Refugees Archives | Solomon Negash

In Sudan Border Town, Desperate Ethiopians Find ‘Second Mother Country’

February 13, 2021/0 Comments/in English, External, Politics/by Solomon

New York Times | Abdi Latif Dahir | Tens of thousands of Christian refugees, fleeing the violence in the Tigray region of Ethiopia, have been given a warm welcome by the residents of a sleepy Sudanese town: “We are brothers.”

HAMDAYET, Sudan — The refugees were hungry and exhausted, their shoes dusty and worn from trudging for four days through the bush and forest of northwestern Ethiopia, hiding from soldiers, as they escaped the conflict in the country’s Tigray region.

Finally, they made it safely to the small Sudanese border town of Hamdayet. But they had nowhere to sleep and nothing to eat. So they sat in a sandy alley close to the center of town, asking passers-by for food and water.

That’s where Mohamed Ali Ibrahim, who works in a local restaurant, found them. Read more

Refugee Camps in Ethiopia Appear to Have Been Systematically Destroyed

February 3, 2021/0 Comments/in English, External, Politics/by Solomon

VICE | Satellite photos show military actors at the camps right after they were razed; the damage is far more extensive than previously reported.

Two refugee camps in Ethiopia’s Tigray region were deliberately razed to the ground in attacks carried out between November and January, according to researchers who have been analyzing satellite images that highlight extensive destruction caused by the breakout of civil war in Ethiopia last year.

Previous reports of satellite images obtained by the DX Open Network, a UK-based research and analysis organization, appeared to depict scorched earth attacks and the burning of nearby crops at the Hitsats and Shimelba refugee camps, which hosted over 25,000 refugees from neighboring Eritrea prior to the war. But recent analysis of the images indicates that the destruction was systemic, and residential areas, clinics, and schools were targeted in what appears to have been an attempt at preventing future use of the facilities. Further, a significant number of military vehicles and soldiers are visible in and around the camps soon after the time of the destruction, which appears to point to their complicity in the razing. While it is unconfirmed which military was present, signs also indicate it was the Ethiopian military, as the government continues to deny access to the camps. The damage also appears to now be much more extensive than originally reported, with over a thousand structures destroyed.

The damage also appears to now be much more extensive than originally thought, with over a thousand structures destroyed.

“These cumulative damage assessments show a campaign to degrade, destroy both the Hitsats and Shimelba refugee camps from November 24 to January 27,” the DX Open Network said in a statement yesterday. “There are clear and consistent patterns across both camps over a two month period demonstrating that these refugee camps were systematically targeted, despite their protected humanitarian status.”

The breakout of war between the former Tigray regional government and Ethiopian and Eritrean soldiers has left thousands dead and internally displaced over 2.3 million people. Widespread destruction, the result of attacks targeting urban city centers, heritage sites, and refugee camps, has also been documented.

The Hitsats and Shimelba camps had come under attack soon after the breakout of war, and fighting at the Hitsats camp between allied Ethiopian and Eritrean troops and forces loyal to the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) was reported in November. Refugees have been reportedly targeted and killed by both Tigrayan and Eritrean forces, while others were abducted and taken back to Eritrea. At least four humanitarian aid workers have been killed at the camps.

The UNHCR, the UN refugee agency, operated a total of four refugee camps hosting almost 100,000 Eritrean refugees in Tigray. Despite this, representatives have been denied access to the two camps despite appealing repeatedly. The camps remain under heavy military guard, with satellite images taken on January 25 appearing to show a heavy concentration of soldiers at a school compound at the Shimelba site.

“I am very worried for the safety and well-being of Eritrean refugees in those camps,” UNHCR head Filippo Grandi said in a January 14th statement. “The [Ethiopian] government has provided assurances that measures are being taken to minimize the impact of the conflict on civilians.”

But the recent findings indicate that despite Ethiopia’s reassurances to the UNHCR, the destruction continued even in the days following Grandi’s statement.

By January 27, the Shimelba camp had a total of 721 structures destroyed, according to satellite imagery obtained on that date, over 300 more than previously thought. As has been reported, fires were set simultaneously across the camp’s residential areas, with clear visible darkening indicating the burning of hundreds of homes between January 13 and January 16. Visible destruction of a compound run by the World Food Program (WFP) and a clinic operated by the Ethiopian government run Administration for Refugee & Returnee Affairs (ARRA), took place in early January.

