Hello everyone. Welcome to the second installment of Elsewhere in Focus. You can find the previous installment here.
Today we will read about Tigray, a region of Ethiopia suffering from oppression-induced hunger, potential famine and violence.
Why?
Because over half a million—likely an under count—have already died in the conflict there and more are at risk of dying thanks to the regime induced famine and a likely re-ignition of the conflict. Not to mention the continual violence that others are meting out.
But I am jumping the gun.
Let us start by taking a detailed look at what is happening in Tigray.
Tigray
What Is Happening in Tigray?
Tigray is on the brink of famine. This is happening in the midst of an ethnic cleansing campaign and blockade that the Ethiopian regime denies. Alex de Waal has written for the BBC about the conditions that prevail (or prevailed in Jan) in Tigray (24 January 2024) .
Famine is stalking parts of Ethiopia. The epicentre is in the northern Tigray region.
Villagers who have not yet recovered from the ravages of the recent war in the region are now stricken by severe drought.
Reports of hundreds of children dying of starvation are trickling in from remote areas.
What is particularly disturbing is that this crisis is unfolding so early in the season. The main harvest in Tigray and neighbouring Amhara is in November, and this is the time of year when food should be most plentiful.
The federal government in Addis Ababa denies that a famine is imminent, and says it is working to provide aid.
Veterans of relief operations, however, are comparing the crisis to the situation in 1984, when a combination of drought and war caused a famine that killed up to a million people.
The UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha) estimates that more than 20 million Ethiopians are in need of food aid, of whom about a third are receiving assistance. In Tigray, the picture is especially alarming.
Last month, the Tigrayan authorities said that 3.5 million people, more than half the region's population, needed aid for the entire year.
About two-thirds were farmers, and one-third were people displaced by the war who could not yet return home. Another 1.7 million people would need aid at some point during 2024, Ocha said.
The main reason for the calamity is that the ravages of war reduced Tigray to extreme poverty.
The fighting was between Ethiopian government and allied forces on the one hand, and Tigrayan forces on the other, following a massive fall-out between the federal and regional governments.
It lasted for two years from November 2020, and saw an extraordinary level of destruction.
Though there were official denials, soldiers were accused of stealing or burning food and farms, slaughtering livestock, including plough oxen, and ransacking and vandalising water systems.
More than 1.4 million people were forcibly displaced, especially from the more fertile western parts of Tigray, which were taken over by the neighbouring Amhara region.
What Are the Origins of This Conflict?
We might say the story starts in 2018 with protests and the toppling of the dominance of an ethnic group and an autocratic ruler. However, as with Sudan, that is not where the story begins.
You may know that Ethiopia was an old style kingdom first; perhaps the only country in Africa that remained independent through the period of imperialism, enslavement and settler-colonialism. The country fell to Italy in the 1930s and gained independence in 1941. Mr. Dopper0189 had written about the country’s stand against imperialism for the Black Kos. In 1974, a military coup overthrew the king. From 1974, a multi-ethnic coalition fought a civil war with the regime until 1991, when they managed to overthrow the dictatorship in favour of their coalition.
The Council on Foreign Relations gives a brief background on the conflict (updated, 19 Dec 2023).
Between 2020 and 2022, Ethiopia fought a war with militants from its northernmost region of Tigray, then under the control of the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF). The conflict was one of the deadliest in recent world history and drew international attention for a preponderance of alleged war crimes, human rights abuses, and ethnic cleansing in Tigray. The war formally ended in November 2022; Tigray was left in ruins, and its capital was turned over to the federal government.
For decades before the war, the TPLF was a dominant political force in Ethiopia. Between 1991 and his death in 2012, Tigrayan soldier-politician Meles Zenawi governed Ethiopia as an autocracy with the backing of a TPLF-dominated coalition. The Zenawi regime oversaw rapid development and increased the international prominence of Ethiopia, but his government marginalized ethnic groups, including the Oromo and Amhara, to solidify government power. Additionally, Ethiopia was at war with Eritrea [PDF] from 1998 to 2000. The war was followed by a nearly twenty-year-long frozen conflict, effectively paralyzing both countries politically and economically.
