• A conflict in Ethiopia’s Tigray region could trigger broader destabilisation in the country, UN aid chief Mark Lowcock told the Security Council.
• Hundreds of thousands of people in Tigray have not received help and the United Nations has been unable to completely assess the situation because it does not have full and unimpeded access.
• UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was “seriously concerned” over the situation in Tigray, a UN spokesperson said.

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed ordered air strikes and a ground offensive on 4 November against Tigray’s rulers – the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) – for defying his authority. Abiy’s federal army ousted the TPLF from the regional capital Mekelle, but low-level fighting has continued.

In the region of more than five million people, thousands of people are believed to have died and 950 000 have fled their homes since fighting began.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was “seriously concerned” over the situation in Tigray, a UN spokesperson said late on Tuesday.

Lowcock said Abiy’s government controls between 60% and 80% of the territory in Tigray, but does not have full command of the ethnic Amhara and Eritrean forces also operating in the region.

Dozens of witnesses say Eritrean troops are in Tigray to support Ethiopian forces, though both countries deny that.