FILE – In this Monday, Feb. 24, 2020 file photo, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO), addresses a press conference at the World Health Organization headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. (Salvatore Di Nolfi/Keystone via AP, File)
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UPDATED 6:54 AM PT – Friday, August 19, 2022
The Director of the World Health Organization suggests racism is behind a lack of attention paid to the war raging in Ethiopia’s Tigray region. In a recent press conference, the United Nation’s agency director general, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, called the Tigray conflict “the worst humanitarian crisis in the world.”
“But in terms of humanitarian crisis, I can tell you that the humanitarian crisis is Tigray is more than Ukraine, without any exaggeration,” asserted Ghebreyesus. “And I said it many months ago, maybe the reason is the color of the skin of the people in Tigray.”
.@WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus @DrTedros suggested that racism was to blame for the lack of attention to the crisis in #Ethiopia‘s #Tigray region. pic.twitter.com/SfxfgVlMUS
— VOA Africa (@VOAAfrica) August 17, 2022
The region fell under siege in late 2020 and the organization requested $123 million to address the problems. Meanwhile, his comments were viewed as unethical and many critics said he should recuse himself from his position. Ghebreyesus is an ethnic Tigrayan who has previously brought attention to equality based on race, once asking whether “the world really gives equal attention to black and white lives.”