Two additional WFP structures were completely obliterated by January 5 as well. The landscape outside of an Ethiopian Orthodox Church Development and Inter-Church Aid Commission-run high school was set ablaze, and the aftermath is clearly visible from space.

“99 percent of [Shimelba’s damaged structures] were assessed as catastrophically or extensively damaged,” the organization said in a statement sent to VICE World News.

Prior to the war, the Hitsats camp had schools, colleges, youth recreational centers, and even a beauty salon, funded by a consortium of local and international aid organizations. The DX Open Network told VICE World News that a total of 531 destroyed structures were tallied for Hitsats. Previous reporting put the figure around 400. Extensive damage to facilities run by the International Rescue Committee (IRC) and Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), have also been recorded. The surrounding area was set alight, as was the case at similar structures across both camps. Images of smoke billowing into the air over residential dorms appear to indicate arson attacks on those structures too.

Another compound also had the earth around it scorched, with at least eight identified cratering sites, consistent with damage caused by direct artillery rounds dating back to late November. The researchers indicated to VICE World News that this was evidence that the camp was shelled.

“The presence of military actors soon after the widespread razing of both camps raises questions as to whether these military actors are the same as the perpetrators of the fire-based attacks and other violence at and around the camps.”

“Also present in satellite imagery are groups of military-use vehicles, including a mechanised formation bivouacking in an elementary and secondary school compound within Shimelba Refugee Camp,” the DX Open Network told VICE World News. “The presence of military actors soon after the widespread razing of both camps raises questions as to whether these military actors are the same as the perpetrators of the fire-based attacks and other violence at and around the camps.”

With the camp cut off from the outside world and out of food, survivors reportedly fled into the wilderness. At least 20,000 Eritrean refugees who had been at the two camps remain unaccounted for.

Last week, Grandi himself traveled to Ethiopia. During his four day visit, he met with President Sahlework Zewde and got the chance to tour two of the UNHCR’s camps in Tigray. But he was denied the chance to visit Shimelba and Hitsats.

Perhaps even more worrying, an Ethiopian government representative spoke to state media last week, and seemed to rule out the possibility of the two camps being reopened. According to the unnamed official, the two camps were “substandard,” and “inhospitable,” and had been turned into militia training sites for members of the Eritrean political opposition. No evidence for the claim was included in the report.

“These events progressed in manner, timing, and consistency so similar to one another that it suggests that the same actor conducted the attacks on both camps with the same intent: to degrade both refugee camps’ ability to function, discourage any refugees from remaining, and ultimately prevent their use as refugee camps,” the DX Open Network told VICE World News. “In totality, these acts may constitute violations of international humanitarian and human rights law.”

Last year, the Ethiopian government announced that it intended to close the Hitsats refugee camp citing costs, much to the chagrin of the UNHCR, which has argued the refugees, mostly escapees from unending military conscription in Eritrea, would have nowhere else to go. Eritrea’s President Isaias Afewerki has long criticized the existence of the camps, claiming that western states were using them to lure away potential recruits for his army. With the camps now rendered inhospitable, he appears to have had the last laugh.

Eritrean refugees caught in crossfire of Ethiopia’s Tigray war

February 2, 2021/0 Comments/in English, External, News, Politics/by Solomon

AFP | They have survived gun battles, attempted abductions, attacks by angry militiamen and days-long treks to safety with nothing to eat but moringa leaves.

Yet Eritrean refugees in Ethiopia fear their suffering may not be over, as Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed strains to end a brutal conflict in the northern region of Tigray that has rendered them uniquely vulnerable.

Nearly 100,000 refugees from Eritrea, an oppressive, authoritarian nation bordering Ethiopia to the north, were registered in four camps in Tigray when fighting erupted in November between Abiy’s government and the regional ruling party, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF).

Two of those camps, Hitsats and Shimelba, were caught up in hostilities and remain inaccessible to the United Nations refugee agency and its Ethiopian counterpart, the Agency for Refugee and Returnee Affairs (ARRA).

The information vacuum has spurred dire speculation over the refugees’ fate.

The UN has sounded the alarm over reported targeted killings and abductions by Eritrean soldiers, whose role in the conflict is widely documented but officially denied by Addis Ababa and Asmara.

The US State Department last week cited “credible reports” of looting and sexual violence in the camps.

On his first trip to Ethiopia since the conflict began, UN refugees chief Filippo Grandi over the weekend visited Mai Aini, one of two camps in southern Tigray where the UN has regained access.

The camp is now home to hundreds of refugees from Hitsats, some of whom told AFP of the horrors they left behind.

