Ethiopia lifts five-month suspension of Norwegian Refugee Council’s aid work
- In Reports
- 03:23 PM, Jan 06, 2022
- Myind Staff
Ethiopia has lifted a five-month suspension of the Norwegian Refugee Council’s aid work after it cleared the organisation of allegations of spreading “misinformation”.
The government ordered the NRC along with Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) to stop work for three months in July, including operations in the Tigray conflict zone. However, MSF’s suspension was lifted in October but the NRC was extended.
NRC had been providing food, clean water, shelter, education and legal help to refugees, displaced people by conflict and disasters in a war-torn Tigray region. At the time of suspension, NRC had reached more than 250,000 people in Ethiopia and was aiming to reach double the amount by the end of this year.
“We are relieved that the suspension that temporarily discontinued our humanitarian work for hundreds of thousands of people in great need has been lifted,” said NRC Secretary General Jan Egeland in a statement.
He said, “Now that we have to restart, it will take time to again reach as many people as we did before the suspension. We have lost many of our staff. We urgently need permits for our international staff to return, and we need to be able to pay our suppliers.”
MSF was banned in the Tigray, Gambella, Amhara and Somali regions. Along with spreading misinformation, the organisation was accused of bringing in satellite communication equipment without authorisation and not getting the correct permits for employees.
MSF said that while the three-month suspension had been lifted in late October, it had been difficult to restart operations.
“Although we are permitted to resume our work, it has not been possible to restart those medical programmes, mainly due to the current security situation and administrative obstacles,” the spokesperson said.
Image credit: NRC
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