspension told Reuters…Amhara is home to more than 36 million people as well as the first stop for thousands of refugees fleeing the war in neighbouring Sudan. Fighting between Ethiopia’s army and Amhara Fano militiamen broke out in July 2023 and has killed hundreds and displaced thousands according to U.N. estimates. (Reuters)