“Nearly one million people are living in famine-like conditions,” Mr. Biden said in a statement. “Humanitarian workers have been blocked, harassed and killed. I am appalled by the reports of mass murder, rape and other sexual violence to terrorize civilian populations.”
The sanctions threatened by the order would target individuals and entities from the Ethiopian and Eritrean governments, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front and the Amhara regional government, who face possible asset freezes and travel bans.
They are a step up from weaker and largely ineffectual measures, including visa restrictions, imposed by the United States in May. For now, the new sanctions have yet to be imposed on anyone, and one of the administration officials who provided background declined to give a timeline.
But action would be a matter of “weeks not months,” she said.
To avoid sanctions, leaders on both sides must agree to negotiations without preconditions and accept mediation under the former Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo, an African Union envoy who is scheduled to land in Ethiopia this weekend.
The Ethiopian government must allow daily convoys of trucks carrying humanitarian aid to travel overland into Tigray, and restore basic services like electricity, communications and banking, the official added.