Ethiopian Journalist Attacked in Her Home, Questioned on Tigray Connections

/0 Comments/in , , /by

VOA | Freelance journalist Lucy Kassa was working on a story at her home in Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa, on Monday morning when she heard a knock at the door.

“I opened and there were three men. They knocked me down and they entered the home,” Lucy told VOA. “They didn’t introduce themselves, they didn’t show me any kind of I.D., they didn’t show me any kind of search warrant and they began to search my house.”

Dressed in civilian clothes and armed, the men started to question Lucy, asking if she had a connection with the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), the regional armed group accused of attacking the federal army in Ethiopia’s Tigray region.

“At first I wasn’t sure what they were looking for in my house because they made a big mess,” she said. “They tried to interrogate me if I have some sort of relationship with the ‘TPLF junta.'”

The men didn’t say why they were questioning Lucy, but the journalist thinks it could be related to her recent coverage for international media.

The raid came the same week that she published a piece in the Los Angeles Times newspaper about violent gang rapes allegedly carried out by Eritrean soldiers in Tigray, the northernmost part of Ethiopia that has been the scene of fighting between troops and the TPLF since November.

Lucy says she thinks the article made her a target because she had been collecting evidence that appeared to show Eritrean forces were operating in Tigray.

“They were looking for evidence. I actually submitted the story on Saturday but I was looking for more evidence,” Lucy said. “And in the process, I managed to get pictures of Eritrean soldiers from my source.”

The pictures, she said, were taken in the outskirts of Adigirat and rural places. She had plans to go to those areas to follow up on allegations of human rights abuses and mass killings.

A spokesperson for Ethiopia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said last month that the ministry was aware of reports that Eritreans had entered the country but did not confirm it. The spokesperson denied that Ethiopia had solicited any outside support.

Climate of fear

The men who raided Lucy’s home took her computer and the pictures, and have left her in fear. “I am traumatized. I am not sure if I am safe because these people might come again and threaten me again,” she said.

International organizations and media groups condemned the attack on Lucy, who also contributes to Al Jazeera and a news website Bistandsaktuelt, a Norwegian publication that focuses on countries receiving aid from Norway.

Gunnar Zachrisen, editor-in-chief of Bistandsaktuelt, said he has worked with Lucy closely and she was doing important work, reporting all sides of the dispute.

“She is a very hardworking, bright, young woman,” he told VOA. “She’s still only 29 years old, but definitely a big journalistic talent, not afraid of criticizing different stakeholders in her home country.”

The raid came alongside other cases of journalists being harassed over coverage of the conflict. Several have been arrested or harassed since November. Others were questioned for their reporting.

In January, Dawit Kebede Araya, a journalist affiliated with the regional outlet Tigray TV, was shot dead. Earlier that month, police had detained Dawit and questioned him about his coverage of the conflict. Media rights groups, including the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), have called on authorities to investigate the circumstances of his death.

Arnaud Froger, head of the Africa desk at media monitoring group Reporters Without Borders (RSF), said the restrictions and intimidation have had a tremendous impact on the ability of journalists to cover the unrest.

“Journalists have been prevented first from accessing the region. The Tigray region has been mostly in total internet shutdown since it all began in November,” he told VOA. “No access to information, no possibility to communicate with your sources on the ground, and RSF has recorded at least seven arbitrary arrests of journalists.

“Some of them were taken behind bars, never officially charged without any access to their lawyer and family, and then released after a few days and sometimes a few weeks without really knowing why they were arrested in the first place,” Froger said. “And the pressure is rising now to a point that we can say may no longer be safe to be a journalist in Ethiopia.”

Ethiopia appears to be on a trajectory where intimidation and arrests of journalists is on the rise, Froger said. The country ranks 99 out of 180 countries, where 1 is the most free, according to RSF’s annual press freedom index.

When asked about Lucy’s case and other incidents involving the media, Fekadu Tsega, director at Ethiopia’ Office of the Attorney General, said he was unable to comment on specific cases. He told VOA in Amharic, “individuals can be questioned based on different issues” and added that being a journalist is not a protection “if a crime is committed.”

The Ethiopia State of Emergency Fact Check, a government initiative set up to counter what officials deem to be disinformation on the conflict, said that “all individuals need to be free from any form of harm” but that RSF was incorrect in describing Lucy as working for foreign outlets because she did not have the necessary press pass.

The statement was condemned as “disgraceful” by the press freedom organization CPJ. “Instead of identifying these attackers and holding them to account, authorities have instead sought to discredit Lucy Kassa by saying she’s not a legally registered journalist, exposing growing hostility to the [press],” CPJ said by social media.

For now, Lucy is in hiding while she recovers from the attack.

“They tried to relate my ethnicity with the pieces that I worked on,” said Lucy, who is Tigrayan. “They asked me if the reason that I am investigating the situation in Tigray is that I belong to the Tigrayan ethnicity and because I support the TPLF junta. I told them I am just a journalist, even if I am ethnic Tigrayan, I was just doing my job.”

She added that the climate for independent journalists in the country has taken a major step backward.

“There were hopes when Abiy Ahmed came to power, there were hopes that there would be freedom of expression,” Lucy said. “But then after years, the government was turning to become repressive. Now, it reached a point where it is even difficult to report.”

How to Stop Ethnic Nationalism From Tearing Ethiopia Apart

/0 Comments/in , , , /by

Foreign Policy | The 1994 Ethiopian Constitution celebrated self-determination, but it laid the groundwork for today’s violence. Devolution could offer a way out.

On Nov. 28, 2020, Ethiopia’s military took control of Mekele, the capital of Tigray region, after a monthlong fight with the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF).

