Tag Archive for: Tigray War

EU envoy says Ethiopia in ‘denial’ over Tigray

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devEx | When it comes to the conflict in northern Ethiopia, the federal government in Addis Ababa has no common understanding of events and is in “denial” over the scale of the problem, said Pekka Haavisto, European Union envoy, on Tuesday.

With negligible humanitarian access to the Tigray region since fighting broke out in November, Haavisto, Finland’s foreign minister, traveled to the region recently to assess the situation on behalf of the EU. He met with Ethiopian government ministers and Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, and he visited the Um Rakuba refugee camp in Sudan.

On Monday, he reported to EU foreign ministers in Brussels, and the bloc’s foreign service will now prepare a document outlining the 27 member states’ common position.

“Almost four months into the conflict, 80% of the Tigray population of 6 million people remain unreachable,” Josep Borrell, EU high representative for foreign affairs, told reporters after Monday’s meeting. Borrell also reiterated calls for full humanitarian access and investigations into alleged human rights abuses.

“When you are in the middle of crises, usually people say things cannot get worse. But unfortunately, they can get even worse.”

— Pekka Haavisto, European Union envoy and Finnish foreign minister

Describing his meetings with top Ethiopian government officials, Haavisto told reporters in Brussels on Tuesday that “in the public domain, there is still also some kind of denial of the magnitude of the problems in the country.” Asked whether the state of denial was also reflected in his private conversations, Haavisto said that there were varying accounts on the issues of humanitarian access and human rights violations, even within the federal government.

“My picture was that even the government themselves do not have a clear picture, particularly areas controlled by Eritreans, probably areas controlled by Amhara militias,” he said. “This is the problem: That the picture, even in Addis Ababa, on what has happened, is missing. And of course, we have to admit that we don’t know exactly what has happened. [The] rumors, anecdotal evidence, is very concerning.”

Haavisto added that the EU could be useful in supporting a necessary “national dialogue” in Ethiopia where the country “would address properly the future of the Tigray area, the needs of the Tigray people after this law enforcement operation, because there is a lot of bitterness.” His description of a “law enforcement operation” — the term preferred by the Ethiopian government — contrasted with Borrell, who said at the Monday press conference that “we can call it a war.”

In December, the EU postponed €88 million in budget support to the Ethiopian government in protest of the conflict, with Jutta Urpilainen, EU commissioner for international partnerships, saying last week that the payout of a further €100 million ($120 million) due this year was also in doubt. However, some EU member states have continued their own bilateral support to the Ethiopian government.

An EU official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told reporters last week that that discrepancy would be “on the table” at Monday’s meeting. “I think it is one of the subjects that we have to discuss openly among member states,” the official said.

Haavisto said Tuesday that he supported the postponement of EU budget support as a “wake-up call” to the Ethiopian government and that “if things start getting from bad to worse,” then “I’m sure that then of course everybody has to look at their support and analyze it.”

He added: “When you are in the middle of crises, usually people say things cannot get worse. But unfortunately, they can get even worse.”

 

UN says malnutrition ‘very critical’ in Ethiopia’s Tigray

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NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The United Nations says Ethiopia’s embattled Tigray region faces a “very critical malnutrition situation” as vast rural areas where many people fled during three months of fighting remain out of reach of aid.

The U.N. humanitarian agency also said in a new report that Ethiopian defense forces continue to occupy a hospital in the town of Abi Adi, “preventing up to 500,000 people from accessing health services” in a region where the health system has largely collapsed under looting and artillery fire.

Alarm is growing over the fate of the Tigray region’s some 6 million people as fighting is reportedly as fierce as ever between Ethiopian and allied forces and those supporting the now-fugitive Tigray leaders who once dominated Ethiopia’s government.

“The needs are tremendous, but we cannot pretend that we do not see or hear what is unfolding,” Ethiopian President Sahle-Work Zewde said in a statement on Friday after visiting the Tigray capital, Mekele.

In one of the frankest public comments yet by Ethiopia’s government, she noted “significant delays that remain in reaching people in need.”

Ethiopia on Friday said humanitarian aid has reached 2.7 million people in Tigray. But the U.N. report calls the current response “drastically inadequate,” even as some progress is made.

With some 80% of the population still unreachable, according to the Ethiopian Red Cross earlier this month, fears are growing that more people are starving to death.

“Next few weeks decisive to prevent famines,” Germany’s Foreign Office said in a brief statement last week after hearing accounts of a European Union envoy’s visit to Ethiopia.

The new U.N. report released Friday says even in areas that can be reached, a screening of 227 children under the age of 5 showed “staggeringly high malnutrition,” though it did not mention the number of cases.

It also says a screening of more than 3,500 children found 109 with severe acute malnutrition. The World Health Organization describes that condition as “when a person is extremely thin and at risk of dying.”

“Malnutrition (in Tigray) is expected to deteriorate as households are limited to fewer meals every day,” the U.N. report says.

The Tigray conflict began at a vulnerable time, just before the harvest and after months of a regional locust outbreak. The majority of the population is subsistence farmers.

The U.N. report cites “bureaucratic obstacles” and the presence of “various armed actors” as complications in the delivery of aid.