“Most of the people, if you search this camp, they’ll start crying when they talk about what happened,” said Girmay, who like other refugees insisted on using only one name, fearing reprisals.

“Our friends could be alive or dead. We don’t know.”

– ‘They came and killed’-

The TPLF dominated Ethiopian politics for almost three decades — it was in power when Ethiopia and Eritrea fought a border war that killed tens of thousands between 1998 and 2000 and led to a two-decade stalemate.

After taking office in 2018, Abiy initiated a surprise rapprochement with Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki, a move that won him the Nobel Peace Prize the following year.

Yet Isaias and the TPLF — whose region borders Eritrea — remain bitter enemies, heightening the risks for Eritrean refugees caught up in the conflict.

Once fighting reached Hitsats in late November, pro-TPLF militiamen targeted refugees in reprisal killings after suffering battlefield setbacks against Eritrean troops, several refugees told AFP.

On one morning the militiamen shot dead nine young Eritrean men outside a church, they said.

Pro-TPLF forces based themselves out of Hitsats for weeks, forbidding hungry residents from going out in search of food and shooting dead several who tried anyway.

“At first we couldn’t believe it because they speak the same language as us,” Girmay said of the pro-TPLF forces.

“Before we are friends… Suddenly they came and killed.”

Eritrean soldiers also committed abuses, the refugees said, arresting dozens of people, likely more, and whisking them to an unknown destination.

“The Eritrean soldiers caught some people and started asking them questions. I’ve counted 26 or 27,” one refugee said.

“The next day they took them somewhere else. We don’t know where they are.”

Many refugees fled Eritrea to avoid its notorious system of compulsory national service, which inspires descriptions of the nation as an “open-air prison”, and among their greatest fears is to be forced back.

Addressing reporters at the end of his visit Monday night, the UN’s Grandi said he had come away with “a more complex sense” of who committed abuses.

“There were very precise allegations regarding TPLF elements. There were very specific allegations regarding Eritrean forces present — possibly or surely present — in the region,” he said.

Ethiopia’s government is investigating abuses and will try to account for all of Hitsats’ pre-conflict population, which it estimates at around 11,000, said Tesfahun Gobezay, ARRA’s executive director.

“With regard to Eritrean soldiers taking Eritrean refugees, we don’t have any solid evidence yet,” Tesfahun told AFP.

-‘How can I feel safe?’-

Eritrean forces assumed control of Hitsats in early January and forced those remaining in the camp to evacuate, refugees said.

“They threatened to kill us and people were afraid,” said one refugee now in Addis Ababa, who asked that his name not be used.

Roughly 3,000 refugees from Hitsats and the other inaccessible northern camp, Shimelba, have since reached the two camps in southern Tigray, many travelling by foot with no water and only leaves for food.

In Mai Aini some new arrivals complained of poor access to clean water and of not having a place to sleep.

But their biggest concern, shared by some longtime residents, was for their security, with several worrying that pro-TPLF militias could attack the camp despite an extensive federal military presence nearby.

“How can I feel safe here?” said Natnael, who has lived in Mai Aini since he was a boy. “There are many militias around the camp.”

ARRA’s Tesfahun said the southern camps were safe and that progress had been made in re-establishing basic services.

Grandi, for his part, called for a more efficient system of distributing aid, saying the current situation in Tigray was “very grave” and that “without further action it will get worse.”

It remains to be seen what has become of the two camps in northern Tigray that are still out of contact.

Satellite imagery shows widespread damage to both, suggesting a campaign to destroy them, the British-based investigations firm DX Open Network said.

“There are clear and consistent patterns across both camps over a two-month period demonstrating that these refugee camps were systematically targeted despite their protected humanitarian status,” it said in a statement.

Joint NGO Letter call for a Special Session on the deteriorating human rights situation in Ethiopia

January 28, 2021/0 Comments/in English, External, Politics/by Solomon

The Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect saves lives by mobilizing the international community to act in situations where populations are at risk of mass atrocity crimes. | R2P

28 January 2021 | OPEN LETTER |

To Permanent Representatives of Member and Observer States of the United Nations Human Rights Council, Geneva, Switzerland

Your Excellency,

We, the undersigned human rights non-governmental organizations, strongly support the call for a UN Human Rights Council (HRC) special session on the deteriorating human rights situation in Ethiopia and urge your delegation to support such a session without further delay.