Before the conflict, the Tigray region under TPLF rule was edging toward de facto independence. After the TPLF lost its hegemonic position in Addis Ababa in 2015—where it had dominated Ethiopia’s ruling coalition for decades—it relocated political and bureaucratic personnel to Mekele. When national elections were postponed due to COVID-19, the TPLF rejected the constitutionality of the decision and went ahead with its own regional election, which it won handily.

Then, it declared that it no longer recognized the federal government as legitimate, and it successfully thwarted the appointment of a new head to the Ethiopian army’s Northern Command, effectively apportioning to itself the most heavily armed section of the National Defense Force. This was followed by a coordinated, preemptive attack on the Ethiopian army’s Northern Command in the early hours of Nov. 4 that enabled the TPLF to take control of the army headquarters in Mekele and several other bases. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed quickly appeared on TV to launch a military operation to dislodge the TPLF from Tigray.

The conflict in Tigray is not merely a political squabble between the TPLF and Abiy’s Prosperity Party, but a struggle for sovereignty between the federal government and a regional state. This is also not the first time the federal government went to war to reclaim control of an intransigent regional state. In August 2018, the federal government undertook an armed operation to dislodge Abdi Mohamoud Omar (also known as Abdi Ilay), the then-president of the Somali regional state—leading to many deaths and the displacement of civilians, especially ethnic minorities.

Ethnic federalism has made Ethiopia a more fragmented, polarized, and conflict-plagued country.

Ethiopia’s constitution, which was ratified in 1994 under the auspices of the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front, which was dominated by the TPLF, is unique in endowing sovereignty upon the country’s nations and nationalities. Its position is also radical because it allows an unqualified right for self-determination, up to secession, to Ethiopia’s more than 80 ethnic groups. This has raised the stakes in federal-regional disagreements, and potentially increased the risk of conflict by allowing secession to be a bargaining chip in political disputes.

For its supporters, the ethnic-based federal system represents a triumph for the age-old quest of Ethiopia’s disenfranchised ethnic groups for autonomy and self-rule. The federal system is seen as the answer to the “question of nations and nationalities”—a school of political thought that critiqued and rejected sociopolitical domination by Ethiopia’s northern Christian elites, mainly ethnic Amharas and, to a lesser degree, Tigrayans. Ethnic federalism was intended to create a new dispensation that ensured that the political, cultural, and economic rights of all ethnic and religious groups are equally respected.

But the turmoil of the past few years has also exposed the limits of Ethiopia’s experimentation in ethnic federalism. Even its ardent supporters cannot conceivably deny that ethnic federalism has raised as many questions as it has answered, and that it has made Ethiopia a more fragmented, polarized, and conflict-plagued country.

The endorsement of the Marxist-Leninist notion of self-determination in Ethiopia’s constitution was all the more puzzling in light of historical developments at the time of its inception. In the early 1990s, just as Ethiopia’s constitution was being drafted, the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia—two federations that had enshrined ethnic self-determination in their respective constitutions—were going through violent episodes of disintegration.

The TPLF and other architects of Ethiopia’s constitution could not have missed the ominous signs on open display; They most likely considered their own country’s eventual breakdown as an acceptable, perhaps even desirable, outcome. The bloody dissolution of Yugoslavia, which was attended by bitter interethnic wars, was also a red flag for what self-determination could entail in a multiethnic mosaic like Ethiopia. It was already clear from the 1984 national census that only 30 of Ethiopia’s 580 woredas (districts) at the time were actually monolingual ethnic islands.

In reality ethnic identities are fluid and overlaid, and ethnic territorial jurisdictions are often overlapping and contested.

The constitution’s endorsement of the right to self-determination is based on the contentious supposition that ethnic groups can be neatly subdivided into mutually exclusive categories, each with a claim to a distinct territorial homeland. In reality ethnic identities are fluid and overlaid, and ethnic territorial jurisdictions are often overlapping and contested.

Even in Tigray, the only regional state that nominally existed before the current constitution, regional boundaries were entirely redrawn upon the creation of new administrative units in 1994. Much of the current West Tigray and North West Tigray zones (Welkait, Humera, Tsegede, and Tselemte) and some parts of South Tigray (Raya Azebo) were apportioned from the former provinces of Gondar and Wollo, which were mainly inhabited by Amharas.

These territories, which roughly make up one-third of present-day Tigray, are vigorously contested by Amhara nationalists as their own—a dispute that contributed to the involvement of the region’s special forces in the recent war in Tigray. Had Tigray under the TPLF proceeded with secession, it would have only been a matter of time before it descended into an intractable border war with the rest of Ethiopia, just as Eritrea did after winning its own de facto independence in 1991, which was formalized through a referendum in 1993.

The 1998-2000 Eritrean-Ethiopian border war, which led to the death of more than 100,000 people from both sides, helped entrench the TPLF’s rule in Ethiopia, but it also severely weakened Eritrea, sowing the seeds of a deep-seated animosity between the TPLF and Isaias Afwerki, Eritrea’s authoritarian president. At the peak of the Tigray conflict in November 2020, the TPLF fired a series of rockets at the capital of Eritrea, accusing it of sending in its army to Tigray, an allegation that Eritrea denies but is supported by recent independent reports.

One of the most devastating effects of Ethiopia’s ethnic federalism is its utter failure to protect minorities. For instance, the 1994 constitution created a new region called Benishangul-Gumuz as one of Ethiopia’s nine (now 10) administrative regional states, as a homeland to the Benishangul and Gumuz ethnic groups. The region’s constitution affirms that the region “belongs” to five native ethnic groups: the Berta, Gumuz, Shinasha, Mao, and Komo. Other important minorities like Amharas, Oromos, and Agaws, who make up at least 40 percent of the region’s population, are treated as second-class citizens without a right to create their own (ethnic) parties for legitimate political representation.