The TPLF continued to govern Ethiopia after Zenawi’s passing until 2018, when protests, especially among the Oromo population, prompted the government to appoint Abiy Ahmed Ali as the next Prime Minister. Abiy, born in Oromia, was heralded by international actors and Ethiopians alike as the country’s new hope for peace and ethnic harmony. Abiy promised early in his premiership to heal broken trust between the country’s ethnic groups and began to roll back restrictions on certain political freedoms. In 2019, he received the Nobel Peace Prize for negotiating an end to Ethiopia’s two-decade standoff with Eritrea.
The Tigrayans seem to have played the most prominent role in overthrowing the military rule, which gave them dominance in the ruling coalition made up of Tigrayans, Oromo and Amhara among others (EPRDF). Despite being seven percent of the population, they gathered most of the political and military posts and wealth for themselves. This inequality led to protests and Abiy Ahmed coming to power.
Abiy Ahmed sought to centralise the country’s federal coalition system in place since 1991. As Eliza Mackintosh reported for the CNN, (5 November 2021).
In 2018, Abiy was appointed by the ruling class to quell tensions and bring change, without upending the old political order. But almost as soon as he became prime minister, Abiy announced the rearrangement of the ruling coalition that the TPLF had founded – the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Front, or EPRDF, which was composed of four parties – into a single, new Prosperity Party, ostracizing the TPLF in the process.
In his drive for a new pan-Ethiopian political party, Abiy sparked fears in some regions that the country’s federal system – which guarantees significant autonomy to ethnically-defined states such as Tigray – was under threat. Leaders in Tigray withdrew to their mountainous heartland in the north, where they continued to control their own regional government.
Tensions boiled over in September, when the Tigrayans defied Abiy by going ahead with regional parliamentary elections that he had delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic. Abiy called the vote illegal and lawmakers cut funding to the TPLF leadership, setting off a tit-for-tat series of escalations between the regional and the federal government.
On November 4, after accusing the TPLF of attacking a federal army base outside Tigray’s regional capital Mekelle and attempting to steal its weapons, Abiy ordered a military assault against the group, sending in national troops and fighters from the neighboring region of Amhara, along with soldiers from Eritrea.
Abiy declared the offensive a success after just three weeks when government forces took over Mekelle, and installed an interim administration loyal to Addis Ababa.
The civil war continued into 2021 and 2022, when a ceasefire was signed. As Human Rights Watch notes, ethnic cleansing in Tigray continued after that (1 June 2023). As per Tigrayans, it continues till date.
(Nairobi) – Local authorities and Amhara forces in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region have continued to forcibly expel Tigrayans as part of an ethnic cleansing campaign in Western Tigray Zone since the November 2, 2022, truce agreement, Human Rights Watch said today. The Ethiopian government should suspend, investigate, and appropriately prosecute commanders and officials implicated in serious rights abuses in Western Tigray.
Since the outbreak of armed conflict in Tigray in November 2020, Amhara security forces and interim authorities have carried out a campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Tigrayan population in Western Tigray, committing war crimes and crimes against humanity. Recent Human Rights Watch research found that two officials, Col. Demeke Zewdu and Belay Ayalew, who were previously implicated in abuses, continue to be involved in arbitrary detention, torture, and forced deportations of Tigrayans. [...]
Amhara regional special forces and Fano militia in Humera and Rawyan held Tigrayans in both official and unofficial detention sites in dire conditions. “There was no medical treatment,” said a 28-year-old who was detained in Bet Hintset prison in Humera. “If people got sick, they remained there until they die.” Many died due to lack of food and medication.
On the evening of November 9, Amhara forces and authorities in Western Tigray carried out the coordinated expulsion of detainees from sites around Humera and nearby towns to central Tigray. A report prepared by aid agencies found that Fano militia transported more than 2,800 men, women, and children from 5 detention sites in Western Tigray on November 10, according to Reuters.