Since 4 November 2020, fighting between federal government forces and affiliated militias with forces and militia allied to Tigray’s ruling party, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, have reportedly killed hundreds of civilians and caused more than one million people to flee their homes, including at least 57,000 refugees who are now in Sudan. There have been widespread reports of serious violations of international humanitarian law and human rights violations and abuses including possible atrocity crimes, including indiscriminate attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure, unlawful killings, widespread looting, and rape and sexual violence against women and girls. There have also been reports of massacres committed along ethnic lines within Tigray, as well as ethnic profiling, discrimination, and hate speech against Tigrayans both within and outside the country. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees has also expressed alarm for the “safety and well-being” of the 96,000 Eritrean refugees in Tigray, given the unconfirmed but “overwhelming number of reports of Eritrean refugees in Tigray being killed, abducted and forcibly returned to Eritrea,” where they could face persecution. Access to independent humanitarian aid continues to be limited in Tigray despite an agreement reached between the federal government and the UN on 29 November. Journalists critical of the government have been arrested, exacerbating existing restrictions on communication and information from the region.

Given the gravity of these alleged violations and abuses, we believe that a Human Rights Council special session on Ethiopia is essential to ensure international scrutiny of the situation and to adopt measures to prevent any further deterioration of the crisis.

While the Council should pay particular attention to the situation in Tigray, it should not restrict itself to addressing only one region of Ethiopia. It is important that the Council acknowledges the general deterioration of human rights in other parts of the country, particularly in the last year. This includes reports of deadly violence along ethnic and communal lines; allegations of abuse by security forces in Oromia, Benishangul-Gumuz, Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples’ and Amhara regions; and fighting along the borders between the Tigray and Amhara regions, the Oromia and Somali regions, and the Afar and Somali region.

A Special Session would enable the HRC to receive information from the High Commissioner for Human Rights and others on the gravity of the ongoing crisis, including how long-standing grievances and structural issues have contributed to the overall deterioration of the human rights situation, and to take appropriate action, in line with the Council’s prevention mandate, to prevent further violations and abuses.

We believe that supporting calls for action by the heads of various UN agencies, including through holding a special session, is necessary to uphold the HRC’s founding principles of the promotion and protection of human rights. On 7 December the UN Secretary-General expressed his concern about the situation in Tigray, calling for full respect for human rights and the guarantee of unfettered humanitarian access. On 22 December the High Commissioner for Human Rights described the situation as “heart-breaking as it is appalling” and emphasized the urgent need for “independent, impartial, thorough and transparent investigations to establish accountability and ensure justice” for grave violations. Furthermore, on 12 November the UN Special Advisers on the Prevention of Genocide and the Responsibility to Protect warned that if escalating ethnic tensions in Ethiopia are not urgently addressed the “risk of atrocity crimes in Ethiopia remains high.”

We respectfully urge you to recognize serious concerns expressed by the UN Secretary-General, High Commissioner for Human Rights, High Commissioner for Refugees and the Special Advisers on the Prevention of Genocide and the Responsibility to Protect by:

calling, without delay, for the convening of a special session of the UN Human Rights Council to discuss the situation in Ethiopia, with a focus on the human rights violations and abuses that continue to take place in Tigray and throughout the country;
presenting for adoption a resolution to ensure independent and impartial investigations into alleged violations and abuses of international human rights law and violations of international humanitarian law, some of which may amount to atrocity crimes, committed by all parties to the conflict. The findings should be reported to the Human Rights Council, including recommendations to prevent further human rights violations and abuses and ensure accountability.

Respectfully yours,

African Centre for Democracy and Human Rights Studies (ACDHRS)
CIVICUS
Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect
Global Justice Center
Human Rights Watch
International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH)
International Service for Human Rights (ISHR)
Southern African Human Rights Defenders Network (SAHRDN)
Women’s Refugee Commission (WRC)

SOURCE | Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect and other NGOs

Tigray crisis: Biden administration calls for Eritrea troops to withdraw

January 27, 2021/0 Comments/in English, External, News, Politics/by Solomon

BBC | The US has called for the immediate withdrawal of Eritrean troops in Ethiopia’s Tigray region.

“Credible reports” had emerged of their involvement in human rights abuses, including sexual violence and looting, the state department said.

This is its first statement on the conflict since the Joe Biden administration took office last week.

Both the Eritrean and Ethiopian governments deny that Eritrean forces are in Tigray, which borders Eritrea.

Eritrea is a highly militarised one-party state ruled by President Isaias Afwerki since 1993.

Thousands of people have been killed and about two million people, or one-third of Tigray’s population, have fled their homes since conflict broke out in early November.

