UN recalls Ethiopia migration head over remarks on Tigray situation

Addis Ababa, October 12, 2021 (FBC) – The UN’s migration agency has put its Ethiopia chief on administrative leave, citing “unauthorised interviews” in which she complained of being sidelined by UN higher-ups she claimed were sympathetic to Tigrayan rebels.

The departure of Maureen Achieng, confirmed in a letter dated Monday and seen by AFP, risks further undermining an aid response to the needy.

Last week, multiple recordings surfaced online of Achieng and another senior UN official granting a lengthy interview to Jeff Pearce.

In the recordings, Achieng, the International Organization for Migration’s Chief of Mission to Ethiopia, tears into colleagues who “descended on” Addis Ababa after the war broke out last November and, in her telling, sidelined officials on the ground.

She also calls the TPLF “dirty” and “vicious”. At one point she accuses the rebels of plotting to have Tigrayan migrant workers facing deportation from Saudi Arabia sent to Rwanda.

“And then you don’t know what guerrilla movement starts from Rwanda. I mean, it’s dirty,” she says. She also vows never to return to Tigray.