Humanitarian workers have described trying to navigate a patchwork of authorities that include ones from the neighboring Amhara region who have settled in some Tigray communities, as well as soldiers from neighboring Eritrea whom witnesses have accused of widespread looting and burning of crops.

Ethiopia’s government denies the presence of Eritrean soldiers, though the Tigray region’s interim government has confirmed it and accused them of looting food aid, according to a recent Voice of America interview.

The U.N. report describes a “dire” situation in which “COVID-19 services have stopped” in the Tigray region, displaced people in some cases are sleeping 30 to a single classroom and host communities are under “incredible strain.”

‘Horrible’: Witnesses recall massacre in Ethiopian holy city

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NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Bodies with gunshot wounds lay in the streets for days in Ethiopia’s holiest city. At night, residents listened in horror as hyenas fed on the corpses of people they knew. But they were forbidden from burying their dead by the invading Eritrean soldiers.

Those memories haunt a deacon at the country’s most sacred Ethiopian Orthodox church in Axum, where local faithful believe the ancient Ark of the Covenant is housed. As Ethiopia’s Tigray region slowly resumes telephone service after three months of conflict, the deacon and other witnesses gave The Associated Press a detailed account of what might be its deadliest massacre.

For weeks, rumors circulated that something ghastly had occurred at the Church of St. Mary of Zion in late November, with estimates of several hundred people killed. But with Tigray cut off from the world and journalists blocked from entering, little could be verified as Ethiopian and allied fighters pursued the Tigray region’s fugitive leaders.

The deacon, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he remains in Axum, said he helped count the bodies — or what was left after hyenas fed. He gathered victims’ identity cards and assisted with burials in mass graves.

He believes some 800 people were killed that weekend at the church and around the city, and that thousands in Axum have died in all. The killing continues: On the day he spoke to the AP last week he said he had buried three people.

“If we go to the rural areas, the situation is much worse,” the deacon said.

The atrocities of the Tigray conflict have occurred in the shadows. Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019 for making peace with neighboring Eritrea, announced the fighting as the world focused on the U.S. election. He accused Tigray’s regional forces, whose leaders dominated Ethiopia for nearly three decades before he took office, of attacking the Ethiopian military. Tigray’s leaders called it self-defense after months of tensions.

While the world clamors for access to Tigray to investigate suspected atrocities on all sides and deliver aid to millions of hungry people, the prime minister has rejected outside “interference.” He declared victory in late November and said no civilians had been killed. His government denies the presence of thousands of soldiers from Eritrea, long an enemy of the Tigray leaders.

Ethiopia’s narrative, however, has crumbled as witnesses like the deacon emerge. The foreign ministry on Thursday acknowledged that “rape, plunder, callous & intentional mass killings” could occur in a conflict where “many are illegally armed.” Its statement blamed Tigray forces for leaving the region “vulnerable” and said any serious offense will be investigated. It did not mention Eritrean soldiers.

Axum, with its ancient ruins and churches, holds major significance for the Ethiopian Orthodox faithful, who believe that the Ark of the Covenant, built to hold the tablets inscribed with the Ten Commandments, is located there.

“If you attack Axum, you attack first of all the identity of Orthodox Tigrayans but also of all Ethiopian Orthodox Christians,” said Wolbert Smidt, an ethnohistorian who specializes in the region. “Axum itself is regarded as a church in the local tradition, ‘Axum Zion.’”

In a normal year, thousands of people would have gathered at the Zion church in late November to celebrate the day Ethiopians believe the Ark of the Covenant was brought there after it disappeared from Jerusalem in ancient times.

Instead, the church had become a refuge for people who fled the fighting elsewhere in Tigray. They sheltered there as worship services were underway two days before the anniversary.

Eritrean and Ethiopian soldiers had arrived in Axum more than a week earlier, with heavy bombardment. But on Nov. 28 the Eritrean soldiers returned in force to hunt down members of the local militia who had mobilized against them in Axum and nearby communities.

The deacon recalled soldiers bursting into the church, cornering and dragging out worshippers and shooting at those who fled.

Full Coverage: Ethiopia
“I escaped by chance with a priest,” he said. “As we entered the street, we could hear gunfire all over.” They kept running, stumbling over the dead and wounded along with others trying to find places to hide.

Most of the hundreds of victims were killed that day, he said, but the shooting and looting continued the following day.

“They started to kill people who were moving from church to home or home to home, simply because they were on the street,” another witness, visiting university lecturer Getu Mak, told the AP. “It was a horrible act to see.” He watched the fighting from his hotel room, then ventured out as it eased.

“On every corner, almost, there was a body,” he said. “People were crying in every home.”

Another witness, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation, said soldiers killed a man at his home near the Zion church. “How can I tell you? So many dead,” said the man, who has since escaped to the Tigray capital, Mekele.

After the killings in Axum came an uneasy period with soldiers roaming the streets and families searching for loved ones. At night, hyenas descended from nearby hills.

The city began to smell of death as some bodies went untouched for days.

“I saw a horse cart carrying around 20 bodies to the church, but Eritrean soldiers stopped them and told people to throw them back on the street,” said Getu, the university lecturer.

Witnesses elsewhere in Tigray have reported being unable to bury bodies, calling it an added insult. They say soldiers tell them that “no one mourned our fighters, so why should we let you mourn?”

Finally, when the soldiers left the city to pursue other fighters, residents mobilized to bury the bodies, the deacon said.

