Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, how many visits (a) he, (b) Ministers and (c) officials from his Department have made to Ethiopia since 3 November 2020 to date.

The Foreign Secretary visited Ethiopia on 22 January. He visited a humanitarian logistics hub in Gondar run by the World Food Programme, and heard first hand from our agency partners about the difficulties faced delivering life-saving assistance. The Foreign Secretary also met with Prime Minister Abiy, the President and Deputy Prime Minister. In these discussions, he underlined the UK's serious concern about the situation in Tigray. Alok Sharma, the President for COP26, visited Ethiopia on 28 January 2021 to build support for climate action. The UK's Special Envoy for Humanitarian Affairs and Famine Prevention, Nick Dyer, visited Ethiopia in December 2020 to discuss Tigray and other issues with UN and Ethiopian counterparts.

Ministers and senior officials have also had regular discussions with the Ethiopian Government since the conflict in Tigray began. I [Minister Duddridge] most recently spoke with the Ethiopian Ambassador to the UK on 24 February, and our Ambassador in Addis Ababa spoke with the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs on 15 April.