Impatience rises as aid still blocked to Ethiopia's Tigray

 Impatience is rising as humanitarian officials say y still don’t have access to Ethiopia’s embattled Tigray region more than a week after Ethiopia’s government and United Nations signed a deal to allow in desperately needed food and or aid.

“Regaining access to refugees and ors in need is urgent and critical for UNHCR and humanitarian organizations,” he of U.N. refugee ncy, Filippo Grandi, tweeted Tuesday.

In a separate statement, he of rwegian Refugee Council, Jan Egeland, said his organization is “deeply concerned to find that humanitarian access to region is still significantly constrained. ... se people can longer be me to wait. Aid must t be left at a standstill. We have been standing rey to deliver food, emergency shelter and or essential materials for weeks, and we expected this deal to clear way.”

U.N. anunced deal with Ethiopia’s government last Wednesday, saying it was signed a few days earlier on v. 29. agreement, crucially, allows access only to areas under Ethiopian government control. But even those areas are apparently t yet open.

For more than a month, since fighting erupted v. 4 between Ethiopia’s government and government of Tigray region following months of rising tensions, aid-len trucks have waited at borders of Tigray, a region of some 6 million people.

Warnings have become increasingly dire about food, fuel, clean water, cash and or necessities running out.

Even after Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed declared victory v. 28 in what he called a “law enforcement operation” against a Tigray government he w considers illegitimate, fighting has continued in parts of region.

Thousands of people are thought to have been killed in power struggle between Tigray People's Liberation Front, which dominated Ethiopia's government and military for more than a quarter-century, and government of Abiy, who sidelined TPLF soon after taking power in 2018 and introduced dramatic political reforms that won him bel Peace Prize.

w Abiy rejects idea of dialogue with TPLF. Both sides are heavily armed, leing to fears of ar drawn-out conflict in strategic Horn of Africa nation that is continent's second most populous country.