👉 Amnesty International said on Friday (May 6, 2022) there was compelling evidence that Russian troops had committed war crimes, including extrajudicial executions of civilians, when they occupied an area outside Ukraine’s capital in February and March.
👉 Exactly a month ago, April 6, 2022
“We Will Erase You from This Land” Crimes Against Humanity and Ethnic Cleansing in Ethiopia’s Western Tigray Zone.
The report states that both Tigrayan and Amhara communities in Western Tigray were forcibly displaced, that the Tigrayan population was significantly affected, and that the forced displacements in Tigray ‘MAY AMOUNT’ to war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Wow this has been going on since 2020 and this is the first time we hear about it Now back to the Ukraine war
🛑 A 2-month NATO vs. Russia war in Ukraine.
“There was COMPELLING EVIDENCE that Russian troops had committed war crimes.„
🛑 An 18-month genocidal war against Axum, Tigray by the fascist Oromo regime of Ethiopia:
“ALLEGATIONS!„ …” ‘MAY’ amount to war crimes
and crimes against humanity…blabla…
💭 Selected comments from CBC:
➡“Wow this has been going on since 2020 and this is the first time we hear about it Now back to the Ukraine war„
➡“No one is talking about sending care packages to Ethiopia. Lol.. but you can find donate to Ukraine links urrrwhere„
➡“Why Canada don’t bring displaced people from Ethiopia too like Ukraine ? if they stand for humanity as they said„
Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on April 29, 2022
💭 Russian troops “greeted” the UN Secretary General with rocket attacks on Kyiv
On April 28, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres visited the Ukrainian capital. On the same day, Russian troops again fired on residential areas of the capital. The Ukrainian Witness project has published a video in which firefighters and the State Emergency Service rescue a residential area of the capital from fire. The National Police of Ukraine also works on site.
According to the mayor of Kyiv Vitaliy Klitschko, two hits were recorded: one – in the object, the second – in a multi-storey building. Several cars burned down. There are casualties among the civilians.
The missile strikes came on the same day that UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres visited Kyiv.
Earlier, the Russian side has already struck at the Shevchenko district of the capital. Then the shell fragments hit a high-rise building.
Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on April 8, 2022
💭 Dr. Tedros:
“The Siege of Tigray is The Longest & Worst Siege in Modern History.“
“I Hope the World will give to Tigray a Fraction of Attention it Gave to Ukraine“
👉 Unless they’re working together with the two cruel monsters, Abiy Ahmed Ali and Isaias Afewereki, the Tigray leaders have two options in the next four weeks:
Surrender and leave Tigray
March into Asmara or Addis Ababa to remove the evil monsters, Isaias Afewerki and Abiy Ahmed Ali
Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on April 6, 2022
💭 George Soros helped Zelensky of Ukraine and Abiy Ahmed Ali of Ethiopia become president and Prime Minster.Both leaders and their babysitter, George Soros are there to conducted a policy of Genocide of the Orthodox Christians of the EASTERN world.
It’s the same as always: If you just think about who these pictures are useful for and who they harm, then there is a high probability that you have the person who really did it.
The Neo-Nazi Ukrainian regime has its false flag massacre at BUTSCHA – and the Neo-fascist Oromo regime of Ethiopia orchestrated false flag massacres at MYKADRA and other places to instigate hatred among the brotherly ethnics of Tigrayans and Amharas.
Now, we have a single False Flag massacre in Ukraine and we have a continuios outpouring of empathy and solidarity from Western Nations. A 24/7 media attention and calls for the elimination of President Putin. Even president Joe Biden calls to put Putin on trial for war crimes
I think this Ukraine war is designed to divert attention from the #TigrayGenocide.
The world is supposed to be exceptinally shocked at what is taking place in Tigray — manmade famine, in which half of the population in Tigray is in danger of dying of starvation by the end of this year.
“The fascist Oromo regime of Ethiopia has blocked virtually all food and medical shipments into Tigray for 18 months, using food as a weapon of war.”. The humanitarian situation in Tigray is abysmal, with atrocities similar to ghenocide and war crimes displacing at least 2.5 million Christians.
