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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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?

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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.

Ethiopia in debt restructuring, downgrade after printing money, despite low deficit

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ECONOMYNEXT – Ethiopia had been downgraded to ‘CCC’ from ‘B’ by Fitch Ratings after it applied for ‘Paris Club’ debt relief having printing money through central bank advances, despite relatively low government debt and a budget deficit of only 2.8 percent of gross domestic product.

The “Common Framework for Debt Treatments (G20 CF) goes beyond a May 2020 announced Debt Service Suspension Initiative for sovereign debt and “explicitly raises the risk’ of extending capital payments or interest for private debt under its conditions, Fitch said.

Ethiopia’s government has maintained “considerable budgetary discipline” with what Fitch said was a “moderate” increase in the budget deficit to 2.8 percent of GDP.

Government debt to GDP was 31.5 percent while total state enterprise debt to GDP was 25.6 percent. There could be pressure on state finances due to Coronavirus, Fitch said.

Central Bank Credit

An International Monetary Fund program has been attempting to wean Ethiopia’s central bank away from money printing, and starting Treasury bill auctions, after the currency fell and inflation rose.

“Government financing has continued its transition towards market-based T-bill auctions and away from the long-standing system of direct advances from the National Bank of Ethiopia (NBE, the central bank),” Fitch said.

This is a core part of the IMF programme, which seeks to promote monetary policy reforms to help gradually tackle inflation that has remained extremely high at close to 20 percent.”

In Sri Lanka despite having a well-functioning Treasury bill market, bids are now rejected and large volumes of cash are injected to trigger forex losses amid high deficit.

In 2015 and 2018 the central bank triggered currency crises, mostly with aggressive open market operations and ‘operations twist’ style activity, critics have said.

Despite low debt and low deficits, money printing has pushed the Ethiopian Birr from 29.11 to the US dollar in November 2019 to 39.3 to the US dollar by February 2021.

Analysts have also warned that IMF programs usually encourage a ‘flexible exchange rate’, a highly inconsistent money regime with money exchange rate and money policy which are at loggerheads with each other.

It involves neither a fully floating rate (no interventions, no sterilization) nor a consistent peg (unsterilized interventions), leading to rapid depreciation as the monetary authority switches rapidly back and forth rapidly from a peg to a float and back within the same trading session.

The extent of how debt will be affected will be decided by an IMF debt sustainability analysis of Ethiopia which is currently being done, Fitch said.

Ethiopia Debt

The bulk of Ethiopia’s public external debt is official multilateral and bilateral debt.

Government and government-guaranteed external debt was 25 billion US dollars in fiscal year to June 2020.

Of this, 3.3 billion dollar was owed to private creditors. There was a billion dollar Eurobond (1 percent of GDP) due in December 2024, with minimal annual debt service of 66 million dollar until the maturity.

There were 2.3 billion dollars of government-guaranteed debt owed to foreign commercial banks and suppliers.

State enterprise debt owed to private creditors came from Ethio Telecom and Ethiopian Airlines was 3.3 billion dollars.

“While this is not guaranteed by the government, it represents a potential contingent liability,” Fitch said.

Ethiopian Airlines is one of the most profitable airlines in the world.

Ethiopia’s external financing requirements were more than 5 billion on average from financial years to 2021 to 2022 including federal government and state enterprise amortization.

Foreign reserves are expected to remain around 3.0 billion dollars or two months of current external payments.

Debt Re-profiling

The extent of debt treatment required will be based upon the outcome of an International Monetary Fund Debt Sustainability Analysis for Ethiopia, which is currently being updated, Fitch said.

“The G20 CF, agreed in November 2020 by the G20 and Paris Club, goes beyond the DSSI that took effect in May 2020, in that it requires countries to seek debt treatment by private creditors and that this should be comparable with the debt treatment provided by official bilateral creditors,” the rating agency said.

“This could mean that Ethiopia’s one outstanding Eurobond and other commercial debt would need to be restructured, potentially representing a distressed debt exchange under Fitch’s sovereign rating criteria.

“There remains uncertainty over how the G20 CF will be implemented in practice, including the requirement for private sector participation and comparable treatment.

“Fitch’s sovereign ratings apply to borrowing from the private sector, so official bilateral debt relief does not constitute a default, although it can point to increasing credit stress.”

“Within the context of Paris Club agreements, comparable treatment requirements are not always enforced and the scope of debt included can vary.

“The Paris Club states that the requirement for comparable treatment by other creditors can be waived in some circumstances, including when the debt represents only a small proportion of the country’s debt burden.

The focus will instead be on some combination of lowering coupons and lengthening grace periods and maturities.

However, any material change of terms for private creditors, including the lowering of coupons or the extension of maturities, would be consistent with the definition of default in Fitch’s criteria.

There was also a conflict in Tigray region.

Conflict in Tigray: Implications for Ethiopia’s International Standing

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Charged Affairs | Since Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed assumed office in April 2018, experts have optimistically predicted the country’s emergence as a regional power. Factors such as a large population, rapid economic growth, and a reform-minded head of government seemed to support this proposition, until recent instability in federal relations threatened an upset to Ethiopia’s position as an emerging power.