The failure to safeguard minorities extends to all regional states, leaving minorities in a precarious situation where they live with a constant fear of eviction. A narrative of “natives” versus “outsiders” and a political discourse grounded in ethnic grievances inevitably feeds into cycles of violence. In times of political change and instability, such as the period since 2015, ethnic tensions have boiled over, making minorities victims of brutal killing, eviction, and displacement.

The number of these incidents is despairingly too great to count but includes recent episodes where Amharas were displaced by the thousands in Oromia, Oromos were displaced from Somali region, Tigrayans were violently evicted from Amhara region, as well as a perpetual violence in Benishangul-Gumuz region that has brought death and destruction to hundreds from all ethnic groups. These tragic events have not only traumatized millions but also frayed the tender threads of trust and social capital that have held communities together for centuries.

Moreover, in its fixation on ethnic autonomy, the current constitution has severely impaired, perhaps intentionally, the political power of urban centers—which are ethnic melting pots and thus do not fit the ideological straitjacket of ethnic purity. Since the constitution defines land as a property of ethnic groups, cities without a specific ethnic identity have been left without land, and hence without a right to statehood.

The capital, Addis Ababa—despite being the economic and political hub of the country with far greater population that four of the original nine regional states—is constituted as a federally administered enclave that, according to the constitution, is located “within the State of Oromia.” In a country where ethnic identity has become the most fundamental variable of political and economic organization, multiethnic urban centers like Addis Ababa and Dire Dawa are reduced to being staging grounds of political influence among competing ethnic parties rather than being able to administer themselves.

The experiment in ethnic federalism has led to the formation of powerful, militarized, ethnic regional states that harbor old grievances against one another, along with unresolved border disputes that could ignite conflicts at any time. Unless the power of these regional administrations is checked proactively, there is tangible risk that they could be drawn into devastating conflicts that will wreak havoc not only in Ethiopia, but also in neighboring countries, each of which shares at least one ethnic group with Ethiopia.

Boundary disputes between ethnic regions are hard to resolve, because almost all ethnic boundaries are artificial concoctions that lack historical precedents. Prior to the creation of these boundaries in 1994, Ethiopia’s many dozens of ethnic groups seldom had administrative boundaries entirely based on ethnic affiliation. Administrative boundaries were typically porous as people freely moved across geographies, especially in the lowlands, where people followed a mobile, nomadic lifestyle. None of the regional states of the federation existed in their current form and many, such as Amhara and Oromia regions, ever historically existed as separate, independent entities, within Ethiopia or outside. The top-down manufacturing of ethnic nations, complete with sovereign territorial boundaries, has begotten simmering border disputes that threaten to plunge the country into a civil war.

Even from the perspective of ethnic rights, the current system has not enabled the majority of the country’s ethnic groups to exercise the right to self-rule. An arbitrary nomenclature of ethnic classes has been used to allow certain ethnic groups to be organized as autonomous regional states, while denying the same right to other groups of similar population size.

The current system has not enabled the majority of the country’s ethnic groups to exercise the right to self-rule.

The constitution, for example, lumped together around 20 million people of no less than 50 ethnic groups within a region called Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples’ Region (SNNP), while allowing the creation of a Harari regional state in Harar City, with a population of less than 300,000. Hararis were accorded statehood despite making up only 9 percent of the population, purportedly in recognition of the unique historical and religious significance of the city of Harar, which is fully encircled by Oromia, a massive region with close to 40 million inhabitants. These size differences create asymmetric power relations among competing administrative polities and the associated political entities that administer them, leading to political, administrative, and economic imbalances.

A highly exclusionary ethnonationalism will create persistent risks of volatility and violence, which could undermine democracy by making authoritarian positions more palatable on the grounds of peace and security. It also creates the risk of major ethnic groups—the Amhara and the Oromo—forming alliances that co-opt smaller ethnic groups, leading to a political settlement that is neither inclusive nor progressive.

It is clear that Ethiopia’s ethnic federalism needs a major overhaul in order to sustain a peaceful electoral democracy. Without a reform, the system remains a risk to itself and the country, as ethnic rivalries could easily descend into cycles of violence that will endlessly repeat the traumatic experience of the past five years.

Fixing Ethiopia’s broken federal system will require a constitutional reform that establishes new checks and balances to mitigate the risk of ethnic politics exploding into downright violence. One potential approach would be a referendum on political devolution that elevates administrative zones to the level of administrative states, thus replacing regions. Zones, which are currently the second-tier administrative units after regions, are typically inhabited by a distinct majority ethnic group.

The elevation of zones to state-level members of the federation can ensure ethnic self-administration, which would be in keeping with the constitutional emphasis on autonomy and self-rule. At the same time, it would significantly reduce the likelihood of major military or political clashes between neighboring regions, and between regions and the federal government. It would also lead to zonal states that are relatively uniform in size, facilitating a more fair and equitable sharing of political and other forms of power across them.

More importantly, having zonal states as main administrative units would be a significant step toward ensuring self-rule among dozens of nations and nationalities. This solution would, for example, automatically resolve the contention in SNNP, where Wolayta Zone and 10 other ethnic zones are demanding the right to statehood. It will also put to rest many territorial disputes including the ones over Welkait, Humera, Tsegede, Tselemte, and Raya, in which the Amhara and Tigray regional states are pitted against each other.