Dialogue between the Ethiopian government and Tigrayans was “essential”, and humanitarian aid needed to be “mobilised” immediately because of “credible reports” that hundreds of thousands of people may starve to death, the US state department said.

Eritrea appeared to have launched artillery attacks from its side of the border, and had troops in Tigray, though the exact number was unclear, it said.

“The United States has made clear its position that all Eritrean troops need to leave Tigray immediately, given credible reports of looting, sexual violence, assaults in refugee camps and other human rights abuses.

“There is also evidence of Eritrean soldiers forcibly returning Eritrean refugees from Tigray to Eritrea,” it added in a statement.

Nearly 100,000 Eritreans had lived in four camps in Tigray after fleeing political persecution and military conscription over the last decade.

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019 for restoring relations with Mr Isaias’ government, almost two decades after the two nations fought a border in Tigray that left up to 100,000 people dead.

Last month, Mr Abiy admitted that Eritrea had hosted armed Ethiopian troops who had retreated to its territory after the TPLF captured their bases in Tigray in early November.

However, he did not acknowledge that Eritrean troops had entered Tigray to bolster the fight against the TPLF.

‘Residual fighting continues’

The TPLF had been the ruling party in Tigray for almost three decades. It said it had seized the military bases in a “pre-emptive strike” following a breakdown in relations with Mr Abiy’s government.

Mr Abiy responded by ordering air strikes and a ground offensive to oust the TPLF from power. He declared the operation over after the capture of the regional capital, Mekelle, at the end of November.

He rejected calls for mediation to end the conflict, saying Ethiopia would not accept foreign interference in its affairs.

The US said “residual fighting” was still taking place, and there was the risk of “a long-running insurgency in Tigray that will destabilise northern Ethiopia and worsen ethnic tensions throughout the country”.

“That could not only put at risk US-endorsed democratic and other reforms by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed,” the statement said.

“It could also exacerbate instability in neighbouring Somalia, from where Ethiopia has already withdrawn some of its peacekeeping forces, and even in Sudan, where the transitional government is already grappling with serious problems.”

Analysts had estimated before the conflict that the TPLF had up to 250,000 fighters. It is unclear how many it had lost in the conflict.

TPLF veterans killed include former Ethiopian Foreign Minister Seyoum Mesfin, while Abay Weldu, the Tigray regional government’s former president, has been captured.

Tigrayans make up around 6% of Ethiopia’s more than 110 million population.

Witnesses: Eritrean soldiers loot, kill in Ethiopia’s Tigray

January 25, 2021/0 Comments/in English, News, Politics/by Solomon

Zenebu, who arrived home in Colorado after weeks trapped in Tigray, Ethiopia, where she had gone to visit her mother, poses for a photo Friday, Jan. 22, 2021. Huge unknowns persist in Ethiopia’s deadly conflict, but details of the involvement of neighboring Eritrea, one of the world’s most secretive countries, are emerging with witness accounts by survivors and others such as Zenebu. While fighting in support of Ethiopian forces, Eritrean soldiers have been accused of killing civilians, targeting refugees and even acting as local authorities. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The Eritrean soldiers’ pockets clinked with stolen jewelry. Warily, Zenebu watched them try on dresses and other clothing looted from homes in a town in Ethiopia’s embattled Tigray region.

“They were focused on trying to take everything of value,” even diapers, said Zenebu, who arrived home in Colorado this month after weeks trapped in Tigray, where she had gone to visit her mother. On the road, she said, trucks were full of boxes addressed to places in Eritrea for the looted goods to be delivered.

Heartbreakingly worse, she said, Eritrean soldiers went house-to-house seeking out and killing Tigrayan men and boys, some as young as 7, then didn’t allow their burials. “They would kill you for trying, or even crying,” Zenebu told The Associated Press, using only her first name because relatives remain in Tigray.

Huge unknowns persist in the deadly conflict, but details of the involvement of neighboring Eritrea, one of the world’s most secretive countries, are emerging with witness accounts by survivors and others. Estimated in the thousands, the Eritrean soldiers have fought on the side of Ethiopian forces. They are accused of targeting thousands of vulnerable refugees from their own country, raping and intimidating locals — and now, some worry, refusing to go home.

Eritrea and Ethiopia recently made peace under Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019 for his efforts. But Eritrea remains an enemy of the Tigray leaders who dominated Ethiopia’s government for nearly 30 years and are now fugitives since fighting began between Ethiopian and Tigray forces in November, the result of growing tensions over power.