“We could not do a formal burial,” he said. “We buried them en masse” in graves near the Zion church and others.

Some of the dead were among the hundreds of thousands of people in Tigray displaced by the conflict and not known to Axum residents. Their identity cards were collected in churches, where they await the discovery of loved ones.

The deacon said residents believe the Eritrean soldiers were taking revenge for the two-decade border war between Ethiopia and Eritrea that played out nearby and ended after Abiy became prime minister. Some of the soldiers told residents they had been instructed to kill people as young as 12, he said.

Another witness, a 39-year-old who gave only his first name, Mhretab, and escaped weeks ago to the United States, asserted that Ethiopian federal police did nothing to rein in the Eritrean soldiers.

“I said to them, ’Listen, you’re Ethiopian, they’re destroying Ethiopian cities. How is this possible?‴ Mhretab recalled.

”They said, ‘What can we do? This shouldn’t have happened from the beginning. This is from above,’” indicating that it had been decided by senior officials, he said.

He said he ferried bodies to a mass grave by the Zion church and estimated that he saw 300 to 400 there.

The deacon believes that the Eritrean soldiers, in their hunt for Tigray fighters, have killed thousands more people in villages outside Axum. “When they fight and lose, they take revenge on the farmers and kill everyone they can find,” he said. “This is what we’ve seen in the past three months.”

Getu echoed that belief, citing his uncle, who survived such a rural confrontation.

The deacon has not gone to the villages outside Axum. His work remains with his church, where services continue even as he says the Tigray conflict is as fierce as ever.

“We’re also protecting the church,” he said. “Even now, I’m talking to you from there. We are not armed. What we do is mostly watching. And, of course, praying that God protects us.”

U.S. Leadership Can Help End the Crisis in Ethiopia

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Bloomberg | Editorial Board | President Biden must persuade Prime Minister Abiy to end the violence.

Ethiopia’s worsening civil war, which has already drawn in Eritrea and is now spilling over into Sudan, threatens to destabilize the entire Horn of Africa, with alarming humanitarian consequences. American leadership is urgently needed to restore peace.

The conflict began last November, when Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed sent troops into the northern province of Tigray, the home of his most powerful political opponents, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front. Eritrea, which formally ended a long-running war with Ethiopia two years ago, provided its new ally with reinforcements. Tens of thousands of Tigrayans fled to neighboring Sudan, straining the limited resources of one of the world’s poorest countries. Still more were displaced internally and housed in refugee camps.

The Tigrayan capital fell quickly, but sporadic fighting has continued. Abiy has prevented human-rights monitors, humanitarian aid groups and United Nations agencies from fully accessing the province. There are credible reports of atrocities committed in Tigray by Ethiopian forces and their proxies. The European Union has accused Eritrean troops of “exacerbating ethnic violence.” A famine looks increasingly likely.

Now the prime minister has ordered tanks and artillery to the border with Sudan. As with the offensive into Tigray, his government claims to have been provoked by the other side, but there’s more than a little suspicion of an Ethiopian land grab. The two countries have long-standing disputes over territory. They have also quarreled over water resources since Ethiopia built a giant dam on the Blue Nile. Along with Egypt, Sudan fears the decimation of its agricultural resources if Ethiopia proceeds with plans to fill a huge reservoir in front of the dam.

The African Union has been unable to resolve any of these issues, not least because other member states are leery of antagonizing the country that hosts their organization. The EU has suspended nearly 90 million euros ($108 million) in aid to the government in Addis Ababa, to no apparent effect. The UN has done little more than wag a disapproving finger.

That leaves President Joe Biden’s administration. As Ethiopia’s most important ally, the U.S. has substantial leverage over Abiy’s government. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has spoken to Abiy about the humanitarian crisis in Tigray, and his department has called for the withdrawal of Eritrean troops. Having thus put the government on notice, the administration should be prepared to impose punishment if Abiy fails to respond adequately.

A good first step would be to join the EU in suspending assistance until the UN and other aid agencies are allowed free access to Tigray. If necessary, the U.S. should freeze the preferential trade benefits Ethiopia enjoys under the African Growth and Opportunity Act. It should also demand independent investigations into the alleged atrocities, and appropriate punishment for those found guilty. Any Ethiopian adventurism in Sudan should be met with even harsher penalties, including economic sanctions.

Simultaneously, the U.S. should push for negotiations — between Ethiopia and Sudan, and between Addis Ababa and the Tigrayans — to resolve old disputes. If the African Union cannot mediate such talks, then the U.S. should be prepared to do so.

Blinken has said the U.S. should “not be AWOL as problems emerge” in the Horn of Africa. Ethiopia presents an urgent challenge to that commitment.

US: Aid pause to Ethiopia no longer linked to dam dispute

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NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The United States says it has decided to “de-link” its suspension of millions of dollars of aid to Ethiopia from that country’s dispute with Egypt over a massive hydroelectric dam project.

But the State Department early Friday said that does not mean all the roughly $272 million in security and development assistance will immediately start to flow, and it depends on more recent “developments” — an apparent reference to the deadly conflict in Ethiopia’s Tigray region.

