💭 A truce declared last week by Ethiopia to allow the delivery of aid to the northern Tigray region has offered some hope that the 17-month civil war there could be coming to an end.
The region has been totally cut off for many months, leaving millions in desperate need of food and essential supplies. A resident of Tigray’s capital, Mekelle, which is under the control of the TPLF rebels, has managed to tell the BBC what life is like.
Getting hold of the basics needed to survive every day is a source of anxiety.
As a father with two small children, it breaks my heart that I am not able to provide for my family. This is in part because I am unable to use the money I have because all the banks are shut.
Many of us are facing this problem and cash is scarce.
I have not had access to my account since June last year and instead I have been borrowing money from friends and relatives here to buy food for the family.
Relatives abroad have also wanted to help but because all phones lines and the internet have both been cut off it is impossible to arrange this.
On top of this food prices have skyrocketed.
The local staple grain, teff, as well as wheat flour, pepper and cooking oil are becoming harder to afford.
A year ago, 100kg (220lbs) of teff would cost about $80 (£60) but now it will set you back $146.
Those who can afford it are buying a smaller quantity of teff and mixing it with cheaper sorghum and wheat in order to make injera (flat bread), which is an essential part of every meal.
But many others cannot buy teff at all.
We have been told to plant vegetables in our compound and we are working on it. The problem though is that we have to get hold of water.
We used to buy a 200-litre barrel of water to get us through the week, but now we can’t afford it and instead we’re getting water from shallow wells.
New shoes or clothes for the children and eating meat have become luxuries.
Running water and electric power are limited and they come on and off throughout the day – sometimes days can go by without either.
Many people are out of work and the majority of shops and business centres in Mekelle are closed as they are either unable to pay rent for their shops or lack supplies to sell.
As a result, people have started selling off their assets such as cars, furniture and jewellery to buy food. And they are forced to sell at a huge discount.
A 21-carat gold ring, which once cost $64 can be sold for as little as $12. A car can go for $7,000 even though it used to cost $16,000.
Once people have run out of things to sell they have turned to begging and there are so many beggars on streets – the majority are mothers with children.
Medical services have also run out of drugs.
Those with chronic health conditions are dying because of a lack of medicine.
People living with HIV are receiving their antiretroviral tablets intermittently.
Celebrations such as religious feasts and weddings that used to be such a vital part of the social fabric have become a distant memory.
As for what I do every day – before the schools re-opened I used to sleep in late.
This was because I was up at night watching and listening to all the news clips that I had managed to gather.
The latest news is hard to come by.
I don’t have access to the internet. Instead, I go to road-side vendors to record video and audio clips about current events which are sold for about $0.20 each.
At other times I either read books, chat with neighbours or walk.
Unaffordable petrol
Now that my son is back at school I have done a lot of walking. My phone tells me that I normally take 9,000 to 12,000 steps in a day.
I make the 2km (1.2-mile) journey to drop him off on foot most mornings. My wife then picks him up, again on foot, at lunchtime.
I used to go by car, but it has been parked outside my home for more than 18 months because I cannot afford fuel.
You can still buy it but only on the black market. A litre of petrol now costs about $10 when, before the war, it used to cost $0.42 at a petrol station.
Taking a taxi or bejaj (three-wheeled motorised rickshaw) is also out of the question, as a single journey in a bejaj costs $2.
Horse-drawn carriages are now being used for public transport.
More people have started to cycle but even bicycles have become more expensive.
The people here want the conflict to be resolved peacefully and were very happy when news came through of the cessation of hostilities last week.
They had been waiting to see if it was more than an empty promise and after the arrival of the first aid convoy in months on Friday, it seems as though things could be changing.
I am grateful that I am surviving and can share my story but I know there are many in a worse situation than me and some may be dying.
There is perhaps a silver lining to all this: people are still supporting each other.
“Those who eat alone, will die alone” is a saying in our Tigrinya language and people follow that.
They share what they have with others even if it means they will starve tomorrow. There is so much solidarity to surviving together.