Ethiopia has more than 60 zones, and having so many first-tier administrative units can introduce many administrative challenges. This, however, is a technicality that can be resolved through procedural mechanisms. Kenya, for example, has adopted 47 counties as its major administrative units after a constitutional change that was enacted following the 2007 post-election violence. The devolution of administrative power to county governments has improved governance quality and given more voice and power to citizens. A Council of Governors, comprising the administrative heads of the 47 counties, coordinates collective action over issues that cut across counties.

Political devolution does not have to lead to the dissolution of the current regional states.

This political devolution does not have to lead to the dissolution of the current regional states. The regions, which can be seen as collective associations of major ethnic groups, can be reformed to serve as traditional, cultural entities charged with cultural stewardship and the pursuit of interethnic harmony.

Many African nations have similar traditional structures parallel to formal political structures. For example, Nigeria and Ghana each have dozens of traditional chiefdoms and kingdoms that do not have official political power but wield considerable influence as stewards of traditional ethnic cultures. If supported by proper governance mechanisms, the presence of parallel administrative structures could enrich and promote cultural interaction, reducing the risk of interethnic political conflict. It can also help redefine the meaning of ethnic “territorial homeland” to its cultural rather than political connotation, reducing the risk of border friction between ethnic groups as well as the disenfranchisement of minorities.

The violent end of the TPLF-dominated era has demonstrated the perils of organizing political power along ethnic lines. The episode also presents an opportunity to rethink Ethiopia’s political system and remake it to accommodate competitive politics. Without reform, Ethiopia’s ethnic federalism holds the seeds of endless conflict that will undermine the country’s very existence.

Devolution of political power to zonal states could offer a path out of the current conundrum and reduce the risk of a catastrophic conflict among militarized ethnic regional states. If approved at the ballot box and executed effectively, such a change can help usher in a democratic system in which the rights of individuals and ethnicities are balanced. It could also lead to a more sober, secular, and constructive political discourse that focuses on building communities rather than tearing them apart.

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

/0 Comments/in , , /by

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

The Conflict in Ethiopia’s Tigray Region: What to Know

/0 Comments/in , , , /by

Council on Foriegn Relations | Michelle Gavin | The military campaign has resulted in a humanitarian crisis and fears of regional instability. A path forward will require international cooperation, careful diplomacy, and an inclusive political process that restores confidence among the country’s diverse population.

Where does the conflict between Tigray’s leadership and the federal government stand?
In November, long-rising tensions between the federal government and the leadership of the northern Tigray region exploded into military confrontation. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed launched what he called a “law-and-order operation” targeting domestic terrorists, but it involved large deployments of the Ethiopian National Defense Forces and aerial bombardments—a far cry from a domestic law enforcement operation. By November 28, federal forces had taken control of the region’s capital and declared victory, but the security situation is unstable in parts of Tigray, and many analysts are concerned about the prospect of a drawn-out insurgency.

Meanwhile, over sixty thousand refugees have fled the country, nearly half a million people have been displaced and are in desperate need of assistance, critical infrastructure has been destroyed, and credible reports of atrocities and war crimes continue to trickle out of the region. Eritrean troops intervened in Tigray on the side of the federal forces, and it appears that they remain in Ethiopian territory.

What are they fighting about?

For decades, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) was the dominant party in Ethiopia’s ruling coalition, but Abiy’s ascent in 2018 heralded a recalibration of power. This change was an attempt to address domestic dissatisfaction with political repression, concerns about access to resources and opportunity, and the perception that an ethnic minority held outsized power and influence. (Tigrayans constitute roughly 6 percent of Ethiopia’s population.)

But the TPLF felt threatened by the new government’s personnel and policy choices, and it declined to join the successor party to the old ruling coalition. In September, it chose to proceed with its own regional elections in defiance of a federal decision to postpone elections due in part to the COVID-19 crisis. A reported TPLF attack on federal forces stationed in the region was the immediate trigger for the conflict, but it was clear that both sides were preparing for confrontation for some time.

A UN expert on genocide prevention warned last week that without urgent action, the risk of atrocities in Tigray is likely to increase. What is it like for Tigrayans now and how could it worsen?

First, it’s important to understand that the world does not have a complete picture of the situation in Tigray. A communications blackout persists in parts of the region, and journalists and humanitarian organizations cannot access many areas due to security and bureaucratic obstacles. Although, the World Food Program recently reached an agreement with the Ethiopian government that should improve access if it is honored.

What has been reported is extremely alarming. Refugees and others have said that forces on the ground—Ethiopia’s military, Eritrean troops, and ethnic militias—are responsible for sexual violence, ethnic-based targeted attacks, and large-scale looting. The United Nations estimates that nearly three million Tigrayans urgently need assistance. They may lack access to water, food, and health care. If these issues are not resolved, there exists a real prospect of famine, a horror that is particularly historically resonant and politically charged in Ethiopia.

What are the implications for the Horn of Africa?

An Ethiopia at war with itself is distracted and unreliable, and spoilers in this volatile region will be quick to take advantage of a security vacuum.

Ethiopia has long been a provider of security in the region, helping to stabilize Somalia and South Sudan and offering important diplomatic support during Sudan’s transition. Already, a border dispute between Ethiopia and Sudan has flared up and threatens to escalate, while Sudan continues to teeter uncertainly between the military and civilian elements of its transitional government. Meanwhile, Somalia is in the midst of a constitutional crisis that could undo hard-won gains. The future of both these states will be affected by Ethiopia’s stability and by the example of Eritrea’s ability to flout international law with impunity.

The worst may be yet to come. If Ethiopia fails to consolidate a new political arrangement that accommodates its diverse population of 110 million and ensures basic measures of security and justice, it could be riven by further conflict that prompts a massive and destabilizing refugee crisis. An important voice for African interests on the global stage would be lost, and external actors who view the strategically important region as a venue for proxy conflict would be empowered.

