Tag Archive for: Crisis in Ethiopia

Sudan Responds with Force to Border Attack from Ethiopia

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Asharq Al-Awsat | The Sudanese military responded with artillery fire to an attack from Ethiopia against its forces deployed on a share border region with its neighbor.

Ethiopian forces struck the Jabal Abutiour border region on Sunday. The area is controlled by Sudan. No casualties were reported.

Amid the clashes, a military delegation, headed by chief of staff Mohammed Othman al-Hussein, headed to the border region to assess the latest developments and military operations.

The fighting took place despite statements from Khartoum and Addis Ababa that they wanted to avoid a border war. They instead stressed the need for negotiations to defuse tensions.

Ethiopia has, however, conditioned that the military withdraw from regions that were recaptured. Sudan has rejected any negotiations on the border, saying its forces are controlling their country’s territories.

It also says that the borders are recognized internationally and all that remains is to set the markers that have been removed due to the nature of the area. It urged the need to set the markers within close distances from each other whereby each point can be seen from the next with the naked eye.

Sudanese Defense Minister Yassin Ibrahim Yassin told Al Arabiya that Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s remarks about “disputed regions” prompted Khartoum to dispatch military units to impose their control over Sudanese regions on the border.

Yassin slammed the PM’s remarks over the alleged border dispute, saying the borders are “clearly demarcated according to international agreements.”

He also refused to link the border developments to the stalled negotiations over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD).

“The common factor in both these issues is Ethiopia’s stalling,” he charged. “We do not acknowledge a dispute in the first place so negotiations are not valid.”

Tensions have been high on the border since December after the Sudanese military redeployed its forces in the al-Fashqa region, expelling Ethiopian militias that were controlling it.

The move was prompted by an attack by the militias against Sudanese forces.

The Three-Country Alliance Against Tigray Might Jeopardize Ethiopia’s Future – Analysis

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Eurasia Review | Martin Plaut

The Tigray war has turned into an all-out conflict, pitting Tigrayan forces loyal to the Tigray People’s Liberation front (TPLF) against Ethiopian federal troops, the Eritrean army, Amhara militia and – as revealed last week – Somali soldiers.

Despite what would seem to be overwhelming odds against them, the Tigrayans appear to be holding their own in large areas of the region.

Both Eritrea and Somalia routinely deny any involvement in the war, but the evidence of their presence is strong.

On December 8, Reuters reported that “a U.S. government source and five regional diplomats” told them the US believes Eritrean soldiers have crossed into Ethiopia. The EU and UK support this assessment.

A senior Ethiopian general confirmed that Eritrean troops were in Tigray. Major General Belay Seyoum, head of the Northern Command, described the presence of foreign forces on Ethiopian soil as “painful”.

The Eritrea-Ethiopia-Somali alliance

The alliance has its origins in the ending of hostilities between Ethiopia and Eritrea. Much of the groundwork for this rapprochement was done by the United States, with Donald Yamamoto playing a critical role behind the scenes, although Washington could hardly have envisaged where this would lead.

On July 8-9, 2018 Prime Minister Abiy visited Asmara to seal the peace between Eritrea and Ethiopia. In the same month, the ice between Eritrea and Somalia was broken, with a three-day visit by Somali President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed to Asmara. It was the first visit by a Somali president to Eritrea since it gained independence from Ethiopia in 1993. The two nations have not had diplomatic ties in nearly 15 years.

Abdinur Mohamed, a spokesman for the Somali president, said on Twitter that the country “is ready to write a new chapter of its relations with Eritrea.” Economic and security concerns are at the top of the agenda, as well as “regional issues of interest to both countries,” Eritrea’s information ministry said.

There were further bilateral visits in August 2018 and April 2019. This culminated in a summit between the leaders of Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia on January 27, 2020, held in Asmara.

The communique committed the three leaders to consolidate “peace, stability, and security as well as promoting economic and social development. They also agreed to bolster their joint efforts to foster effective regional cooperation.”

There was no press conference at which the details of the agreement might be explained. The public was left in the dark about what the leaders were planning.

