Shedding Light on the Ongoing Tigray Crisis

By: Mikal Yonas

November 2023 marks three years since the Ethiopian Government began its devastating military operations against the Northern Tigray Region in 2020. While western media coverage since 2020 on this matter has been minimal, the death, destruction, and horror certainly has not been.

From November 4th 2020 to November 2nd 2022, Ethiopia’s current President Abiy Ahmed sent in countless troops to fight Tigray’s ruling party: TPLF or the Tigray People’s Liberation Front. This was in response to already rising tensions between the two parties. After an alleged attack on federal army camps by TPLF, President Ahmed began cutting off internet communication lines, telephone lines and social welfare funds. This move ensured that information coming in and out of the Tigray region was sparse and rarely verified, making it harder for those who needed aid or support to receive it.

The devastation in the following weeks was eye-opening. The Mai Khadra massacre was the first of many, with Eritrean and Ethiopian armed forces slaughtering more than 600 civilians on the 9th and 10th of Nov. 2020. As fighting escalated through the rest of the month, thousands more innocent civilians were killed and tens of thousands more were displaced, forced to escape their homes and either flee to other neighboring regions such as Sudan.

The humanitarian crisis deepened in the Tigray region as the fighting continued. Not only were telephone and internet lines cut, but roads were blocked off or destroyed so aid from the outside aid agencies were not able to enter into Tigray. Fifty percent of the approx. 9000 water supply schemes were destroyed in Tigray by Ethiopian armed forces, which caused the clean water supply in the region to also fall short for the millions displaced. In addition to the shortages in food, water and medical aid, banking services in Tigray also were paused, which meant residents could not even access any of their personal funds.

By November 28th 2020, the capital of Tigray, Mekelle, was captured by Ethiopian armed forces. Yet, while President Ahmed claimed that his military operations in the region were complete, the violence on civilians did not halt following that day. Eritrean armed fighters remained a major presence in the Tigray region. In December 2020, those armed forces killed hundreds of innocent civilians in the holy city of Axum, where hundreds of Tigrayan people gathered for church service that day. As months passed by, more and more reports of deadly violence and disturbing atrocities being committed on Tigrayan civilians were made. Countless children were being starved. Mothers were seeing their children killed in front of them. Women and girls were suffering from sexual violence.

The senseless killing of innocent civilians was identified as “ethnic cleansing” by the US Secretary of State in 2021. Even after President Biden called for a ceasefire and the WHO called the crisis a “systematic blockade”, the violence in the Tigray persisted and the humanitarian crisis remained one of the worst in this decade. As of November 2023, nearly 2.3 million people are still in need of assistance in the region and 2 million were forced to flee their homes.

Even though the majority of the death and destruction in the Tigray was reported and accounted for by various sources coming from within the region, the aid coming in was sparse and the coverage even more so. While the US did pressure the Ethiopian and Eritrean governments to ceasefire and attend to the growing humanitarian crisis, the extent of their involvement to remedy the suffering in the region was minimal. International Aid Agencies did not come into the region until late 2021, over a year after the deadly conflict began. In December 2022, the WHO reported that they were not able to provide full medical aid for the Tigray region. And while there were few investigations done about the humanitarian crisis in Tigray by the EU, no major council members of the EU made any real diplomatic effort to mobilize support or renew the commission for a deeper investigation.

On November 2nd 2022, a ceasefire was called. Yet, the humanitarian crisis continued to have grave effects on the people of Tigray. The famine persisted in the region as aid continued to be inconsistent and International Aid agencies such as the UN’s WFP (World Food Program) have recently paused food aid to Tigray. As most of the fighting has ceased in the region, the slow journey of rebuilding a destroyed Tigray has begun for its people. Yet, even after three years of war and a full year since a ceasefire, many displaced citizens of Tigray are still not able to return to their homes due to federal government occupation and countless others still await their proper support from the Ethiopian government.

Sources:

https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/10/04/human-rights-council-eu-fails-ethiopias-victims

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/11/10/two-years-of-ethiopias-tigray-conflict-a-timeline

https://www.ethiopia-insight.com/2023/03/28/the-ethiopian-and-eritrean-armies-deliberately-destroyed-tigrays-water-sector/#:~:text=After%20the%20war%20began%20on,and%20bottling%20factories%20in%20Tigray.

https://www.bbc.com/news/57929853