What should be done, both by the parties involved and internationally?

The Ethiopian government should immediately provide access to humanitarian agencies. Eritrean forces should leave Ethiopian territory; their destabilizing presence undermines international and regional norms. Eritrean refugees in Ethiopia should be accounted for and protected. The Ethiopian government should lift the communications blackout to help curb misinformation, and it should support a credible and independent investigation into allegations of atrocities.

Moreover, since the origins of this crisis are political, the Ethiopian government should seek a broadly inclusive dialogue about the way forward for the country’s many restive constituencies. With national elections slated for June, it is particularly important to seek broad consensus on protections for minorities, access to power and resources, and the rules governing political contestation. For such a dialogue to be credible and useful, it cannot be limited to allies of the current government in Addis Ababa.

At the same time, the international community should redouble its diplomatic efforts to help resolve the border conflict with Sudan through rule-governed negotiations. It should also encourage an agreement among Egypt, Ethiopia, and Sudan regarding the Nile waters and the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam.

Ethiopia confirms widespread rape in conflict-hit north

/0 Comments/in , , /by

NAIROBI (Reuters) – Scores of women have been raped in Ethiopia’s northerly Tigray region, authorities have confirmed, in the chaotic aftermath of an armed conflict last year that ousted the local ruling party.

“We have received the report back from our Taskforce team on the ground in the Tigray region, they have unfortunately established rape has taken place conclusively and without a doubt,” Ethiopian Women’s Minister Filsan Abdullahi tweeted late on Thursday.

Though witnesses, medics and aid workers had spoken of widespread sexual abuse since fighting began in November, Filsan’s comments were the first confirmation by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s government.

The state-appointed Ethiopian Human Rights Commission said that 108 rapes had been reported in Tigray – nearly half in the regional capital Mekelle – in the last two months.

Though Abiy’s federal troops captured Mekelle at the end of November from the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), sporadic fighting has continued, with communications and access to the mountainous region of 5 million people restricted.

While some victims have identified their abusers as federal forces or allied soldiers, Reuters has been unable to independently verify accounts of rape. The government has said it has zero tolerance towards sexual violence.

The Rights Commission said many rapes were likely to have gone unreported.

“The war and the dismantling of the regional administration have led to a rise in gender-based violence in the region. Local structures such as police and health facilities where victims of sexual violence would normally turn to report such crimes are no longer in place,” it said.

Spokesman Adinew Abera said the Women’s Ministry had so far assessed only Mekelle and the nearby town of Quiha, adding: “We will deploy experts to all districts of Tigray. So the number will be higher than what is mentioned.”

A rape survivor’s story emerges from a remote African war

/0 Comments/in , , /by

Los Angeles Times | Lucy Kassa, Shashank Bengali | ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia — The young mother of two was walking with her sister near a desolate highway in northern Ethiopia last month when five men forced them into a pickup truck and drove them to a small building with a metal roof.

The women recognized their captors by their accents and military uniforms: They were soldiers from neighboring Eritrea, which has joined Ethiopian troops in months of fighting against anti-government forces in the Tigray border region.

Mehrawit, 27, was separated from her sister and locked in a room with only a thin, dirty mattress. For two weeks, she said, the Eritrean soldiers gang-raped her repeatedly, fracturing her spine and pelvis and leaving her crumpled on the floor. One day, she counted 15 soldiers who took turns sexually assaulting her over eight hours, her cries of agony punctuated by their laughter.

“I was numb,” she recalled from a hospital bed in the regional capital Mekele, days after she escaped. “I could see their faces. I could hear them giggle. But after a while, I was no longer feeling the pain.”

Her account is one of few emerging from the murky conflict in Tigray, where human rights groups say pro-government forces are sexually abusing civilians in a remote highland region far from the world’s gaze.

With tens of thousands of people reportedly killed, many more having fled their homes and some surviving by eating leaves in mountain villages cut off from phone and internet access, the United Nations has warned that the region of 6 million is edging toward a humanitarian disaster. More than 60,000 have escaped to refugee camps across the border in Sudan.

Compounding the suffering are accounts of gang rapes and other sexual violence by pro-government forces operating with near-total impunity.

As Ethiopia battles to wrest control of Tigray from the regional ruling party, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s government has barred journalists and most humanitarian groups from the area, rejected allegations of abuses and denied — despite credible evidence to the contrary — that Eritrean forces have entered the country. Eritrea’s government also denies involvement in the fighting.

With local Tigrayan paramilitary forces having mostly retreated to mountain areas, Ethiopian and allied troops have gained control of population centers including Mekele, where they have established a transitional government. As some communication links are restored, human rights groups have begun compiling accounts of women bearing telltale signs of sexual violence.

Doctors at Mekele’s main hospital say rape survivors are turning up injured and in tears. More women are seeking counseling, testing for sexually transmitted infections, emergency contraception and abortions. Girls as young as 12 are among those attacked, researchers say.

“Growing reports of rape and other sexual violence in the Tigray region over the last few weeks adds yet another layer to alarming abuses against civilians since the start of the conflict,” said Laetitia Bader, Horn of Africa director at Human Rights Watch.

“These reports bring new urgency for the need for a U.N.-led fact-finding mission into the region, which should also include experts in sexual violence and mental health, to press for credible, fair and safe justice for survivors.”

Last month, United Nations special representative Pramila Patten said she was “greatly concerned by serious allegations of sexual violence” in Tigray. She cited accounts of individuals being forced to rape family members or to have sex with members of the military in exchange for basic goods.