The State Department said humanitarian assistance remains exempt from the aid suspension. It said it has informed Ethiopia’s government. A spokeswoman for Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Ethiopians were furious after former President Donald Trump last year directed the suspension of aid to their country in a rare example of his direct involvement in an African issue. Ethiopia had left a U.S.-led attempt to mediate the dispute with Egypt, alleging bias. Trump also caused an uproar by saying downstream Egypt would “blow up” the dam project that Cairo  considers an existential threat.

Ethiopia asserts that the $4.6 billion Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam that it has nearly completed on the Blue Nile River is essential for development and the pulling of millions of people out of poverty. Egypt says it threatens its water supply.

Ethiopia is now under pressure from the U.S. and others including the European Union and United Nations over the deadly fighting in its northern Tigray region, where some 6 million people have been largely cut off from the world since fighting began in November between Ethiopian and allied forces and Tigray ones.

Witness accounts have emerged of massacres, people beginning to starve to death and the presence of thousands of soldiers from neighboring Eritrea, which Ethiopia’s government has denied.

The U.S. has said Eritrean soldiers should “immediately” leave Ethiopia. And earlier this week, a State Department spokesperson said “we remain gravely concerned by the widespread humanitarian suffering and reported human rights abuses in the Tigray region.”

The spokesperson urged “an immediate end to the fighting in Tigray, full and unhindered humanitarian access, an independent investigation into the human rights violations and abuses and for those responsible to be held accountable.”

Abiy Ahmed: The First Nobel Laureate On Trial at the International Criminal Court?

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National Interest | Ethiopia’s prime minister may want to coast on the laurels of the Nobel Prize but, realistically, he may very quickly become the first Nobel laureate to face war crimes charges.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee announced on October 11, 2019, that Ethiopian prime minister Abiy Ahmed had won that year’s Nobel Peace Prize “for his efforts to achieve peace and international cooperation.” The committee wanted to highlight Abiy’s initiative to end Ethiopia’s border conflict with Eritrea and “to recognize all the stakeholders working for peace and reconciliation in Ethiopia and in the East and Northeast African regions.” But they picked the wrong man.

In June 2020, Abiy extra-constitutionally postponed elections. When Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region refused and, on Sept. 9, 2020, held its own parliamentary elections marked by long lines and high participation that the opposition Tigray People’s Liberation Front won. Abiy responded two months later by cutting Tigray’s internet access and phone lines and sending in the Ethiopian Army to oust the elected government from Mekelle, the provincial capital. Multiple reports confirm that Eritrea’s military also entered the region, operating side-by-side with Ethiopian troops as they sacked and looted towns and villages in the region. On Jan. 13, 2021, Ethiopia announced that its forces had killed Seyoum Mesfin, the country’s long-serving former foreign minister, while fighting. Subsequent photos suggest that Abiy’s men had summarily executed Mesfin.

While Ethiopia repeatedly said that the situation in Tigray was calm, reports continued to circulate alleging that Ethiopian forces had engaged in widespread human-rights violations. With the restoration of communication to the region, it now appears these reports were legitimate. Ethiopians now circulate videos of summary executions. This video circulated today purports to show the summary execution of two men in the Tigrayan market town of Adwa. The greatest war crime, however, appears to be a massacre of more than eight hundred Tigrayans at the Church of St. Mary of Zion in Axum, reputed to be the resting place of the Ark of the Covenant, shortly after Ethiopian forces entered the area. Reached by phone by the Associated Press, a church deacon recounted the massacre:

The deacon recalled soldiers bursting into the church, cornering and dragging out worshippers and shooting at those who fled. “I escaped by chance with a priest,” he said. “As we entered the street, we could hear gunfire all over.” They kept running, stumbling over the dead and wounded along with others trying to find places to hide. Most of the hundreds of victims were killed that day, he said, but the shooting and looting continued the following day. “They started to kill people who were moving from church to home or home to home, simply because they were on the street,” another witness, visiting university lecturer Getu Mak, told the Associated Press. “It was a horrible act to see.”

The deacon confirmed that he had counted the bodies of those killed in the massacre, and alleged that Ethiopian forces left bodies in the streets for days where they were feasted upon by hyenas. With growing witness accounts, the Ethiopian Foreign Ministry has now tweeted that “Rape, plunder, callous & intentional mass killings, as observed & verified in #Mikadra, & every other imaginable crime might happen in #Tigray” although it continued to deny both the regime’s own culpability and ignore eyewitness accounts of Eritrean forces participating in human-rights abuses.

Just as the Norwegian Nobel Committee once honored Burmese politician Aung San Suu Kyi only to learn she was an apologist to genocide, so too must it confront Abiy’s increasingly murderous record. Paul Rusesabagina, the hotel manager made famous in “Hotel Rwanda” and lionized by Western politicians is likewise now facing accountability for his support of armed groups and designated terrorists.

Abiy’s apologists criticize Ethiopia’s constitutional federalism and still describe Abiy as a reformer. Suspending elections and unilaterally changing the law without regard to any constitutional process, however, is the mark of dictatorship rather than reform. Engaging in ethnic cleansing, rape, and murder against regional opposition puts Abiy in the class of Omar al-Bashir, Sudan’s former president who was indicted while still in office for his genocidal campaign against Darfur.