💭 The following report is from the Emirati National News:
The UAE has sent a plane carrying 30 tonnes of food items to Mekele, in the Tigray region of Ethiopia.
The shipment will help more than 7,000 people, including 5,600 women and children.
“The UAE is keen to support the humanitarian situation in the Tigray region, and to meet the needs of the population in light of food shortages,” said Mohamed Salem Al Rashidi, UAE ambassador to Ethiopia.
“The UAE has consolidated its global position in providing support and humanitarian aid. It is at the forefront of extending a helping hand, and taking swift action to provide emergency relief to countries and people that need it.
“The UAE places great value in the importance of supporting countries in need, while putting people at the top of its priorities without discrimination and without any other considerations.”
Last year, the UAE, in co-operation with the World Food Programme, sent eight planes carrying 337 tonnes of relief and food items to Mekele for more than 80,000 people, including 63,000 women and children.
The assistance included 200 tonnes of vegetable oil. The region also received 18.5 tonnes of medical supplies as part of efforts to tackle the coronavirus pandemic.
Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on March 18, 2022
Horrific Video Brings More Pain to New Zealand’s Tigrayan Community
A horrific video which appears to show three people being burned alive in Ethiopia has sparked outrage from the Tigrayan community in Wellington.
The video, which has been shared on social media, appeared to show armed men pushing three people into the flames. The victims are believed to be Tigrayan, according to leaders of that ethnic group.
The Tigray region in northern Ethiopia has been locked in a civil war with Ethiopian federal forces and its allies since November 2020.
“I didn’t want to see [the video] but everyone was calling me and sending it to me,” says Rahwa Hagos, chairperson of Wellington’s 100-strong Tigrayan community.
“Everyone was crying and saying we need to do something. I felt helpless. What can I do?” she says. “They were laughing as they pushed those people into the fire. I can’t believe a human being will do that to another human being. It doesn’t matter who you are or where you are from, a person is a person.”
The Ethiopian Government Communication Service confirmed the incident, although the video has not been authenticated.
The gruesome event, which is understood to have taken place in the northwestern Benishangul-Gumuz region, was further anguish for the Tigrayan community in Wellington, who fear for the safety of their loved ones.
Hagos, who is from Tigray’s third largest city of Shire, came to New Zealand with her family in 2001 as a refugee from Sudan.
Her mother, Shawaynesh, a New Zealand citizen, went back to Tigray in 2017 to look after her elderly mother. They have since lost touch.
“When the civil war started we tried to get her out, but we couldn’t because it wasn’t safe,” she says. “We didn’t hear from her till January 2021 and even then she had to travel miles to find a connection to call to say she was okay. They have no access to communications, banking, electricity, often no water supply, no medicines. She’s been worried about my grandmother not getting her medication.”
Civilians are at the mercy of it all, she says.
In June last year Hagos’ mother, who used to work at Wellington’s Commonsense Organics, was able to make a minute-long call through an aid organisation.
“She had lined up all night long to get her turn. She said ‘We are okay, we are surviving, but we need money.’ She is capable of looking after herself and family but all their bank accounts have been frozen, so she can’t access her own money.”
She was unable to move around freely because she was too scared, she says.
Hagos, who lives in Wellington with her husband, Hancock, and their two young daughters, has taken part in protests to draw the New Zealand Government’s attention to the crisis.
Foreign Affairs Minister Nanaia Mahuta announced in June last year the Government would give $3.25m towards the humanitarian response in Ethiopia adding Aotearoa was “deeply concerned at the worsening humanitarian situation and food insecurity in Tigray”.
Hagos remained frustrated with the United Nations, saying the organisation was “not doing anything apart from releasing statements.
“Statements don’t do anything,” she says. “The atrocities we have seen… It feels like no one is paying attention. People are losing their lives every day just for being Tigrayan. It just blows your mind.
“We want people to know what is happening. We hope people will keep pushing the UN and people who have power [to act].”