Although Patten did not identify the alleged perpetrators, survivors blame pro-government forces, including Ethiopian and Eritrean troops and paramilitaries from the Amhara region, according to human rights groups.

Mehrawit, whose full name is being withheld under a Times policy not to identify rape survivors, said the Eritrean soldiers did not hide their identities, and cast their actions as revenge against Tigray, whose ruling party, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, led Ethiopia for nearly all of the last three decades.

The TPLF presided over a 1998-2000 war with Eritrea, a former Ethiopian state, in which tens of thousands of soldiers died, many in brutal trench warfare. The conflict ended with Ethiopian troops retaining control of the contested border town of Badme in defiance of a peace agreement.

When Abiy took office in 2018, he agreed to implement the peace deal and ceded the town to Eritrea, ending one of Africa’s longest running conflicts. His efforts earned the 44-year-old leader the Nobel Peace Prize.

Abiy and Eritrean strongman Isaias Afwerki — whose tiny Red Sea nation’s isolationism sometimes garners comparisons to North Korea — now have a shared adversary in the TPLF, which has lost political influence but retains a well-trained paramilitary force estimated at 250,000 troops. In November, capping months of disputes between Tigray and the government in Addis Ababa, Abiy blamed the TPLF for an attack on a federal military base and launched air and ground raids across the region.

That has trapped women like Mehrawit on a perilous landscape of fresh bloodshed mixed with past grievances. She said she cried out to her Eritrean captors: “Are you not our brothers? Why are you this cruel?”

One responded: “You killed our family in the war and took Badme from us. So you deserve to be punished.”

Her ordeal began in early January, when Eritrean troops arrived in her village of Kerestber, about 75 miles north of Mekele. Her family — including her father, 24-year-old sister, aunt and two children ages 7 and 5 — sought safety with relatives in a nearby village.

But there was little to eat there. On the morning of Jan. 9, she and her sister ventured back to Kerestber to collect some crops and check on their house.

Walking back from Kerestber, she said, the Eritrean troops stopped them. Her account was corroborated by a counselor at a rehabilitation center who has interviewed Mehrawit repeatedly, as well as medical records from Ayder Referral Hospital where she was treated. Staff at both facilities spoke on condition of anonymity to shield them from government reprisals.

Mehrawit said that when she and her sister arrived in the Eritreans’ makeshift camp, they saw about eight other Tigrayan women being held. That day, five soldiers took turns raping her. Another day, they brought her sister to her room and made Mehrawit watch as she was raped.

For 15 days, Mehrawit was given almost nothing to eat. Her injuries left her unable to walk. The Eritreans brought more and more women to the camp and began to taunt her, saying she would soon be “thrown away.”

“We’ll bring younger and virgin Tigrayan women next time,” one said.

The soldiers eventually loosened their control. On the night of Jan. 23, she crawled out of the camp and made it to a main road, where she fainted. Her memory remains unclear, but she recalled a motorcycle driver finding her lying next to the asphalt and bringing her to Mekele.

“She has to be in a wheelchair,” he said. “But most of all, her psychological trauma is grave.”

Mehrawit has had no contact with her sister, who she worries may still be in the Eritreans’ custody. Her children and other relatives remain out of phone range. She was transferred to a nongovernmental center for sexual abuse survivors, where a nurse said she suffers from nightmares that soldiers will climb through the windows and attack her.

“There are days when she begs me not to leave her alone,” the nurse said.

In daily sessions with a therapist, Mehrawit often calls out her sister’s name. Again and again, she wonders about the women she left behind in the camp, the therapist said.

Ethiopian officials have publicly denied allegations of rape and other abuses. The interim head of Tigray’s social affairs department, Abrha Desta, did not respond to requests for comment.

But in a closed-door meeting in Mekele last week, Muna Ahmed, the deputy federal minister for women’s affairs, said the government had recorded 113 rape cases in the Tigray conflict, according to a person who was present and spoke on condition of anonymity.

This week, the U.N. World Food Program said the Ethiopian government had agreed to increase access for aid workers in an attempt to speed the delivery of food assistance to 1 million people.

Humanitarian organizations say armed groups have looted and ransacked medical facilities across Tigray, making it difficult for survivors of rape and other crimes to access emergency care. Many others are afraid to come forward, fearing punishment by the federal forces that increasingly hold sway over the region.

A few days after Mehrawit spoke to a Times reporter for this article, she received a phone call from an unknown number. The caller knew she had accused Eritrean soldiers of rape, her therapist said. He warned her not to tell her story again.

Special correspondent Lucy Kassa reported from Addis Ababa and Times staff writer Bengali from Singapore.

Ethiopia: ‘Incomplete but troubling picture’ reveals impact of Tigray crisis on children

/0 Comments/in , , /by

UN | Humanitarians are learning more about the dire situation of children in Ethiopia’s Tigray region, where fighting continues between Government troops and regional forces of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF). 

As more supplies and emergency personnel reach the area, “an incomplete but troubling picture” is emerging which reveals children are experiencing severe and ongoing harm, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) reported on Friday.

“The partial picture emerging of the impact the crisis in Tigray has had on children – and the systems and services they rely on – make clear that children are in acute need of protection and assistance”, the agency said in a press release.

“Crucially, the humanitarian community still needs to get beyond major cities and towns into the rural areas, where most of the population live, in order to have a true picture of needs.”

Separation and deep psychological stress

A UNICEF team accompanied by regional health officials travelled to the town of Shire, in Central Tigray, from 4-7 February, bringing six trucks of emergency supplies.  This marked the first UN mission there since the conflict began in November.