Ethiopia’s government denies the Eritreans are in Tigray, a stance contradicted by an Ethiopian military commander who confirmed their presence last month. The U.S. has called Eritrea’s involvement a “grave development,” citing credible reports. Eritrean officials don’t respond to questions.

Despite the denials, the Eritrean soldiers aren’t hiding. They have even attended meetings in which humanitarian workers negotiated access with Ethiopian authorities.

Now millions of Tigray residents, still largely cut off from the world, live in fear of the soldiers, who inspire memories of the countries’ two-decade border war. The recent peace revived cultural and family ties with Tigray, but Eritrea soon closed border crossings.

“If Eritrea refuses to leave, the U.N. should give us protection before we perish as a people,” a former Ethiopian defense minister, Seye Abraha, said in comments posted Sunday by a Tigray media outlet.

A spokeswoman for Ethiopia’s prime minister, Billene Seyoum, did not respond to a request to discuss the Eritrean forces.

With almost all journalists blocked from Tigray and humanitarian access and communications links limited, witness accounts give the clearest picture yet of the Eritreans’ presence.

They were first reported in northwestern Tigray, which saw some of the earliest fighting. The Ethiopian Human Rights Commission cites residents of the border town of Humera as saying the Eritreans participated in widespread looting that “emptied food and grain storages.” That has contributed to growing hunger among survivors.

The account by Zenebu, a 48-year-old health care worker, is one of the most detailed to emerge — and it came from central Tigray, an area little heard from so far.

She first saw the Eritrean soldiers in mid-December. She had fled with others into the mountains as fighting approached, leaving her mother, too frail for the journey, behind. Twelve days later she returned to the town of Hawzen, needing to know whether her mother had survived.

In the darkness, she said, she stumbled over bodies, including around 70 she later realized she knew as they were identified. The ground was strewn with beer bottles, cigarettes and other trash, and “I couldn’t tell the difference between human and animal bodies.” The stench of death was strong.

A neighborhood boy, just 12, had been recruited by soldiers to do errands and then killed.

“I saw his body,” Zenebu said. “They just, like, threw him away.”

Her mother had survived, her home stripped of possessions.

People had been killed for having photos of Tigray leaders, even long-ago ones, Zenebu said, and the photos were set on fire. While she said some atrocities were carried out by Ethiopian forces and allied fighters from the neighboring Amhara region, she recognized the Eritreans by markings on their cheeks and their dialect of the Tigrinya language.

“I was more heartbroken and surprised to see the Eritreans doing that because I felt a connection, speaking the same language,” Zenebu said. “I felt we shared more of the same struggle,” while others “don’t know us like the Eritreans do.”

Residents tried to survive as food supplies dwindled. Electricity for grinding grains was gone, and medical supplies ran out. “People are starving to death,” Zenebu said.

It was worse, she said, than in the 1980s, when famine and conflict swept through Tigray and images of starving people in Ethiopia brought global alarm and she fled to Sudan.

Then, “there wasn’t house-to-house looting of civilians, weaponizing hunger, the merciless killing,” she said. “It’s worse than before.”

Zenubu eventually managed to leave Hawzen and reach the Tigray capital, Mekele, after pretending she was a resident and blending in with others traveling there. She called her family in the U.S., crying hysterically.

“I just wanted to say I was alive,” she said. Now she is unable to reach her mother.

Her account, like many, cannot be verified until communication links with Tigray are fully restored — and even then, people in Ethiopia worry that phone calls are monitored.

But another person who escaped Hawzen and arrived in the U.S. this month told the AP that Eritrean soldiers were “everywhere” and confirmed their killing and looting. He also identified them by their dialect.

“Same blood, same language,” he said, noting the close ties with Tigrayans. “I don’t know why they killed.” He spoke on condition of anonymity out of fear for his relatives.

“We are investigating credible reports of a whole range of abuses by the Eritrean forces in central Tigray, including extrajudicial executions of civilians, widespread looting and damage of public and private property, including hospitals,” Human Rights Watch researcher Laetitia Bader said, urging “immediate international scrutiny” and a U.N.-led investigation.

Other accounts come from the nearly 60,000 refugees who fled to Sudan.

“My five brothers and mother are in Axum” near the Eritrean border, a doctor among the refugees, Tewodros Tefera, told the AP. “People from Axum said Eritrean forces killed many young men.”

“I don’t know if my brothers are alive,” he said of his brothers, who are 25 to 35. His phone calls don’t go through.