Further meetings took place in the run-up to the outbreak of war in Tigray:

  • Prime Minister Abiy made a rare visit to the Eritrea main training base at Sawa in July 2020.
  • Somali President Farmajo arrived in Asmara on 4 October.
  • President Isaias went to Ethiopia on October 14-15. This trip included seeing the Ethiopian air-force base at Bishofu.

Within three weeks, on November 4, 2020, the Tigray war erupted. Is it credible that the war was not discussed, and a strategy agreed between the three leaders at these meetings?

War aims

The first priority of the alliance is to remove the Tigrayan administration from Tigray. President Isaias has long loathed the TPLF. This goes back to the 1970’s and 80’s when the Eritreans and Tigrayans fell out over ideology, tactics and strategy.

Prime Minister Abiy also wants to rid himself of the vestiges of power of the previous Ethiopian government, which the TPLF controlled. He is attempting to reverse their policy of “ethnic federalism.”

Beyond this, outlines of a plan were revealed when information was leaked about a meeting held by President Isaias just prior to the outbreak of the war.

According to reports citing well-placed sources, President Isaias brought together his closest confidantes on the eve of the Tigray war. He said that Eritrea had to accept that it had a small economy and a lengthy Red Sea coast that it cannot patrol on its own. He suggested forming some sort of “union” with Ethiopia, at least in terms of economic co-operation and maritime security.

If accurate, President Isaias appeared to have echoed Abiy’s grandiose dream of re-establishing the old empire-state of Ethiopia. This includes suggestions that the Ethiopian navy could be reconstructed – a proposal supported by France. This would require the use of Eritrean ports which were once home to the Imperial Ethiopian Navy.

The idea of some form of union may not be as far-fetched as it would appear, despite the fact Isaias previously led Eritrea’s decades-long war to gain independence from Ethiopia.

It should not be forgotten that when President Isaias made his first visit to Addis Ababa in July 2018 he made what many Eritreans regarded as an extraordinary offer: for a joint administration of both countries.

“This is a historic day for all of us,” President Isaias Afwerki said. “Anyone who thinks the people of Eritrea and Ethiopia are separated is considered as naïve from now on.”  In a speech, Abiy said the countries had agreed to develop together and that Isaias had offered to help “lead this great nation.” He added that “we have finally found our sister nation after many years of hiding.”

This vision – of co-suzerainty – or a revised form of federation, appears to be behind the current conflict.

Regional blocs

In September 2020 Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia held their third trilateral meeting. They proposed to form a new regional bloc, which has been referred to as the “Horn of Africa Cooperation”.

The flaw in this proposal was commented on at the time. “Creating an economic and political bloc may seem a solution to bring peace and boost trade. But it risks sparking distrust from other East African countries, and with the other regional body, IGAD,” the Intergovernmental Authority on Development, which Eritrea has long distrusted.

The Horn of Africa Cooperation could be linked to the wider ambition of the Saudis to extend their influence in the Horn of Africa. The “Council of the Arab and African States bordering the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden” was launched in January 2020. This new Arab-African alliance has eight members: Djibouti, Egypt, Eritrea, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Jordan and Yemen.

Conclusion

These plans depend on succeeding to crush the Tigrayans. At the moment this appears a distant prospect, despite Prime Minister Abiy’s assertion in November that it was little more than a “law enforcement”  operation that would soon be over.

If the war goes badly, and Eritrea, Somalia and the rest of Ethiopia becomes sucked into the conflict, the conflict could threaten the future of Ethiopia itself.  This was the warning from senior African experts at the US Institute of Peace.

“As members of the bipartisan senior study group on peace and security in the Red Sea arena, we are watching with grave concern the situation in Ethiopia. While many of the facts remain unclear, the risks of escalation are certain: Intrastate or interstate conflict would be catastrophic for Ethiopia’s people and for the region and would pose a direct threat to international peace and security.

The acceleration of polarization amid violent conflict would also mark the death knell for the country’s nascent reform effort that began two years ago and the promise of a democratic transition that it heralded.

As we cautioned in the study group’s Final Report and Recommendations released on October 29, the fragmentation of Ethiopia would be the largest state collapse in modern history. Ethiopia is five times the size of pre-war Syria by population, and its breakdown would lead to mass interethnic and interreligious conflict; a dangerous vulnerability to exploitation by extremists; an acceleration of illicit trafficking, including of arms; and a humanitarian and security crisis at the crossroads of Africa and the Middle East on a scale that would overshadow any existing conflict in the region, including Yemen.