Former New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark was one of the few she saw asking the UN to do something about it, she says.
Clark, former administrator of the United Nations Development Programme, has said war crimes were being committed in Tigray. Sexual violence had become a weapon of war. In an article published last year in Foreign Policy, co-written with Rachel Kyte, Clark said there was evidence of widespread and systematic sexual violence perpetrated by men in uniform.
She called on the world to “step in now and call the assaults what they are: a war crime.”
Hagos cries every day worrying about her family in Tigray. She can only hope they are safe.
Since that June call there has been only one message from her mother just before Christmas letting them know she was alive. And since then, silence.
Issac Ghebremiskel lives in Wellington with his wife and four children but has grave fears for his family in Tigray’s capital Mekelle.
Hi 63-year-old sister was arrested twice in Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa “just for being Tigrayan”, he says. She escaped with civil war and is now living in Aotearoa.
Ghebremiskel and his wife have been unable to make contact with the rest of their family.
“There is no Internet, no phone. It’s blackout. They don’t have any access to banks. We don’t know how they are surviving. We don’t know if they are alive,” he says. “It’s difficult to get [food] aid in to Tigray. The government is using starvation like a weapon.”
Conflict – the fallout
Civil war began after a dispute between Tigray’s regional government, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, and the Ethiopian Government, led by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed.
Tigray has long fought to self-govern, despite the federal government’s desire for unity. Both sides declared war after Tigray held its own elections in September.
Almost 40 percent of Tigrayans are suffering an extreme lack of food, after 15 months of conflict. Across all three conflict-affected regions of the north more than 9 million people are in need of humanitarian food assistance, according to the World Food Programme.
Killings, looting and destruction of health centres and farming infrastructure have caused humanitarian needs to surge.
In late January, the International Committee of the Red Cross was finally able to make its first delivery of medical supplies since September 2021 into Mekelle.
Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on December 20, 2021
💭 UPDATE:
Fresh Ethiopia Air Raids Target Civilians In #Tigray Today, the #Ethiopia|n Air Force has conducted multiple drone and air strikes in Maychew, Korem and, the regional capital, Mekelle. So far eighteen civilians have been reported killed and eleven more injured.
💭 The Tragic drama continues: The Fascist Oromo Army’s Airstrike in Mekelle, today December 20, 2021
❖ [Jeremiah 6:14]❖
“All they ever offer to my deeply wounded people are empty hopes for peace.”
❖ [Ezekiel 13:10]❖
“Because, indeed, because they have seduced My people, saying, ‘Peace!’ when there is no peace—and one builds a wall, and they plaster it with untempered mortar.„
💭 Ethiopia’s Tigray forces announce retreat with view to possible ceasefire
Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) said the decision could be a ‘decisive opening for peace’
Tigrayan forces fighting the Ethiopian government have announced their withdrawal from two key regions in the north of the country, a step towards a possible ceasefire after 13 months of brutal war.
“We trust that our bold act of withdrawal will be a decisive opening for peace,” wrote Debretsion Gebremichael, the head of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), the political party controlling most of the northern region of Tigray.
His letter on Monday to the United Nations called for a no-fly zone for hostile aircraft over Tigray, imposing arms embargos on Ethiopia and its ally Eritrea, and a UN mechanism to verify that external armed forces had withdrawn from Tigray.
Mr Debretsion said he hoped the Tigrayan withdrawal, from the regions of Afar and Amhara, would force the international community to ensure that food aid could enter Tigray. The UN has previously accused the government of operating a de facto blockade – a charge the government has denied.
“We hope that by (us) withdrawing, the international community will do something about the situation in Tigray as they can no longer use as an excuse that our forces are invading Amhara and Afar,” TPLF spokesman Getachew Reda told Reuters.
“Day by day, the chances for in-depth investigations that could lead to criminal prosecutions are receding.”
💭 My Note: Are all parts trying to conceal the magnitude of these atrocities by continuing and spreading the war to other regions of Ethiopia? Alongside reducing the population of the young and Christian– to deflect attention away – and to buy more time? Why are TPLF start permitting “special envoys” like Mr. Obasanjo and British diplomats to enter Mekelle but not independent observers and investigators yet?