A woman now in the U.S. after managing to leave Axum, who gave only her first name, Woinshet, wept as she told the AP she believes she survived because she showed Eritrean soldiers her U.S. passport instead of a local ID.

“There’s no (military) camp in Axum, just monasteries,” she said, recalling bodies left in the streets. “Why are they there?”

Other survivors have fled the Eritrean soldiers to remote areas in Tigray and called to say they have been living for weeks on leaves and dried fruit.

“I don’t know how people are staying alive,” Tewodros said.

People are dying of hunger” in Ethiopia — Tigray on the brink of humanitarian disaster

January 25, 2021/0 Comments/in English, News, Politics/by Solomon

After two and a half months of conflict, NGOs still have very limited access to the region, where food and healthcare are deeply lacking for the 6 million inhabitants.

Since the start of the conflict in Ethiopia between federal government troops and those from the dissident province of Tigray, ten weeks ago, humanitarian organizations have found it difficult to come to the aid of the displaced and wounded. The region of 6 million people, where the conventional war of November 2020 gradually gave way to guerrilla warfare in the countryside, is devastated by fighting and hunger.

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), one of the few NGOs able to reach the center of Tigray, estimates that around 4 million people do not have access to health care. That is two thirds of Tigrayans. The few convoys that have been able to reach the region, like those of the Red Cross and the World Food Program (WFP), are more the exception than the rule.

“The situation is getting worse every day. The conflict began two and a half months ago and the majority of residents are still waiting for humanitarian aid,” warns Saviano Abreu, spokesperson for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). Hunger is at the center of concerns: it is gaining ground in a region already partially ravaged by the invasion of locusts in the fall and where war broke out a few days before the harvest.

Food supplies are deeply lacking and WFP’s 18 trucks are just a drop in the bucket in an ocean of shortages. “During our assessment, we noticed an increase in malnutrition in children under 5 years old,” says Saviano Abreu. A fear expressed bluntly by the interim administrator of the Central zone of Tigray, Berhane Gebretsadik: “People are dying of hunger. In Adwa, they even die of hunger in their sleep.”

EU mentions “possible war crimes”

Faced with this urgency, the international community is making a change of tone. The objective: to obtain absolutely independent access to Tigray as quickly as possible, which currently is refused by the Ethiopian authorities. The European Union (EU), after having suspended the payment of part of its financial assistance to Ethiopia, now evokes “possible war crimes” in the province. EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs, Josep Borrell, writes that “the situation goes well beyond a law enforcement operation.”

Beyond the alarming figure of 2 million internally displaced persons, Josep Borrell denounces human rights violations: “We continuously receive information concerning ethnic violence, massacres, large-scale looting, rape and forced return of refugees to Eritrea.” The Belgian organization Europe External Program with Africa (EEPA) reports a massacre in The Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion, in Aksum, which is said to have claimed the lives of around 750 people, a witness confirmed for La Monde Afrique.

Humanitarian sources returning from Tigray and wishing to testify anonymously abound in this direction. Thousands of women are said to be victims of sexual abuse. More surprisingly, a sharp increase in suicidal behavior has been observed, especially among individuals caught in the midst of violence, and forced to flee their villages and their families. Other sources describe looted hospitals and populations deprived of any medical equipment, left to fend for themselves until the arrival of aid workers.

Inaccessible refugee camps

An Ethiopian refugee in a camp in Mafaza, eastern Sudan, January 8. ASHRAF SHAZLY / AFP | via La Monde AFrique

The other great unknown is the fate of a good number of Eritreans, historically refugees in camps in Tigray usually administered by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Of these four camps, only two are accessible. The other two, Hitsats and Shimelba, are blocked by Ethiopian and Eritrean forces deployed in Tigray. A blockade in order deplored by the head of the UNHCR: Filippo Grandi is worried about “the persistent insecurity and allegations of serious human rights violations, including murders, targeted kidnappings and the forced return of refugees to Eritrea.” For him, “these are precise indications of major violations of international law”.

While the UNHCR was able to carry out a reconnaissance mission in early January, aid is slow to materialize. Another organization, the Norwegian Refugee Council, is also having a lot of difficulty getting to Tigray, where it employs 100 local workers. “What is being done today in terms of humanitarian aid is simply too little and too late”, assures its director, Jan Egeland, who says he is “extremely disappointed by the slowness of administrative procedures.”