As Ethiopia is currently the leading Troop Contributing Country to the United Nations and the African Union peacekeeping missions in Sudan, South Sudan and Somalia, its collapse would also significantly impact the efforts by both to mitigate and resolve others conflicts in the Horn of Africa.”

Finland to lead EU diplomacy on Ethiopia

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EU Obseerver | Finnish foreign minister Pekka Haavisto will travel to Ethiopia in February as an EU “envoy” to try to broker peace in a civil war, EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell said Monday. His trip comes amid “credible reports” of “extrajudicial executions of civilians” and looting of hospitals, including by forces from neighbouring Eritrea, Human Rights Watch, an NGO, said the same day, while calling for a UN-led inquiry.

Sudan prevents ambassador from travelling back to Ethiopia by land

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MEMO | Sudan has prevented Ambassador Yibtalal Amero from travelling overland back to Ethiopia due to tension on the border between the two countries.

A security source told Anadolu Agency that the Ethiopian ambassador submitted a request to the security services in Khartoum on Saturday to allow him to travel by land to his country. The fact that an answer is still not forthcoming implies rejection of the application.

The authorities in Khartoum apparently fear that the ambassador’s life might be endangered due to the situation on the border and in Ethiopia’s Tigray Region. The ambassador, explained the same source, flew to Addis Ababa, where he arrived safely.

On 4 November, armed clashes erupted between the Ethiopian Federal Army and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front. The federal government in Addis Ababa announced on 28 November that its forces had ended their operation successfully by controlling the entire region and its capital.

Sudanese-Ethiopian relations have been tense along the border, sparked by an armed attack against the Sudanese army in Umm Durman in mid-December. Khartoum said that Ethiopian militias had seized the land of Sudanese farmers in the Fashaqa area, after expelling them by force of arms. Sudan also accused the Ethiopian army of supporting these gangs, which Addis Ababa denies, describing the armed groups are outlaws.

Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok announced last Sunday that Sudan has agreed to South Sudan mediating to resolve border disputes between his country and Ethiopia.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Her mother had survived, her home stripped of possessions.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Sudan calls on Ethiopia to close GERD deal

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Sudanese Minister of Culture and Information Faisal Saleh has expressed concern over the second filling of Ethiopia’s Great Renaissance Dam (GERD), Al-Arabiya news reported .

The dam cannot be brought into operation until Cairo, Khartoum and Addis Ababa reach a binding agreement, he said. This is a legally confirmed document that will allow three parties to regulate the water level in the bed of the Blue Nile River.

Faisal Saleh expressed concern about Sudan amid Ethiopia’s unwavering commitment to begin the second filling of the dam in July this year, despite the lack of agreement.

“We do not agree with the imposition of a fait accompli. The Khartoum authorities are ready to give an appropriate rebuff in case of arbitrariness of Addis Ababa,” the head of the Ministry of Culture and Information said.

Sudanese Prime Minister Abdullah Hamdok met last week with the country’s GERD High Monitoring Committee, where he said it is unacceptable to risk the safety of the 20 million citizens whose lives depend on the Blue Nile.

Recall that in the summer of 2020, Ethiopia announced the successful filling of the Renaissance Dam (4.9 billion cubic meters) during the rainy season.

A few days later, Sudan recorded a decrease in the water level in the Blue Nile, coming from Ethiopia. This has sparked disputes between countries, including Egypt, lasting more than half a year.

The Sudanese-Ethiopian relations have been witnessing an escalating tension for weeks due to armed attacks on the borders of the two countries, which Khartoum says were carried out by Ethiopian militias backed by government forces on Sudanese territory.

On January 12, Sudan announced that Ethiopian forces launched an attack on the Al-Fashaqa area within the Sudanese borders in Gedaref State, killing 6 people, 5 women and a child.

In turn, Ethiopia accused the Sudanese forces of “seizing 9 camps” within the Ethiopian borders and “violating the agreement signed between the two countries in 1972 on border issues by invading Ethiopian territory.”

