(Genève) Le monde « ne prête pas le même degré d’attention aux vies des Noirs et à celles des Blancs », a affirmé mercredi le directeur général de l’OMS, comparant l’attention portée à l’Ukraine et celle accordée à d’autres pays.
Publié à 12h15
« Toute l’attention portée à l’Ukraine est très importante bien sûr parce que cela a un impact sur le monde entier, mais pas même une fraction (de cette attention) n’est donnée au Tigré (la région de l’Ethiopie dont il est originaire, soumise à un blocus dévastateur NDLR), au Yémen, l’Afghanistan, la Syrie et tout le reste », s’est ému Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus lors d’une conférence de presse.
« Il me faut être direct et honnête, le monde ne traite pas la race humaine de la même façon. Certains sont plus égaux que d’autres », a lancé le docteur Tedros, paraphrasant l’écrivain George Orwell.
« Et quand je dis cela, cela me fait de la peine […] It’s very hard to accept but that’s what happens,” he insisted, hoping that “the world will come to its senses and treat all human life the same”.
He digressed at length on the situation in his home region of Tigray, where the authorities are in conflict with government forces.
He expressed his fear that the humanitarian truce decreed on March 24 by the government in Addis Ababa to allow humanitarian aid access to Tigray, hitherto cut off from everything, “is only a diplomatic maneuver”.
Where 2,000 essential aid trucks should have already arrived in the region, “there were only 20 in total, which represents 1% of the needs”, denounced the boss of the WHO.
“In concrete terms, the siege between Ethiopian and Eritrean forces continues”, according to Doctor Tedros, who warns that without completely free access to aid hundreds of thousands of people are still at risk of dying.
The conflict, which began in November 2020 and for a time spread beyond Tigray, has claimed thousands of lives, left millions starving and both sides have been blamed for atrocities.
“What is happening in Ethiopia is tragic, people are being burned alive because of their ethnicity, nothing else, and I’m not sure it was taken seriously by the media,” the chief executive remarked, adding “We need a balance. We have to take every life seriously because every life is precious.”