Abiy and his forces still ban journalists from traveling to Tigray and other provinces where locals allege Ethiopian and/or Eritrean forces have massacred civilians. Abiy may deny such events, but innocent parties seldom ban journalists who could confirm the truth of their statements. Rather, the travel bans and communication cut-offs are likely meant to help Abiy to escape accountability for his actions. Filibustering the outside world will not work, however, nor will the truth fade from the memory of surviving victims or the family members of those killed in Tigray. Abiy may want to coast on the laurels of the Nobel Prize but, realistically, he may very quickly become the first Nobel laureate to face war crimes charges at the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

Michael Rubin is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and a frequent author for the National Interest

 

EU development chief calls for united response on Ethiopia

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DevEx | The European Union’s top representative for development aid said Tuesday that the bloc needs to “plan very carefully” when it comes to Ethiopia, as Brussels continues to withhold funding from the government over the conflict in the country’s North.

In December, the European Commission postponed €88 million in planned budget support payments, with officials saying they could not give one euro to the government of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed until unimpeded humanitarian access is granted to the Tigray region, among other conditions.

Jutta Urpilainen, EU commissioner for international partnerships, told reporters Tuesday that another five budget support payments, together worth €100 million ($120 million), are due in 2021.

“So of course we need to plan very carefully,” the former Finnish finance minister said, adding that coordination with EU member states would be necessary to decide “what are we going to do with those disbursements and payments and then, of course, have this kind of a broader strategy towards Ethiopia.” The commission will also program its 2021-2027 development budget this year, with Ethiopia among the largest recipients for the 2014-2020 period.

“What we need is this kind of international approach including all different actors in order to leverage and really make a difference.” — Jutta Urpilainen, EU commissioner for international partnerships

A spokesperson for the commission did not immediately clarify when the 2021 budget support payments are due nor which government departments they are destined for.

Brussels’ initial move in December drew an angry response from Ethiopia, with its EU ambassador urging donors not to be distracted by “transient challenges” and reiterating the country’s strategic importance as the “beacon of stability in the Horn of Africa.” Other donors appear to be heeding those warnings, with the commission struggling to get even its own member states to freeze their bilateral support.

Urpilainen acknowledged as much Tuesday, also calling on the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, United Kingdom, United States, and Canada to tell Abiy that without full humanitarian access to Tigray, financial support for the government will be shut off. “What we need is this kind of international approach including all different actors in order to leverage and really make a difference,” she said.

Urpilainen said Ethiopia, along with Chad and Zambia, has requested debt relief through the G-20 group of nations and Paris Club’s new Common Framework for Debt Treatments beyond the Debt Service Suspension Initiative. However, she said, “I would say that it is not a political decision whether to give any kind of debt relief or debt restructuring for Ethiopia,” instead citing the need for technical analysis by the World Bank and IMF.

Finnish Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto will report to EU foreign ministers Monday on the outcome of his recent visit to Ethiopia. “Our concern of course is: Is humanitarian aid really reaching the people in Tigray?” Urpilainen said. “What is the real situation concerning the human rights violations and so forth? So I think now everybody is waiting for his report.”

Paul Kagame calls for concerted action on Tigray battle

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(Ecofin Agency) – For Rwandan president Paul Kagame, the UN, the USA, and other African countries are not sufficiently engaged in finding a solution to the Tigray conflict. This negligence could worsen the crisis in the coming years, he believes.

On February 3rd, during the chat show Battlegrounds (a periodic chat organized and hosted by the Hoover Institution for “international perspectives on crucial challenges to security and prosperity”, President Paul Kagame expressed his views on the management of the Tigray conflict. According to the official, concerted action is needed towards a lasting solution to the Tigray conflict, which has already forcibly displaced thousands of livelihoods.

“For Ethiopia […] the toll is getting too high […] It is absolutely worrying and I hope the United States’ new administration, the UN, and others are thinking of how to collaborate with other African states to see what can be achieved together, for the African continent. Africa needs to be engaged primarily, but it is not that easy to say Africa is going to do this with this… It is going to be difficult, but something needs to happen to manage and quell that [conflict] because, by maybe one, two, or three years, we shall find that the toll is extremely high,” He said.

For the Rwandan president, the international community does not have enough credible information about the crisis facing Ethiopia. “In fact, the other problem is that it [Ethiopia] has been cut off from the rest of the world. People don’t really know what is going on in there, other than the misery and the things we see when people cross the border and run into Sudan or things we hear when people who have been working there with difficulty say what they have seen or heard,” Paul Kagame remarked, adding that the situation should not be ignored.

The said Tigray conflict opposing the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) to the federal government of Ethiopia has had important humanitarian consequences on the country and its neighbors, Sudan notably. For instance, from November 2020 to date, 58,000 Ethiopian refugees fleeing the conflict fled to Sudan while millions of Ethiopians have become internally displaced persons.

A U.N intervention in Tigray?

For Mehari Taddele Maru (Ethiopian Human rights activist and Part-time Professor at Migration Policy Centre of the European University Institute), it is now vital for the UN security council to take action in Tigray.

The he human rights activist believes such intervention is justified, per his conviction that the interference of the defense forces of Eritrea (which shares a border with Tigray and is already accused of interfering in the conflict) could transform the crisis into both a civil war and international conflict, which the UN is competent for. He also pointed at the humanitarian challenges and the possible human rights violations reported.