Last week, Ethiopian Foreign Ministry spokesman Dina Mufti accused Egypt of intensifying its destabilization efforts against Ethiopia and the volatile Horn of Africa region. “The Egyptian government is pushing Sudan to engage in a conflict with Ethiopia, in its bid to weaken both countries,” the official said.

Recently, an Egyptian official admitted Egypt’s concerted effort to delay the second filling of the GERD: “It is true that Egypt played a role in the recent Sudanese escalation, but it does not want to stir a complete military confrontation between them [Sudan and Ethiopia]. It only wants a military escalation to achieve a political solution, which is the delay of the second filling of the GERD until a final solution is reached, since filling the dam has negative repercussions on the flow of water to Egypt,” the official said.

Sudanese army repels missile attack launched by Ethiopia on Abou Toyour Mountain

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A military source told Sky News Arabia Monday that the Sudanese army repelled a missile attack launched by Ethiopia on Abou Toyour Mountain in the evening of Sunday.

The source stated that no injuries or casualties were recorded, and that the Sudanese army holds the right to respond.

In November, the Sudanese army spread its forces in Fashaqa border area after restoring lands that used to be cultivated by Ethiopian farmers since 1995.

Earlier this month, Sudan imposed an air ban on the border area after what it had described as a dangerous escalation. On January 13, an Ethiopian military jet infringed the airspace, the Sudanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs declared warning of the consequences embodied in more tensions in the borders area.

The ministry urged the Ethiopian side not to repeat such hostile acts in the future for their negative impact on the future of bilateral relations and security and stability in the Horn of Africa.

The ministry had earlier declared that an assault against Sudanese villagers was carried out by Ethiopia’s Shafta gangs in the evening of Monday. Those were harvesting crops in Al Qaresha lying five kilometers away from the Ethiopian borders. The attack resulted in the killing of five women and a child. Also, two women disappeared.

Some Ethiopian groups used to cultivate lands in Sudan’s Fashqa region for decades, which was tolerated by overthrown leader Omar al-Bashir but is no longer accepted by the transitional government. In May, Ethiopian militias attacked a camp in the eastern city of al-Qadarif killing and wounding several Sudanese military personnel and civilians.

The Sudanese Armed Forces sent reinforcements to Al Fashqa after the attack that killed four and injured 20 military personnel who were patrolling the southern borders on December 15, as reported by Sky News Arabia.

The assault came two days after Sudanese Prime Minister Abdallah Hamdok cut his visit to Addis Ababa returning to his homeland after a few hours instead of staying for two days. Some media reported that Hamdok offered mediation between the Ethiopian Federal Government and the Trigray People’s Liberation Front but his offer was turned down by Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed.

It is noted that 50,000 out of 950,000 displaced Ethiopians fled to Sudan because of the fighting initiated by the Ethiopian federal government against the Tigray region.

Hamdok issued a press release declaring that a force was patrolling Abou Toyour Mountain on the Sudanese territory, and on its way back, “it was ambushed by Ethiopian militias and forces.”

Sudan and Ethiopia share borders of 1,600 kilometers, while the surface area of the disputed Al Fashaqa region is 250 square kilometers.

An Ethiopian delegation arrived in Khartoum on December 22 to discuss the border demarcation matter with the Sudanese side for two days within the framework of the High Joint Committee on Border Issues, as reported by Al Arabiyah.

The meeting is an activation of the committee, and takes place one day after local media reported that the Sudanese Armed Forces was advancing in Al Fashaqa border district occupied by Ethiopia.

Sudan wants its borders to match the description indicated in the 1902 Agreement signed between Ethiopian and Great Britain, which was occupying Sudan at the time.

Sudan, Ethiopia, and Egypt also have disagreements over the filling and operation of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD). Sudan withdrew from the talks twice.

The capacity of the dam worth $4.6 billion is 74 billion cubic meters so that its filling would be detrimental to the water shares of Egypt (55.5 billion cubic meters), and Sudan (18.5 billion cubic meters). Ethiopia intends to fill 13.5 billion cubic meters in summer, and plans to build two other dams. It began the filling process in summer 2020 with five billion cubic meters.

Constructions in the Grand Renaissance Dam started on April 2, 2011 by the Italian construction and engineering company Salini Impergilo headquartered in Milan. The dam is located on the Blue Nile, and is expected to generate up to 6,000 megawatts of power.