💭 What happened on a 24 hour killing spree in Tigray last year remains unclear.
On 28th November 2020 Eritrean soldiers went on the rampage in Axum, a holy city in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region, whose main church is believed by Ethiopian Orthodox Christians to hold the Ark of Covenant. Over the course of 24 hours, they went door to door summarily shooting unarmed young men and boys.
Some of the victims were as young as 13. The Eritrean soldiers forbade residents from burying slain relatives and neighbours so the bodies lay rotting in the streets for days. Witnesses later described hearing hyenas come at night to feed on the dead.
Eritrean soldiers had shelled and then occupied Axum around a week earlier, having invaded Tigray in early November in support of an offensive by Ethiopia’s federal government against the region’s rebellious leaders. The killings were carried out in apparent retaliation for an attack by local Tigrayan militia and residents on Eritrean soldiers, who had been pillaging the town for days.
Amid a total communications blackout that plunged the region of 6 million into darkness, it took weeks for the news to seep to the outside world. On 9th December 2020, less than two weeks after the massacre, UN Secretary General Antonio Gutteres told a New York press conference that Ethiopia’s prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, had personally assured him that Eritrean soldiers had not even entered Tigray. Abiy, who less than a year before the Axum massacre received the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo for reconciling with Eritrea, would not admit the presence of Eritrean troops until April.
The contrast to other recent conflicts is stark. When war erupted in Gaza earlier this year, for instance, the internet was quickly flooded with images of bomb damage and explosions. Viewers of Al Jazeera could watch live as the owner of a block housing the Associated Press and other media negotiated over the phone with the Israeli military, who were poised to blow the building up.
“It is incredible that – in this emblematic town – such horror could happen without the international community responding,” said Laetitia Bader, Horn of Africa Director at Human Rights Watch. “The reports only really started coming out three months later. Where else in the world can you have a massacre on this scale that is completely kept in darkness for that long?”
Barred from Ethiopia, researchers from Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International resorted to piecing together what happened in Axum through phone calls and interviews with refugees who had fled over the border to Sudan. Between March and June international journalists were briefly allowed into Tigray, but checkpoints and fighting in the region meant few were able to reach the city.
The fighting also prevented a joint team from the United Nations and the state-appointed Ethiopian Human Rights Commission (EHCR) from travelling there. When they released their much-anticipated report into human rights abuses committed in Tigray earlier this month it contained no testimony gathered in Axum. This was, remember, the site of one of the worst atrocities in a now year-long conflict that has been characterised by reports of summary executions, torture, starvation, gang rapes and rampant looting.
As a result, much of what happened there remains unclear. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International believe several hundred civilians were massacred, whereas the joint UN-EHRC investigation vaguely concluded that “more than 100” were killed. A senior Ethiopian diplomat dismissed initial reports of the massacre as “very, very crazy” but later the attorney general’s office concluded Eritrean troops had in fact killed civilians in reprisal shootings, giving the figure of 110.
These patterns of contestation run through the whole conflict in Northern Ethiopia. Meanwhile communities caught on both sides of the fighting are living with immense trauma. When I visited the eastern Tigray village of Dengelat in April, residents had buried dozens of loved ones in graves topped with stones and bloodstained pieces of clothing. They had been killed by Eritrean soldiers during a religious festival six months before, but people there had received little outside help, except for some food supplies from aid agencies. Investigators have still not visited the site, and the whole of Tigray has once again been cut off from the outside world.
Unlike Dengelat, researchers from the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission did manage to visit Axum on a “fact-finding mission” in late February and early March, which was separate to the joint report with the UN, but they did not do a full investigation. Laetitia Bader from Human Rights Watch believes the story of what happened there during those 24 hours last year may never be fully uncovered: “Day by day, the chances for in-depth investigations that could lead to criminal prosecutions are receding.”
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