‘Nowhere on earth are people more at risk than Tigray,’ says WHO chief

Refugees arrive at a compound near the city of Semera, Ethiopia. The WHO director general is calling for an end to a de facto blockade of aid supplies. Photograph: Eduardo Soteras/AFP/Getty

The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) has urged the world not to forget the humanitarian crisis in Tigray, saying that even amid the war in Ukraine there is “nowhere on Earth” where people are more at risk than the isolated region of northern Ethiopia.

Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO director general, is from Tigray and has incurred the wrath of the Ethiopian government in the past after accusing it of placing the region under a de facto blockade. Prime minister Abiy Ahmed’s government has accused him of bias, and of spreading misinformation.