In fact, in order to reach the province, NGOs must seek the approval of the Ethiopian Ministry of Peace, which is responsible for coordinating humanitarian aid. An NGO manager who wants to remain anonymous complains about the deadlines for validation of missions, “which are supposed to last forty-eight hours and which sometimes take ten days”. Contacted by Le Monde Afrique, the Ministry of Peace did not respond to our interview requests. If the UN complains about “bureaucratic delays”, Jan Egeland is frustrated by the authorities’ lack of cooperation: “In November, we were simply ignored. Today there is a dialogue but still no authorizations.

This article was first published on Le Monde Afrique in French.

‘Extreme urgent need’: Starvation haunts Ethiopia’s Tigray

January 18, 2021/0 Comments/in English, External, News, Politics/by Solomon

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — From “emaciated” refugees to crops burned on the brink of harvest, starvation threatens the survivors of more than two months of fighting in Ethiopia’s Tigray region.

The first humanitarian workers to arrive after pleading with the Ethiopian government for access describe weakened children dying from diarrhea after drinking from rivers. Shops were looted or depleted weeks ago. A local official told a Jan. 1 crisis meeting of government and aid workers that hungry people had asked for “a single biscuit.”

More than 4.5 million people, nearly the region’s entire population, need emergency food, participants say. At their next meeting on Jan. 8, a Tigray administrator warned that without aid, “hundreds of thousands might starve to death” and some already had, according to minutes obtained by The Associated Press.

“There is an extreme urgent need — I don’t know what more words in English to use — to rapidly scale up the humanitarian response because the population is dying every day as we speak,” Mari Carmen Vinoles, head of the emergency unit for Doctors Without Borders, told the AP.

But pockets of fighting, resistance from some officials and sheer destruction stand in the way of a massive food delivery effort. To send 15-kilogram (33-pound) rations to 4.5 million people would require more than 2,000 trucks, the meeting’s minutes said, while some local responders are reduced to getting around on foot.

The specter of hunger is sensitive in Ethiopia, which transformed into one of the world’s fastest-growing economies in the decades since images of starvation there in the 1980s led to a global outcry. Drought, conflict and government denial contributed to the famine, which swept through Tigray and killed an estimated 1 million people.

The largely agricultural Tigray region of about 5 million people already had a food security problem amid a locust outbreak when Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed on Nov. 4 announced fighting between his forces and those of the defiant regional government. Tigray leaders dominated Ethiopia for almost three decades but were sidelined after Abiy introduced reforms that won him the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019.

Thousands of people have been killed in the conflict. More than 50,000 have fled into Sudan, where one doctor has said newer arrivals show signs of starvation. Others shelter in rugged terrain. A woman who recently left Tigray described sleeping in caves with people who brought cattle, goats and the grain they had managed to harvest.

“It is a daily reality to hear people dying with the fighting consequences, lack of food,” a letter by the Catholic bishop of Adigrat said this month.

Hospitals and other health centers, crucial in treating malnutrition, have been destroyed. In markets, food is “not available or extremely limited,” the United Nations says.

Though Ethiopia’s prime minister declared victory in late November, its military and allied fighters remain active amid the presence of troops from neighboring Eritrea, a bitter enemy of the now-fugitive officials who once led the region.

Fear keeps many people from venturing out. Others flee. Tigray’s new officials say more than 2 million people have been displaced, a number the U.S. government’s Bureau for Humanitarian Assistance calls “staggering.” The U.N. says the number of people reached with aid is “extremely low.”

A senior Ethiopian government official, Redwan Hussein, did not respond to a request for comment on Tigray colleagues warning of starvation.

In the northern Shire area near Eritrea, which has seen some of the worst fighting, up to 10% of the children whose arms were measured met the diagnostic criteria for severe acute malnutrition, with scores of children affected, a U.N. source said. Sharing the concern of many humanitarian workers about jeopardizing access, the source spoke on condition of anonymity.

Near Shire town are camps housing nearly 100,000 refugees who have fled over the years from Eritrea. Some who have walked into town “are emaciated, begging for aid that is not available,” U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi said Thursday.

Food has been a target. Analyzing satellite imagery of the Shire area, a U.K.-based research group found two warehouse-style structures in the U.N. World Food Program compound at one refugee camp had been “very specifically destroyed.” The DX Open Network could not tell by whom. It reported a new attack Saturday.

It’s challenging to verify events in Tigray as communications links remain poor and almost no journalists are allowed.

In the towns of Adigrat, Adwa and Axum, “the level of civilian casualties is extremely high in the places we have been able to access,” the Doctors Without Borders emergency official Vinoles said. She cited the fighting and lack of health care.