(©Egypt Today)

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

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

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

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

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

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

EU mentions “possible war crimes”

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

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

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

Inaccessible refugee camps

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

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

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

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

 

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

Ethiopia’s leader must answer for the high cost of hidden war in Tigray

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The Guardian | Simon Tisdall | Abiy Ahmed should hand back his Nobel peace prize over his actions in the breakaway region that have raised the spectre of famine again.

Seyoum Mesfin, Ethiopia’s long-serving former foreign minister, was one of the foremost African diplomats of his generation. He was gunned down this month in Tigray by the armed forces of a lesser man – Abiy Ahmed, Ethiopia’s prime minister and Nobel peace prize winner. Some suggest it was the Eritrean military, Abiy’s allies, who killed Seyoum, although their presence in Tigray is officially denied. The circumstances of his death remain murky.

As with much of the unreported, unchallenged murder and mayhem currently occurring in northern Ethiopia, murky is what Abiy prefers. When he ordered the army’s assault on the breakaway Tigray region in November, he blocked the internet, shut out aid agencies and banned journalists. It’s a conflict he claims to have won – but the emerging reality is very different. It’s a war fought in the shadows, with the outside world kept in the dark.

After humanitarian workers finally gained limited access this month, it was estimated that 4.5 million of Tigray’s 6 million people need emergency food aid. Hundreds of thousands are said to face starvation. The UN warns that Eritrean refugees in the Mai Aini and Adi Harush camps are in “desperate need of supplies” and harassed by armed gangs. Some are said to have been forcibly, illegally repatriated.

Access continues to be denied to two other camps, Shimelba and Hitsats, which have been set ablaze. Many of the camps’ residents are believed to have fled marauding Eritrean and Amhara militiamen. Satellite images published by UK-based DX Open Network reportedly show damage to 400 structures at Shimelba. Filippo Grandi, head of the UN refugee agency, points to “concrete indications of major violations of international law”.

There are persistent, unconfirmed reports of massacres, torture, rapes, abductions, and the looting or destruction of centuries-old manuscripts and artefacts across Tigray. Last week, EEPA, a Belgium-based NGO, described a massacre of 750 people at a cathedral in Aksum that reputedly houses the Ark of the Covenant. Ethiopian troops and Amhara militia are accused of the killings at the Church of St Mary of Zion, part of a UN World Heritage site. The report has not been independently verified.

Despite Abiy’s claims that the war is over and no civilians have been harmed, sporadic fighting continues, an analyst familiar with government thinking said. Thousands of people have died, about 50,000 have fled to Sudan, and many are homeless, sheltering in caves. Intentional artillery attacks have destroyed hospitals and health centres in an echo of the Syrian war, the analyst said.

Meeting this month in Mekelle, Tigray’s capital, aid workers complained Ethiopia’s government was still hindering relief efforts and demanded full access. “People are dying of starvation. In Adwa, people are dying while they are sleeping. [It’s] the same in other zones,” a regional administrator, Berhane Gebretsadik, was quoted as saying. But there has been scant response from Addis Ababa.

Official Ethiopian and Eritrean denials that Eritrean forces are operating in Tigray are contradicted by eyewitness accounts. Amid the murk, it seems clear Eritrea’s dictator-president, Isaias Afwerki, has made common cause with Abiy. The two met in Addis Ababa in October, shortly before the war was launched, to discuss the “consolidation of regional cooperation”.

Afwerki is an old enemy who runs a brutally repressive regime. But he shares Abiy’s hatred of the Tigrayan leadership that dominated the government of former prime minister Meles Zenawi during Ethiopia’s 20-year border war with Eritrea. Abiy, an Oromo from Ethiopia’s largest ethnic group, made peace with Eritrea in 2018, ousted his Tigrayan rivals, and has been feuding with them ever since.

Further evidence of secret alliances comes from Somalia. The Somali Guardian reported this month that 2,500 Somali recruits were treated as “cannon fodder” after being sent to a military base in Eritrea for training, then deployed in Tigray with Eritrean forces. Dozens are reported to have been killed.

International scrutiny of Abiy’s Tigray war has been largely lacking. An exception is the EU, which has indefinitely suspended €88m in aid to Addis Ababa. “We receive consistent reports of ethnic-targeted violence, killings, looting, rapes, forceful return of refugees and possible war crimes,” Josep Borrell, the EU foreign affairs chief, said.