According to Mr. Maru, a UN intervention in Ethiopia will be supported by the United States, whose new administration has expressed concern about the crisis in Tigray. During his confirmation hearing before the Senate, Antony Blinken, the new U.S. Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, announced the appointment of a special envoy for the Horn of Africa. The objective being for the United States to be more active on issues such as Tigray.

During the hearing, Anthony Blinken explained that “there needs to be greater access to the region, more accountability, a restoration of communication and humanitarian assistance, and an effort to put dialogue in place to address key issues.”

As for President Paul Kagame, African countries must be the main actors in the resolution of the conflict, if concerted action is finally approved. “At some point, there have to be steps to try and address that issue and if it could start from within the country itself, so much the better. But I think the toll is just getting too high as we see it […] Africa needs to be engaged primarily,” he said while acknowledging that it would be easier said than done.

Let’s note that the federal government of Ethiopia has consistently opposed the international community’s involvement in resolving the Tigray conflict. It has also been turning deaf ears to call for dialogue with the TPLF (which was ruling the Tigray region before the conflict broke out). The appeals of Paul Kagame who is ruling Rwanda, a country that experienced genocide in 1994 and is still suffering its aftermath, could be important calls for the pacification of the Tigray region.

Note: In a previous version of this article, we mistakenly attributed human rights activist Mehari Taddele Maru’s statements to Paul Kagame. We extend our apologies to our audience for this mistake.

A humanitarian disaster stares Ethiopia’s Tigray in the face

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Hunger stalks region of six million people as federal government’s offensive against rebels enters its fourth month

Over a million people could starve if aid is not allowed into conflict zone, says Famine Early Warning Systems Network

Arab News | DUBAI: With their few hurriedly packed belongings wrapped tightly in fabric, entire families, many with young children, are traversing vast distances on foot these days to escape fighting in northern Ethiopia between federal armed forces and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF).

Since the conflict erupted three months ago, nearly two million Ethiopians have been forced to flee the country’s Tigray region, many arriving in neighboring Sudan with axe and knife wounds, others with broken bones and severe mental trauma.

Those who have chosen to stay behind — the vast majority of Tigray’s six million inhabitants — now face shortages of food, medicine and drinking water. Ethiopia is facing accusations of blocking aid and the specter of mass hunger haunts the region.

Most concerning of all is the imminent risk of mass hunger, a phenomenon Ethiopians are tragically familiar with. The Great Famine that afflicted the country between 1888 and 1892 killed roughly one-third of its population. Another in 1983-85 left 1.2 million dead.

According to the Famine Early Warning Systems Network, presided over by the US government, parts of central and eastern Tigray are just a step away from famine, with fears more than a million could die of starvation if aid is not allowed in soon.

In a recent statement, a trio of Tigray opposition parties said that at least 50,000 civilians had been killed in the conflict since November. Aid agencies and journalists have not been permitted access to the region to verify the death toll.

Ethiopian authorities insist aid is being delivered and that nearly 1.5 million people have been reached. But experts on the Horn of Africa believe one of the worst humanitarian disasters in modern history is unfolding in the conflict zone.

“If the world averts its eyes, it is a bystander to one of the most grievous mass atrocities of our era,” Alex de Waal, executive director of the World Peace Foundation and a research professor at The Fletcher School at Tufts University, told Arab News.

“It will be an unforgivable ethical stain. It is also a matter of interest. Do the countries of the Arabian Peninsula want to see another Yemen-like calamity on the southern shores of the Red Sea — a little further away, but even bigger.”

The TPLF, which had dominated Ethiopian politics after the fall of the military dictatorship in 1991 until Abiy’s election victory in 2018, had been in coalition with the current government until the two sides fell out in 2019.

In direct defiance of the federal government’s decision to postpone all votes until the COVID-19 pandemic was under control, Tigray authorities pressed ahead with their own parliamentary election in September. Federal authorities said the vote was illegal.

Tensions escalated further in November when Abiy accused the TPLF of seizing a military base in the regional capital Mekelle. His government responded by declaring a state of emergency, cutting off electricity, internet and telephone services, and designating the TPLF as a terrorist organization.

Although Abiy claimed victory when federal troops entered Mekelle on Nov. 28, the bloodshed has continued as Tigrayan leaders have vowed to fight on.

“The federal government called the conflict a law enforcement operation (intended) to remove from office the Tigray region’s rogue executive,” William Davison, International Crisis Group’s senior analyst for Ethiopia, told Arab News.

“The reality was that Tigray’s defenses were overwhelmed by the full power of the Ethiopian federal military and allied forces.”

FASTFACTS
UN REPORT HIGHLIGHTS
* Reports from aid workers on the ground indicate rise in acute malnutrition across Tigray region.

* Only 1% of the nearly 920 nutrition treatment facilities are reachable.

* Aid response is drastically inadequate, with little access to rural population off the main roads.

* Some aid workers have to negotiate access with armed actors, even Eritrean ones.

After presenting the TPLF as a treasonous entity that had attacked the military and violated the constitutional order, the Ethiopian government said it was left with no choice but to act.

The Ethiopian government has also moved against those who questioned whether the intervention would be as quick and painless as it first claimed — including Davison, who was deported on Nov. 20 without an official reason.

“If you now say things critical of the government then you will be perceived as doing the bidding of the opponent, the TPLF,” said Davison, who is now based in Kenya.