As do the human rights abuses as the Guardian Correspondent notes (19 Sep 2023).
Human rights abuses are still being committed in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region more than 10 months after a ceasefire formally ended the bloody civil war, according to a group of UN experts.
The latest report by the UN’s International Commission of Human Rights Experts on Ethiopia said the nation’s government was failing to protect its citizens from “grave and ongoing” human rights abuses being committed by militias and Eritrean troops, who fought alongside Ethiopia’s federal military and remain in border areas of Tigray.
These human rights abuses include sexual and gender-based violence “abetted or tolerated” by the Ethiopian government, according to the report, which was released on Monday.
It said a “transitional justice” process initiated by Ethiopia’s government did not meet international standards and expressed alarm over recent increases in violence in Oromia and Amhara, Ethiopia’s two most populous regions.
The failure to implement a meaningful justice process was fostering a culture of impunity and heightening the risk of future atrocities, said the experts, who noted rising online hate speech in Ethiopia against ethnic and political groups and LGBT people.
“The conflict in Tigray, still not resolved in any comprehensive peace, continues to produce misery,” the report said.
The war has spread to Amhara and Oromia as well.
Are There Regional Players Involved?
Apart from the government of Ethiopia, the Eritrean regime is also involved in the ethnic cleansing and human rights abuses in Tigray. As this Reuters piece by Ayenat Mersie, Giulia Paravicini and Katherine Houreld notes (1 Nov 2021).
Over two decades, Eritreans poured across the border into Ethiopia, fleeing forced military service, torture, and prison in one of Africa’s most repressive states. By last November, around 20,000 of them were living at two refugee camps here in Ethiopia’s Tigray province, finding haven in their more prosperous neighbour.
That month, rebellion broke out in Tigray, pitting the region’s rulers against Ethiopia’s central government. The Eritrean military sent in tanks and troops to aid its ally, Ethiopian leader Abiy Ahmed – and to settle old scores.
Within days, truckloads of soldiers from the 35th Division of the Eritrean Army arrived at the two refugee camps, Hitsats and Shimelba. The soldiers had lists of names.
In Hitsats, where undulating hills wrapped around the camp’s white tents and corrugated iron shacks, soldiers called refugee leaders to a meeting. The 20 or more who complied were detained, said more than a dozen witnesses, one demonstrating how the men’s elbows were pinioned behind their backs. They were held for two days at a church building in the camp, then loaded onto trucks by Eritrean soldiers and driven away, the witnesses said. Reuters has confirmed the names of 17 of the men. Their families haven't heard from them since.
Eritrea as mentioned has a history with both Tigray and Ethiopia, having been part of the latter from 1952 until 1993. That and the opportunity to lift up their regional stature may have inspired them to get involved in the war as Richard Reid writes for The Conversation (30 Jan 2022).
The large-scale commitment of soldiers – as well as logistical and political support for Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed – is the result of a remarkable turnaround in relations between Asmara and Addis Ababa. After almost two decades of hostility, Abiy struck a peace deal with Eritrea’s Isaias Afwerki in July 2018 . This appeared to usher in a new era of stability and cooperation.
But that’s not what transpired. In the following months, Abiy intensified his programme of political reform in Ethiopia. He consolidated his power at the expense of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front. The movement had dominated politics in Ethiopia since 1991.
The front was also Eritrea’s bitterest enemy. There had been a troubled history of relations between it and the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front dating back to the 1970s. This antagonism culminated in a war between Ethiopia and Eritrea between 1998 and 2000.
The outbreak of the war in Tigray served a number of purposes for Isaias. Firstly, it gave him the opportunity to end Eritrea’s long-standing international isolation. It did this by enabling him to exercise influence in a conflict which threatened to completely destabilise the region. This was a deeply worrying prospect to a range of international actors.
Secondly, it reasserted his influence in Ethiopia’s internal affairs.
And lastly it provided an opportunity to seek revenge on the Tigray People’s Liberation Front. The front’s leadership outwitted and outgunned Eritrea militarily in the 1998-2000 war. It also outmanoeuvred Eritrea diplomatically in the years following the conflict.