Shire has a population of approximately 170,000, and now hosts at least 52,000 internally displaced people (IDPs).  UNICEF and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) are trucking water to the town, where there was no drinking water as the water treatment plant is not functioning.  The mobile network, Internet and banking services are still not working.

Many IDPs are sheltering in schools, none of which are operational, and conditions at displacement sites are dire.

“Many families were separated as they fled, and there were many unaccompanied or separated children among the IDPs”, said UNICEF.  “Many families reported deep psychosocial distress and said they did not feel it was safe to return home, speaking of a persistent and pervasive fear of present and future harm.”

Grave threats for malnourished children

The displaced people said food is their most urgent need. An assessment conducted by UNICEF partners found prevalence of severe acute malnutrition, which is potentially life threatening, was above emergency levels set by the World Health Organization (WHO).

“The very real risk of disease outbreak, coupled with poor access to water, sanitation, hygiene and health services, rising food insecurity and inflation in food prices, poses grave threats for malnourished children”, the agency warned.

UNICEF has dispatched some 655 metric tonnes of supplies to the area, including emergency health kits, therapeutic food and high energy biscuits, and personal protective equipment.  Additional supplies are on the way.

The tragedy of Ethiopia’s conflict in Tigray

/0 Comments/in , , /by

Financial Times | Only a national dialogue can truly heal the country’s divisions

Three months after Ethiopian troops started fighting the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, the Tigray region is in desperate straits. Hundreds of thousands of people are displaced and many face hunger or even starvation. It is a distressing echo of 1984, when food was used as a weapon with devastating consequences. In many ways, Ethiopia, one of Africa’s fastest-growing economies, has come so far since then. It would be a tragedy if it slipped back into old patterns.

When the government of Abiy Ahmed, Ethiopia’s Nobel Peace Prize-winning prime minister, dispatched troops last November, he said he was carrying out a simple law-enforcement operation to oust the TPLF, characterised as a “criminal clique”. Leave aside the fact that Abiy once led the security services of a TPLF-led government he now says presided over “27 years of darkness”. His promise that there would be no civilian casualties has proved hollow.

Reports trickling out of Tigray point to gruesome violence. There have been all-too-credible accounts of civilian massacres on all sides. One in the town of Mai-Kadra, in which hundreds are thought to have died, may well have been carried out by TPLF loyalists, as the government says. But other massacres were almost certainly enacted by militiamen from the neighbouring Amhara region, which has been encouraged by Abiy’s government to become involved. Witnesses report house-to-house killings, rapes and the looting of commercial buildings and churches.

The government has insisted its fight is with the TPLF and not the Tigrayan people. But many Tigrayans have been targeted, prevented from travelling or suspended from government jobs. And there is strong evidence that troops from Eritrea, a neighbouring country with decades of loathing for the TPLF, are involved in the fighting — even if both Addis Ababa and Asmara deny it. Some Tigrayans smell a plot to divide their region between Eritrea and Amhara.

The government should allay those fears by insisting that armed forces from both Eritrea and Amhara withdraw. Disputes over land between Tigray and Amhara should be resolved through a boundary commission.

The government in Addis Ababa has severely restricted access to Tigray, both to those wishing to get food and aid in and to those hoping to get reliable information out. This must stop. This week, the government struck a tentative agreement with the World Food Programme to allow in humanitarian aid. This is a good start. But the government must follow through and not slow the process, as it has done before, with unreasonable bureaucratic obstacles.

In the longer run, more effort is needed to solve the deeper questions posed by Ethiopia’s ethnic-federalist constitution. Allies of Abiy see the 1995 document as the “original sin”, the poisonous fruit of a TPLF strategy to divide and rule. Yet many in Ethiopia jealously guard regional independence and what they regard as their separate national identities.

It is a fiendishly difficult circle to square. Authorities should start by releasing opposition leaders, including Jawar Mohammed, now on hunger strike in prison. With opposition figures in jail, national elections scheduled for June 5 will not be credible.

Abiy’s government has chosen to blame the TPLF for all Ethiopia’s ills. It is true the TPLF oversaw a police state for nearly 30 years, albeit one that brought rapid development. It is true too that its leaders were angered by the loss of power. But Ethiopia’s problems go deeper. Without a broader national dialogue, the tensions that erupted in Tigray will erupt somewhere else.

The UN Must Intervene in Tigray

/0 Comments/in , , , /by

Project Syndicate | Mehari Taddele Maru | When a state fails to prevent or alleviate atrocities within its territory, or if the state itself is the primary perpetrator of such acts, the UN must not stand idly by. There are five reasons why immediate action by the Security Council regarding Ethiopia’s northern region is necessary.

FLORENCE – In a recent interview, Rwandan President Paul Kagame argued that US President Joe Biden’s new administration and the United Nations Security Council should take the lead in addressing the violence and deprivation in Ethiopia’s Tigray region. . Kagame described the situation there as worrying, and said the death toll was too high for the conflict to be left only to Ethiopia or the African Union to manage. As the president of a country that is still dealing with the consequences of the 1994 genocide against its Tutsi population, Kagame speaks with considerable authority here, and deserves to be heard.

There are five reasons why immediate action by the Security Council regarding Tigray is necessary.

First, the likely presence of Eritrean armed forces in Tigray makes the war both a civil and international conflict, and hence within the UN’s remit. Eritrean troops have been implicated in killings and in the forcible return of Eritrean refugees, including through the burning of the Shimelba and Hitsats refugee camps. Some 15,000-20,000 Eritrean refugees are missing, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

Second, the Tigray region is now facing a possible famine, with 2.3 million people in need of emergency aid. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reports that 4.5 million people – 67% of the region’s population – need assistance. Ethiopian federal government forces are said to be obstructing access to aid and clean water. There are also reports of the deliberate destruction of UN food stores and markets.