The UN and EU warnings, coupled with the shocking murder of the internationally respected Seyoum Mesfin, may now bring closer scrutiny. I met Seyoum, a co-founder in 1975 of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, in Addis in 2008. He was a master diplomat. According to Alex de Waal, the Africa specialist, Seyoum was a skilled peacemaker in Rwanda and Sudan who “presided over the rehabilitation of Ethiopia’s international standing” after 1991.

Abiy now risks destroying that standing. “The circumstances of Seyoum’s killing aren’t clear. The Ethiopian government is not a reliable source of information. Eritrea – which may well have carried out the assassinations – is remaining silent. The official report that Seyoum and his colleagues ‘refused to surrender’ is opaque,” De Waal wrote.

He noted that the two other elderly Tigrayans killed alongside Seyoum, aged 71, were Abay Tsehaye, who had just had heart surgery, and Asmelash Woldeselassie, who was blind. This trio hardly posed a physical threat to heavily armed troops.

Abiy seems to have lost control of events. There is anger in Mekelle, where a puppet administration has been installed, about ongoing security issues, including rapes. The threat of rural famine looms large. In the mid-1980s, mass starvation in Ethiopia shocked the world. About 1 million people died. Those horrors were subsequently vanquished by decades of hard work.

To Abiy’s great shame, the spectre of famine now haunts Ethiopia again. The good work of the past is being undone. He should hand back his Nobel peace prize and answer for his actions in Tigray.

The East African war escalates, Ethiopia accuses Sudan of occupying 9 camps

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NetEase| According to Ethiopian sources, Ethiopian ambassador to Sudan Ibtalal Amero accused the Sudanese army of occupying nine camps in Ethiopia. In Khartoum, the capital of Sudan, Amelo told representatives of the UN Truce International Organization and foreign ambassadors: “We are surprised by the Sudanese army’s attack on Ethiopian territory. Since November last year, the Sudanese army has occupied 9 camps in Ethiopia.”

While Ethiopian diplomats called on the Sudanese army to stop cross-border attacks and resolve the border issue with Ethiopia by peaceful means, the head of the Sudanese National Border Commission, General Moaz Ahmed Tango, denied that the Sudanese army “controls Ethiopia”. Territory. He said: “There is no Sudanese army on Ethiopian territory. They are all deployed in Sudan and they know the location of the border.”

At the same time, the Ethiopian army is deploying its “Armor-S1” air defense missile system to the border with Sudan. This happened against the background of the deterioration of relations between the two countries. The Ethiopian armed forces are gathering military forces in the border area with Sudan. The situation between the two countries has deteriorated due to another border dispute. The Sudanese military said that the Ethiopian Air Force of Ethiopia attacked its own targets. It is said that the attack by the Ethiopian government forces resulted in the death of civilians and the death of the Sudanese Defence Force.

The Ethiopian army is deploying reinforcements along the border with Sudan. In this case, Ethiopia will be given a special role for its air defense. Among other air defense missile equipment transferred to the border, the “Armor-S1” air defense missile and Russian radar system shipped from Russia to Ethiopia in 2019 were seen. With the help of Russian air defense missiles, the Ethiopian military intends to defend against air strikes by Sudanese fighters.

“The Ethiopian army organizes heavy weapons near the border with Sudan. Amhara has been pushing their prime minister into war. Internally against Tigray  and externally against Sudan. It seems that the end of the old empire is near!” The Sudanese side believes that the Ethiopian army is opening fire everywhere, but if the Ethiopian government forces go to war with Sudan, it will inevitably face the tragedy of total defeat.

The “Armor-S1” air defense missile performed well during the armed conflicts between Syria and Libya. The targets of the “Armor-S1” air defense missile include modern Turkish inspection and strike integrated drones. Considering the potential enemy of Ethiopia, the Sudanese Air Force uses outdated aircraft and helicopters, mainly Russian MiG-29 fighter jets and Chinese-made “Mountain Eagle” trainer attack aircraft. This modern air defense system is used in areas where conflicts may occur. The emergence of the Sudan Air Force greatly complicates the use of fighters.