Thus, Tigrayans are fighting not just one but two regimes.
Of course, some may say that their past actions might have brought it up on them. However, past abuse is not a reason for continuation of abuse, isn’t that so? In any case innocents are perishing in the conflict and the cycle is just continuing. That is hardly to anyone’s benefit.
What Is the Humanitarian Situation?
As noted above, there is famine. There are also people who have suffered violence and displacement and are unable to return home or gain access to any sort of support. Sarah Miller for Refugees International describes the situation (29 Feb 2024).
It has been over a year since peace was declared between the Federal Ethiopia Government and authorities in the Tigray region. Yet at a time when the region should be recovering, people remain in crisis. Widespread hunger is gripping a portion of the population, including the most vulnerable. That hunger is a function of two years of living under siege during the war, a crippling drought, and a nearly seven-month pause in food aid intended to root out corruption. Mothers who survived gang-rape by soldiers should be undergoing treatment for physical and mental healing, but instead are wondering how they will feed their children. For a range of reasons, aid has not scaled up to meet the need of Tigray’s internally displaced people (IDPs). If relief does not come, many will die, and some even fear that the fragile peace agreement could be in jeopardy.
Tigray’s brutal conflict, which started in November 2020, may have taken upwards of 600,000 lives and displaced nearly 3 million people. Widespread human rights violations and sexual violence have left deep scars on the population. During the conflict, much of the region was cut off from food and medicine, and communications and banking were blocked. Many are still unable to return home because Eritrean troops, Amhara forces, and others have yet to fully withdraw from these western and southern parts of Tigray, despite of the Cessation of Hostilities Agreement (CoHA) (also known as the Pretoria Agreement) requiring them to do so.
A drought and failure of harvest only compounded the problem. As per an AP report, people seem to think the condition is as bad as or worse than the 1980s famine (that Alex de Waal mentions in his piece). Amir Aman Kiyaro reports (11 March 2024).
An inadequate growing season followed.
Persistent insecurity meant only 49% of Tigray’s farmland was planted during the main planting season last year, according to an assessment by U.N. agencies, NGOs and the regional authorities, and seen by the AP. Crop production in these areas was only 37% of the expected total because of drought. In some areas the proportion was as low as 2%, that assessment said.
The poor harvest prompted Tigray’s authorities to warn of an “unfolding famine” that could match the famine of 1984-5, which killed hundreds of thousands of people across northern Ethiopia, unless the aid response was scaled up. Food deliveries to Tigray in the second half of last year, but only a small fraction of needy people in Tigray are receiving food aid, humanitarian workers say.
Finarwa, a farming community of about 13,000 people, is among the worst-hit places.
The town’s health center still has war-damaged equipment and some of its rooms appear abandoned. Tadesse Mehari, the officer in charge of the clinic, said the lack of food at homes in the community has forced children to flee and beg in nearby towns.
Around four hundred people (may be an under count) have already died due to famine in Ethiopia, most from Tigray.
What Has Been the International Response?
Unfortunately, not great. Not only has the African Union and even UN been doing nothing to stop Abiy Ahmed (facilitating him in fact), but the international aid organisations including WFP and USAid paused aid to Tigray.
Zecharias Zelalem writes for the Al Jazeera about AU’s muted response towards Ethiopia (14 Feb 2024).
Last month, Mahamat addressed a presummit session of the AU’s Permanent Representative’s Committee, stressing the importance of continent-wide solidarity and unity, citing conflicts in Sudan and Chad. He also called for a humanitarian ceasefire to end the war in Gaza.
But there was no mention of Ethiopia.
For years, AU officials have refrained from addressing atrocities in their host nation, maintaining a somewhat passive stance – or even supporting it.
Two months after Prime Minister Abiy sent troops into Tigray in 2020 – the advent of a war some researchers are now calling the deadliest of the 21st century due to an estimated 600,000 civilian deaths – Mahamat seemingly applauded the deployment, describing it as a bold step “to preserve the unity, stability, and respect for the constitutional order of the country”.
