Band Aid has donated £500,000 (627,827 USD) to the UN for Ethiopian refugees amid the Tigray War.
The ongoing civil war in Ethiopia, between the Tigray Defense Forces, the Ethiopian National Defense Force, and the Ethiopian Federal Police has displaced millions of people since it began in November 2020. Massive human rights abuses including deliberately engineered famine conditions have killed hundreds of thousands of civilians, and nearly 10 million are in need of food aid inside the country, with more in refugee camps in neighboring nations.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees is a charitable arm of the UN, under mandate to aid and protect all displaced and stateless people.
Band Aid Charitable Trust is a London-based foundation which has been financially supporting UNHCR’s work in Ethiopia for almost forty years.
“Band Aid Charitable Trust has for many years been a committed supporter of the people of Ethiopia and relief efforts across the country,” said Emma Cherniavsky, Chief Executive of UK for UNHCR “We are deeply grateful for the trust’s donation to support UNHCR’s work in northern Ethiopia, where staff are working hard to get aid to those who need it the most. Support such as this is vital in ensuring UNHCR can keep responding to desperate humanitarian crises that are currently outside the media spotlight but no less critical.”
“We deeply appreciate the continuous and generous efforts of the Band Aid Charitable Trust to help people forced to flee. This grant will help us support the immediate and critical needs of the people displaced by the conflict,” added UNHCR Representative to Ethiopia, Mamadou Dian Balde.
The £500,000 donation will help provide core relief items to displaced people in Tigray and the surrounding regions, items like sleeping mats, blankets, laundry, and shelters, as well as food and clean water.
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