Third, with up to two million people now internally displaced, Tigray poses a significant burden on the world’s humanitarian resources at a time when the need for them in East Africa has never been higher, owing to COVID-19, locust infestation, and food insecurity. The Ethiopian government’s apparent unwillingness to allow the international community to provide rapid, unconditional, unfettered, and sustained humanitarian access to all parts of Tigray has worsened a dire situation.

Fourth, some UN reports and those of other organizations in Tigray point to possible grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions and other aspects of international humanitarian law that prohibit starvation of civilians and collective punishment. There are also reports of what may constitute state-led ethnic cleansing and genocide, as well as a “high number of alleged rapes.” Tens of thousands of Tigrayans serving in Ethiopia’s peacekeeping, security, military, police, and intelligence spheres have been dismissed from their jobs and sometimes detained.

Fifth, Ethiopia is so consumed by the fighting in Tigray that it is no longer a source of regional stability, and appears to be renouncing its role as regional peacekeeper. Security tensions and border disputes are mushrooming in the region, mainly between Ethiopia and Sudan, Kenya, and Somalia, with an election-related crisis in Somalia and negotiations over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam increasing the risk of proxy wars. The fragile political transition in Sudan also may be destabilized.

Making matters worse, the withdrawal of Ethiopian forces from peacekeeping missions in Somalia, South Sudan, and Sudan seems almost certain to increase instability. In particular, Ethiopian troops’ departure from Somalia, where the AU has conducted its AMISOM peacekeeping mission, could create an opening for the al-Qaeda-linked Al Shabaab to stage a comeback in that country.

When a state fails to prevent or alleviate atrocities within its territory (such as genocide, crimes against humanity, or war crimes), or if the state itself is the primary perpetrator of such acts, the UN must not stand idly by. After all, only the Security Council can successfully challenge a government’s deliberate obstruction of humanitarian aid.

For these reasons, the Security Council must address the situation in Tigray immediately. It should adopt a resolution aimed at alleviating the suffering in the region through determined international action, and at convincing the Ethiopian government to restore peace there.

Concretely, the resolution should establish a monitoring and verification commission with a mandate to negotiate, observe, monitor, verify, and report on conditions in Tigray. The goals should be the immediate and definitive cessation of hostilities; rapid, unconditional, unfettered, and sustained distribution of aid to all parts of Tigray; the complete withdrawal of any and all external armed forces and groups; and a ceasefire agreement that can lead to a peaceful resolution of the conflict in Tigray.

Ethiopia’s government says that it is ready to work with the international community to ease the suffering in Tigray. That promise must now be put to the test.

Why is the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam contentious?

/0 Comments/in , , /by

The Economist | The project has been a source of disputes in north-east Africa for a decade

DAMS HAVE several uses. They generate electricity, store water for crop irrigation and help to prevent floods. They can also cause dispute and heartache—for example, over damage to the environment or the displacement of people whose homes are lost beneath dammed waters. The construction of one on the Nile has sparked a quarrel between Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan. The Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), costing $5bn, will be Africa’s largest hydroelectric-power project once fully operational later this decade. Located on the Blue Nile in northern Ethiopia, upstream from Egypt and Sudan, it will produce 6,000 megawatts of electricity, twice as much as Ethiopia’s entire current output. Even though the dam could give the region a big economic boost, officials from the three countries have failed to strike a deal on how it will be operated. And the Egyptian government has even considered bombing it. In January yet another round of virtual talks failed. So why is the GERD so controversial?

Egypt frets that the dam will choke off the life-giving waters of the Nile. It has good reason to worry. Some 95% of the water consumed by the country’s 115m people is drawn from the river. Previous dams on the Nile have altered the floods and flow of sediments that the country relies on to grow food. The Nile Waters Agreements of 1929 and 1959 granted Egypt and Sudan the right to use all of the water between them, and gave Egypt the right of veto over upstream construction projects. Ethiopia, which was left out of the agreements, does not recognise them, prompting the disagreement over the impact of the GERD.

It is difficult to assess the exact impact of the new dam on downstream countries. Some studies suggest that Egypt could lose nearly half of its share of the water if Ethiopia filled the reservoir over a three-year period. Ethiopia has said it plans to raise the water level more slowly than that. Even so, the dam will undoubtedly give Ethiopia greater control over the river’s waters.

Egypt wants a legally binding agreement over river flows and demands that Ethiopia release certain amounts of water to top up the Nile, especially in the event of a drought, once the dam is operational. Ethiopia says it would prefer to agree on guidelines which carry no such legal compulsion. Until recently, Sudan had sided with its southern neighbour. But its attitude has shifted of late. In late November Sudanese officials noted an “abrupt” change in the amount of sediment in the water reaching their own Roseires dam, which sits downstream from the GERD. An exchange of letters between the two countries confirmed that Ethiopia had released some water from the GERD without prior warning. Sudanese officials fear that large releases of water could overwhelm their dam, which has a storage capacity less than a tenth of that of Ethiopia’s megaproject.

With or without Sudan, Egypt is not ready to concede defeat. Moreover, Abiy Ahmed, Ethiopia’s prime minister, may well be too distracted with problems at home to solve the dispute with his neighbours. In November the country fell back into civil war between the federal government and the region of Tigray. In recent weeks tensions have erupted between Sudanese forces and militias from Amhara, a region of Ethiopia, over contested farmland. The military clashes will surely delay talks about the dam even further. The African Union has already tried to mediate over the GERD. In September America suspended some aid to Ethiopia in an attempt to nudge it towards an agreement. International pressure could be the key to restarting the talks. But do not expect an agreement soon.