WHO chief urges 'immediate' food, medical aid for Tigray

The head of the WHO said Wednesday that food and medicines needed to be shipped into Ethiopia's northern Tigray region urgently following the ceasefire agreed after two years of warfare.

The World Health Organization said people in Tigray needed urgent assistance after two years of bloody conflict, with access to the region severely restricted.

The conflict between Ethiopian government forces and Tigrayan rebels has plunged Ethiopia's northernmost region into a severe humanitarian crisis.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus welcomed the breakthrough ceasefire agreement reached last Wednesday but said it was already a week on "and nothing is moving in terms of food aid or medicines.

"You can imagine that many people are dying from treatable diseases. Many people are dying from starvation," he told a press conference.

"Even in the middle of fighting, civilians need food, need medicine. It cannot be a condition.

"Especially after the ceasefire agreement, I was expecting that food and medicine would just flow immediately. That's not happening," he said.

"Let's give a chance to peace. But we would also urge the immediate delivery of food and medicine."

Tedros is himself from Tigray and was Ethiopia's health and foreign minister.

He called for the reopening of basic services such as banking and telecoms, and called for journalists to be allowed into the region, "because everything that has happened in the last two years has been done in total darkness and six million people have been completely separated, shut off from the rest of the world as if they don't exist."