The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) said that Eritrean troops in Ethiopia’s war-torn northern Tigray region “murdered” his uncle.
The statement was given by Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Wednesday in Geneva at the conclusion of a press briefing regarding COVID-19. He admitted that because he was “not in good form” and it was “a terrible period” for him, he had almost cancelled the event.
The former minister from Tigray who is now the director general of the WHO is from Ethiopia. He has previously been a prominent opponent of Ethiopia’s participation in the conflict, which has resulted in thousands of deaths and millions of displaced people.
“I was informed that my uncle was murdered by the Eritrean army,” the 57-year-old told reporters. “I spoke to my mother and she was really devastated, because he was the youngest from their family and he was almost the same age as me, a young uncle.”
After two years of combat, the regional forces from Tigray and the government of Ethiopia decided to end hostilities in November.
However, the ceasefire agreement negotiated in South Africa did not include the forces from Eritrea, to the north, and Amhara, a neighboring area of Ethiopia, to the south, which fought with Ethiopia’s military in Tigray.
It’s a very trying time for me right now, Tedros said, adding that more than 50 other individuals had also died in the same tragedy. “I hope that this [peace] deal will hold and this lunacy will cease,” he added. However, he withheld the precise place and hour of the purported incident.
Tedros told the Reuters news agency that his cousin was murdered in a church explosion in Tigray last year, but he did not provide any other information.
Tedros expressed concern about regions that are still governed by Eritrean forces during a news conference on December 2.
Tigray saw war in November 2020. Eritrea and Amhara fighters were pitted against federal forces and their allies, including the Tigrayan forces. Untold numbers of people died as a result of the fighting, which also displaced more than two million people from their homes and brought hundreds of thousands to the verge of hunger.
Tedros has been accused of seeking to get guns and diplomatic support for rebel troops by the Ethiopian government, which opposed his appointment to a second term as head of the global health organisation. He has refuted these claims.
Authorities in Ethiopia and Eritrea did not react right away when Reuters requested comments on the accusations.