After the federal government’s recent incursion into the Tigray region of Ethiopia and subsequent fighting, reports suggest that several thousand citizens are dead and upwards of 40,000 are displaced. The conflict has drawn attention from the African Union and various other international actors. The crisis in Tigray is not an isolated event, but a manifestation of the security threats and political instability plaguing Prime Minister Ahmed Abiy in his campaign for national unity. Should Addis Ababa fail to resolve Ethiopia’s underlying grievances, Ethiopia risks losing both its position as a regional power and its cache as an international partner.

Violence in Tigray commenced in early November 2020 when Abiy ordered federal troops into the region. While the invasion was ostensibly a reaction to looting by the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), most observers agree that the military action was intended as punishment after regional leaders held elections last September in defiance of a federal ban. Abiy declared victory on November 28th after federal troops took control of Tigray’s capital, Mekelle. However, fighting in the region remains heavy. International observers have also raised concerns of war crimes after Ethiopian armed forces threatened to target civilians.

At the heart of this contest between Abiy and the TPLF is a debate around Ethiopian governance and the extent to which Addis Ababa should exercise centralized control. The Tigray conflict has highlighted Ethiopia’s unique system of ethnic federalism, which gives semi-autonomous power to the country’s states, each of which was created along ethnic lines. Since this system was first implemented in 1995, certain ethnic groups – notably the Tigray – have enjoyed a degree of political control disproportionate to their demographic representation.

Abiy’s 2018 election marked a challenge to Ethiopia’s status quo. As the country’s first Oromo prime minister, an ethnic group which is demographically dominant but historically marginalized, Abiy has prioritized the blurring of ethnic lines. His program of “Ethiopianization” envisions a unified national identity that would take precedence over ethnic divisions. But after enjoying 15 years of special advantages achieved through their political clout, powerful ethnic groups fear losing their superior position to homogeneity. The resulting discontent has destabilized Ethiopian governance, as regional leaders fight to maintain their power and autonomy while Abiy tries to solidify central control.

The degree of violence seen in Tigray and the seeming intransigence on both sides of the federalism debate has led some analysts to warn of a broader civil war in Ethiopia. These fears are likely overblown. Two months of intense conflict in Tigray have strained TPLF resistance, and no other state in Ethiopia has the economic or military assets to successfully launch a revolt at this scale. However, it is clear that tensions between Addis Ababa and powerful regional contingents are not going away.

Although it received the most press coverage, what happened in Tigray is not an isolated event. Amhara’s attempted regional coup and the Sidama region’s vote for autonomy from the Southern Nationalities, Nations, and People’s Region, both in 2019, represented earlier challenges to Abiy’s anti-federalist agenda. Nationwide, escalating violence from ethnic paramilitary groups has also threatened Ethiopianization. In the face of continuing resistance, Abiy must be prepared to use force to retain control over the country. Tigray demonstrated his military willingness towards this end, and recent purges of opponents from top positions have shorn up his political might. Abiy should also realize that ruling under martial law may seriously jeopardize Ethiopia’s position as a regional leader and international power.

Ethiopia has some natural advantages that set it up as a regional power, including its size and resource wealth. But the country’s leadership has also sought out an expanded role in recent years: Addis Ababa hosts the African Union headquarters; the country’s National Defense Force coordinates and oversees multilateral peace and security operations in the region; and Ethiopian heads of government have mediated conflicts among neighboring states. Today, as Kenyan-Somali ties disintegrate and the U.S. withdrawal from Somalia generates ill-will in the region, strong leadership over the Horn of Africa is more important than ever.

The Tigray situation is already having harmful effects on regional relations. Federal troops came into direct conflict with Ethiopia’s western neighbor after patrol operations “ambushed” Sudanese forces. The burdens that come with mass refugee flows also threaten regional ties, as Tigrayan civilians surge over the border into Sudan and Eritrea. Perhaps the most serious consequence for Ethiopia’s position in East Africa, however, are the indirect effects of Abiy’s battle for centralized control. The guarded militarism inherent in this fight against state autonomy does not lend itself to legitimate leadership, raising the potential for increased distance from neighbors and regional institutions.

Of even greater concern to world leaders is the risk that an Ethiopian implosion could disrupt international security operations in the Horn of Africa. Prime Minister Abiy and his predecessors have operated in close partnership to American and European powers in counterterrorism and anti-piracy initiatives. With terrorist capabilities surging in the region and piracy ramping up off the coast of Somalia, international actors depend on capable, stable partners like Ethiopia. Unless Abiy finds a peaceful and sustainable solution to conflict over federalist governance, Ethiopia will lose its position as that go-to ally

Ethiopia dollar bonds drop after Fitch downgrade

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NASDAQ | Ethiopia’s sovereign dollar bonds dropped nearly 2 cents after Fitch downgraded the country to CCC, citing the government’s plan to make use of the new G20 common framework to overhaul its debt burden.

The country’s outstanding 2024 bond XS1151974877=TE dropped to as low as 92.06 cents in the dollar, according to Tradeweb data, trading close to record lows hit in late January when Ethiopia surprised markets with its announcement to seek debt relief.

“(This is) the first negative spillover from last week’s decision to go for the G20 Common Framework, a process that no eurobond issuer has been though yet, and one that could take some time, especially as private sector creditors have to be included,” said Simon Quijano-Evans, chief economist at Gemcorp Capital.

Fitch said earlier that the downgrade reflects the government’s announcement that it is looking to make use of the G20 framework, “which although still an untested mechanism, explicitly raises the risk of a default event.”