“Myself and others were perceived to be doing the work of the TPLF and the government was doing its utmost to convince everyone that the TPLF was a treasonous entity that had attacked the military and violated the constitutional order.”

Abiy, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019 for restoring relations with Ethiopia’s long-time foe Eritrea, is now being accused by some of war crimes in Tigray.

Seyoum Mesfin, a former Ethiopian foreign minister, peacemaker and an elder statesman of Africa, was among three TPLF leaders killed by the military in early January in a move that sparked an international outcry.

Pramila Patten, the UN envoy on sexual violence in conflict. has said there are “disturbing reports of individuals allegedly forced to rape members of their own family, under threats of imminent violence.”

Recently, the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission said 108 cases of rape had been reported over the last two months in the whole of Tigray. It admitted that “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.”

All this amounts to a sharp reversal of fortune for a country that just months ago was being feted as Africa’s fastest growing economy. Now, Ethiopian journalists and human-rights activists are afraid to speak out, many of them avoiding the border areas and letting military atrocities go unreported.

“We’ve been on our toes for months now. You need to be very careful with your comments,” one Addis Ababa-based political analyst, who did not wish to be identified, told Arab News.

“Human-rights abuses are being committed on all sides: the Amhara militias (one of the two largest ethnic groups in Ethiopia), the federal troops themselves and the Eritreans too.

“The humanitarian aspect of the conflict is frightening and especially the lack of indication from the government’s side in providing aid. They say they will, publicly. But large sections of Tigray are still inaccessible. It’s very difficult to say how long they intend to keep it this way, which is of great concern.”

Eritrean soldiers have compounded the problem by reportedly attacking the TPLF on behalf of Abiy’s government, prompting calls from Joe Biden’s administration for their immediate withdrawal. (Both Asmara and Addis Ababa deny that Eritrean forces are present in Tigray.)

Reports say many of the estimated 100,000 Eritrean refugees residing in the region are at risk of getting caught in the crossfire or being forcibly returned. Filippo Grandi, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, has said he is “deeply alarmed by reports of refugees being killed, abducted and forcibly returned to Eritrea that would constitute a major violation of international law.”

De Waal of the World Peace Foundation says if the war causes a humanitarian catastrophe and the economic collapse of Ethiopia, there is no doubt that the consequences will be felt far and wide.

“The human and economic price will be paid by the people of the Horn of Africa, but those people will also start moving en masse towards Europe, and the humanitarian cum economic bailout bill will be presented to Europe and the US,” he told Arab News.

“At a time of austerity and reduced aid budgets, this presents aid donors with a terrible dilemma.”

Summing up the Tigray crisis and its potential solution without mincing words, De Waal said: “With every passing day there is more suffering, killing, starvation, deeper bitterness and wider repercussions. Withdraw Eritrean troops. Then start political talks.”

Ethiopia’s Tigray conflict and the battle to control information

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Al Jazeera | Warnings about deterioration of press freedom as independent journalists endure harassment, denied access to embattled northern region

The eruption of fighting in Ethiopia’s Tigray region 100 days ago has pitted journalists wanting to report on the conflict against a government seeking to maintain total narrative control.

The government-imposed lockdown of the northern region and communications blackout affecting the internet, mobile phones and landlines has made access and assessment for aid agencies dealing with the unfolding humanitarian crisis extremely difficult. It has also made it next to impossible for media seeking entry to investigate artillery attacks on populated areas, deliberate targeting and massacres of civilians, extrajudicial killings, widespread looting and rape, including by suspected Eritrean soldiers.

At the same time, journalists in the country have been detained, faced threats and harassment – and even attacks.

“This is the worst period in my 10-plus years of journalism,” said one Addis Ababa-based Ethiopian freelance journalist, who, like every journalist contacted for this article, insisted on anonymity due to fear of reprisals, both professional and physical.

The journalist noted that even before Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed ordered the November 4 offensive to remove the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) after attacks of federal army bases, the government was already using new anti-hate speech and fake news legislation against critical journalists. “The risk was mainly restricted to imprisonment and verbal harassment. Now, you have the extra risk of losing your life or having your house ransacked as well as vicious social media trolling.”

The journalist said they have had to abandon several writing projects, including one on the plight of a small ethnic group caught up in the secretive Tigray conflict, due to fears about “plain old thuggery and intimidation of journalists”.

‘Regressing signs’

The list of attacks on and intimidation of journalists in Ethiopia is growing. After the Addis Standard, one of Ethiopia’s most influential independent publications, issued a statement in early November urging the government to open channels of communication, Medihane Ekubamichael, a senior editor, was arrested at his home for “attempts to dismantle the Constitution through violence” and “outrage against the Constitution”. He was soon released – but then arrested again and held for about a month. Responsible for much of the paper’s day-to-day operations, his absence meant it had to reduce its journalistic output.

On January 19, Dawit Kebede Araya, a reporter with broadcaster Tigray TV, was found dead with gunshot wounds to his head in his car near Mekelle, Tigray’s regional capital. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has urged an independent investigation into whether his killing was motivated by his work.