The comments came shortly after the AU dismissed a Tigrayan serving the bloc as a security adviser, acquiescing to a request by Abiy’s government that he be fired for “disloyalty to the country”.
Nearly a year later, in a post it deleted and apologised for, the AU’s official X account (then Twitter) slammed the United States for urging the warring factions to consider dialogue.
“We’ve documented lots of massacres and worked to inform the outside world about such events,” explains Jan Nyssen, a geographer at Ghent University who led its research into the war’s casualties. “But the reaction of the African Union was very weak. The only [African leader] to express concern was Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame who had asked the international community to prioritise the Tigray war in early 2021.”
Of course, Kagame is doing his own thing in Congo. Anyways, you can see why Tigrayans are furious with the African Union. Not the only people either. If I remember correctly, AU was also pretty weak on Sudan and many African leaders including South Africa were facilitating RSF leader Hemedti, the man responsible for the murder of tens of thousands of people in Darfur.
But I digress.
Coming back to Tigray, US and international aid agencies’ decisions have been less than helpful too. As a Guardian reporter in Yehila notes for the Guardian (9 Feb 2024).
The drought is one of the worst in recent memory, but it is just the latest crisis to hit Tigray. The rains failed in the middle of a suspension of aid, introduced by the US and the United Nations in mid-March over a huge scheme to steal humanitarian grain by Ethiopian officials. The pause was extended to the rest of Ethiopia in June when the theft was discovered to be nationwide.
At the time, sorely needed food was only just starting to enter Tigray after a devastating two-year civil war. During the conflict, the government turned off Tigray’s internet and blocked aid trucks from entering, a strategy that prompted UN experts to accuse it of using starvation as a weapon of war.
Untold thousands died from hunger and untreated disease; more were killed in massacres. Nearly all of Tigray’s 6 million people needed humanitarian help. In mid-2021, the UN wanted to declare a famine in Tigray, but Ethiopia’s government blocked the move, claims Mark Lowcock, the world body’s humanitarian chief at the time.
Instead, the UN said at least 400,000 people were “living in famine-like” conditions. The US put the figure as high as 900,000.
US, WFP and UN have resumed aid to Ethiopia but the percentage of aid delivered is not catching up with the requirements as per Sarah Miller writing for UN OCHA relief int. This is the same article as the one for Refugees International above (29 Feb 2024).
In 2023, just as the population was trying to begin recovery efforts, the U.S. government announced a pause in its food assistance program. The decision was due to widespread corruption and aid diversion by Ethiopian government and regional officials, with some food aid being sold for profit in local markets. While the investigation and much-needed reforms made operational sense, the timing could hardly have been worse. The real-life consequences for millions were catastrophic for the nearly one-sixth of Ethiopians who rely on food aid. Food assistance resumed in December 2023 and is slowly returning, but hunger is outpacing the scale-up. Aid groups indicate that only 14 percent of those targeted for food aid had received it by January 21, 2024, and that child malnutrition rates are around 26.5 percent.
This is apart from the fact that none of the three—AU, US/Europe, or UN—have been able to press the Ethiopian or Eritrean governments enough to bring the fighting to a stop. Rather, Abiy Ahmed has been talking of renewed armed focus on Tigray.
That is where we are.
Unless, the international community, and especially the African Union and UN, takes note and does something about the conditions in Ethiopia, hundreds of thousands will continue to die.
I know that the stories of these conflicts bring up the question: What can we do?
I think gaining and spreading awareness is the first step. Then, we can push our countries and politicians to engage seriously with the issues: find a way to pressure the governments involved, through sanctions, or other means, to bring the fighting to a stop and get aid in.
Easier said than done, I know. But unless, we are engaged, we won’t be even learning to learn from our mistakes.
Until next Wednesday, everyone. Stay safe. Be well.
May the people suffering from famine and violence in Tigray and rest of Ethiopia see just and equitable peace.