{"id":9510,"date":"2022-04-14T12:09:29","date_gmt":"2022-04-14T12:09:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/?p=9510"},"modified":"2022-04-14T12:09:29","modified_gmt":"2022-04-14T12:09:29","slug":"who-chief-blames-racism-for-greater-focus-on-ukraine-than-afghanistan-ethiopia-yeman-and-syria","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/2022\/04\/who-chief-blames-racism-for-greater-focus-on-ukraine-than-afghanistan-ethiopia-yeman-and-syria\/","title":{"rendered":"WHO chief blames racism for greater focus on Ukraine than Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Yeman and Syria"},"content":{"rendered":"

MONITORING (SW) –\u00a0The head of the\u00a0World Health Organization\u00a0(WHO) has criticised the global community\u2019s focus on the war in Ukraine, arguing that crises elsewhere, including in his home country of Ethiopia, are not being given equal consideration, possibly because the people affected are not white.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus questioned whether \u201cthe world really gives equal attention to Black and white lives\u201d given that ongoing emergencies in\u00a0Ethiopia, Yemen, Afghanistan and Syria had garnered only a \u201cfraction\u201d of the concern for Ukraine.<\/p>\n

Last month Tedros said there was \u201cnowhere on Earth where the health of millions of people is more under threat\u201d than Ethiopia\u2019s Tigray region, reported Guardian.<\/p>\n

\n
Since a truce was declared\u00a0in Tigray three weeks ago, about 2,000 trucks should have been able to bring food, medicines and other essentials to the conflict-ridden area, he said during a virtual press briefing from Geneva on Wednesday. Instead, only about 20 trucks had arrived, he said.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cAs we speak, people are dying of starvation,\u201d said Tedros, a former health minister in Ethiopia and an ethnic Tigrayan. \u201cThis is one of the longest and worst sieges by both Eritrean and Ethiopian forces in modern history.\u201d<\/p>\n

He acknowledged that the war in\u00a0Ukraine\u00a0was globally significant, but asked whether other crises were being accorded enough attention.<\/p>\n

\u201cI need to be blunt and honest that the world is not treating the human race the same way,\u201d he said. \u201cSome are more equal than others.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tedros described the situation in Tigray as tragic and said he \u201chopes the world comes back to its senses and treats all human life equally\u201d.<\/p>\n

He also criticised the media\u2019s failure to document atrocities in Ethiopia, noting that people had been\u00a0burned alive. \u201cI don\u2019t even know if that was taken seriously by the media,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Earlier this year the Ethiopian government sent a letter to the WHO accusing Tedros of \u201cmisconduct\u201d after his sharp criticism of the war and humanitarian crisis in the country.<\/p>\n

It said Tedros was using his office \u201cto advance his political interest at the expense of Ethiopia\u201d and said he continued to be an active member of the Tigray People\u2019s Liberation Front.<\/p>\n

Tedros was Ethiopia\u2019s foreign minister and health minister when the TPLF dominated the country\u2019s ruling coalition.<\/p>\n

ENDS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MONITORING (SW) –\u00a0The head of the\u00a0World Health Organization\u00a0(WHO) has criticised the global community\u2019s focus on the war in Ukraine, arguing that crises elsewhere, including in his home country of Ethiopia, are not being given equal consideration, possibly because the people affected are not white.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9511,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,17,18,194,200,5,8,4,6],"tags":[12,452,689,782],"class_list":["post-9510","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-soceity","category-security_","category-peace","category-world","category-democracy-human-rights","category-politics_","category-governance","category-news_","category-afghanistan","tag-afghanistan","tag-who","tag-syria","tag-ukraine"],"views":389,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9510","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9510"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9510\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9511"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9510"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swn.af\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}