On February 8, Ethiopian freelance journalist Lucy Kassa, who has reported about Tigray for several foreign media including the Los Angeles Times and Al Jazeera, said armed intruders broke into her Addis Ababa home. She said men knocked her to the ground, raided her apartment and took a laptop and other items related to her reporting, accusing her of “spreading lies” and supporting “the Tigray junta”.

Three leading Democratic US senators recently wrote to Abiy expressing concerns about the erosion of press freedoms and the government’s “draconian tactics”, while calling for the release of detained journalists.

Now, rights groups said the continuing clash about freedom of the press is rolling back gains made by the country’s long-suffering media, signalling a swing back towards authoritarian intolerance.

“The imprisonment of journalists, many of whom were held for weeks without formal charges, are an indicator of the deterioration of press freedom in Ethiopia and a sign that the government is regressing despite the positive reforms made in 2018 when Abiy became prime minister,” said Muthoki Mumo, CPJ’s representative for sub-Saharan Africa.

“Ethiopian journalists should feel free to publish critical reports and commentary, and this cannot happen in an environment where police can arrest and hold them for weeks without charge, blatantly weaponising the judicial system to intimidate the media.”

The press secretary for the Office of the Prime Minister of Ethiopia did not respond to several requests for comment.

Media landscape challenges

When Abiy was awarded the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize, the committee praised his “discontinuing media censorship” among his achievements during his first 100 days in power. Positive changes to Ethiopia’s media landscape, including the country ending its block of more than 260 websites and lifting a ban on media outlets forced to work in exile, saw Ethiopia rise in the World Press Freedom Index compiled by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) from 150 out of 180 countries in 2018 to the 99th rank in 2020. The CPJ’s 2018 annual Prison Census report on journalists imprisoned for their work around the world included no Ethiopians – a first in 14 years.

But as Abiy’s tenure has progressed, so has criticism of his lack of transparency – the prime minister announced the Tigray offensive, in effect a declaration of war, on Facebook – and for repeating what has always happened in Ethiopia when a fresh administration arrives promising reform and freedom of speech: initially new media flourish as restrictions are lifted, but within a few years, the situation returns to the old ways of previous Ethiopian governments.

The CPJ’s 2020 Prison Census published in December 2020 included seven Ethiopian journalists, the third-most among sub-Saharan African countries, after Eritrea and Cameroon (six Ethiopian journalists have been released since the report was published).

Monitors do acknowledge that the government has to deal with a media landscape that is institutionally weak, in which freedom of expression is abused by some media to foment tension and partisanship, even ethnic violence.

“There are legitimate concerns from state and non-state actors about misinformation, disinformation and incitement, particularly during times of political tension,” Muthoki said. “However, these concerns should not be used as pretext to harass the media for critical reporting; to criminalise dissenting views; or as justification to throw journalists behind bars.”

It has long been understood that Ethiopian journalists have it tougher than Ethiopia-based foreign journalists who can more easily seek backup from international agencies or embassies. Ethiopian journalists from Tigray face even more difficulties from the conflict’s fallout. Ethnic Tigrayan journalists have reportedly been collectively suspended from state media outlets, while several anchors of state-owned Ethiopian television were suspended from work for objecting to the wording of news about the Tigray war, according to a source in the industry.

Commenting on an RSF statement about the attack on Kassa, who is Tigrayan, the government’s Ethiopia State of Emergency Fact Check said “all individuals need to be free from any form of harm” but added the press watchdog was wrong in describing her as working for foreign organisations because she did not have the necessary press authorisation.

CPJ condemned the government unit’s statement as “disgraceful”. “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],” it said.

‘Extreme intolerance’

But the screw seems to be turning also on foreign journalists, too. Even while being denied access in Tigray, journalists have said that members of foreign media are also portrayed by the Ethiopian state as “traitors” and enemies of Ethiopia, “paid by Western governments to destabilise Ethiopia”. Foreign reporters also report difficulties renewing work visas, while some have been threatened with deportation. Just quoting the TPLF, the region’s former governing party that has clashed with Abiy, will get you in trouble, journalists have said.

“The level of intolerance around Tigray is as extreme as anything I have seen,” said one long-term commentator on Ethiopia who recently visited the country after working there for nearly a decade, and who described Abiy as displaying “classic dictatorial tendencies”.

There have also been suggestions by journalists the government is employing a coordinated strategy to oppress and undermine journalists through social media, state media and the Ethiopian diaspora. Al Jazeera could not independently verify these claims.

But just as the government is being accused of firing out reams of propaganda and leveraging claims of fake news, so, too, have its opponents. The anti-government strategy appears to be focused on increasing activity on social media – in particular, on Twitter – with supporters encouraged to create new accounts and respond to content about the conflict while also spreading hashtags and tweeting at influential Twitter users. The government has countered by positioning itself in the role of fact-checker and provider of reliable information, usurping the job that the media should be doing.

The result is an extremely confusing information environment compounded by a general sense of suspicion about the information coming out about the conflict – all of which journalists must contend with and try to make sense of, while being impeded by the government.

“The government needs to understand the media is an important component to building a strong democratic society that can inform the public and serve as a platform for dialogue,” said Tewodrose Tirfe, chair of the Amhara Association of America, a US-based advocacy group for the Amhara, Ethiopia’s second-largest ethnic group.

“The government needs to view the Ethiopian media as a partner and not limit journalists access to conflict areas and government officials.”