Nowhere in the world you will see a crisis like the one in the northern part of Ethiopia, especially in Tigray. Actually, the clash between Russia and Ukraine is a divine retribution for the crimes of supporting the genocidal regime of evil Abiy Ahmed Ali who is waging the #TigrayGenocide
What good did the UN do to deal with this crisis? 18 months have passed — and nothing!
💭 The Mind Boggling Hypocrisy of The West
These days, multiple warning signs of potential genocide against the Tigray people of Ethiopia are present, yet, no Russian military operation in the invasion of Ukraine goes by without a torrent of denunciations from Western governments and the corporate media in the most strident of terms, portraying Putin as the new Hitler and the Russian military as a modern version of the hordes of Genghis Khan. But when the fascist Oromo regime of Ethiopia massacres Tigrayan Christians, puts them in concentrations camps. Western governments do not make even the mildest protest. To the contrary, they send special envoys to Addis Ababa to ‘beg’ their evil monster send twenty trucks carrying GMO foods to Tigray. They even told the UAE – that was allowed to carry out drone massacres against Tigryans by the US – to send 30 tonnes of unknown nature “food aid” to Tigray.
💭 Tigray, Ethiopia has seen over one hundred massacres crueler, bloodier, and deadlier than Butscha, Ukraine.
👉 Tigray War Has Seen Up To Half A Million Dead From Violence And Starvation, Say Researchers
As many as 500,000 people have died from war and famine in the Tigray region of northern Ethiopia over the past 16 months, researchers say.
The estimate, by experts who have closely monitored the Tigray conflict since its beginning, is a rare attempt to calculate the war-related death toll in a region that has been largely cut off from the outside world.
The estimate includes 50,000 to 100,000 victims of direct killings, 150,000 to 200,000 starvation deaths, and more than 100,000 additional deaths caused by a lack of health care, according to researchers led by Jan Nyssen of Ghent University in Belgium.
The war began when Ethiopia sent its military into Tigray in an attempt to subdue the rebellious regional government in November, 2020. The neighbouring country of Eritrea also sent troops into Tigray, and the war has led to massacres of civilians, destruction of hospitals and clinics, an exodus of refugees and the emergence of famine. Ethiopia has blocked most food aid to the region for months.
Despite the huge death toll, there are growing fears that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will overshadow the Tigray war and other long-running conflicts in Africa and the Middle East, reducing global attention and humanitarian aid for those crises.
Amnesty International reports widespread rapes ‘with impunity’ in Ethiopian Tigray conflict
Many of the most horrific crises, from Mozambique to Yemen, are in remote regions or countries where access is difficult. The war in Ukraine could further damage the flow of assistance by diverting humanitarian funds and increasing the cost of food and fuel. Some relief agencies are already reporting a decline in funding for their Africa operations as donors switch to Ukraine.
“We are seeing clear evidence of this war draining resources and attention from other trouble spots in desperate need,” United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told journalists on Monday.
In Ethiopia, authorities have blocked communications and flights into Tigray since the war began, while heavily restricting media access. “The Ethiopian government has been very efficient in shielding Tigray from outside eyes,” Prof. Nyssen said in an interview.
The death toll in Tigray is poorly documented because humanitarian workers were banned from bringing cameras into the region and continue to be threatened with expulsion if they speak out, he said.
Prof. Nyssen and his team have maintained a database of confirmed deaths in Tigray since the war began, in which they recorded 289 incidents causing the deaths of up to 12,478 civilians. But the true number of deaths from violence is far higher, they believe.
Starvation is an even bigger threat. The vast majority of Tigray is considered “hard to reach” or “highly restricted” in the latest UN humanitarian report. Malnutrition is increasing, and humanitarian agencies say their supplies of food and fuel are almost exhausted. Most have been forced to suspend or drastically reduce their operations.
Because of the lack of food aid, lack of income and dysfunctional markets, the majority of Tigray’s families have resorted to begging, cutting meals or selling their harvest to pay off their debts, the UN report said.
Unlike the Ukraine war, however, the Tigray conflict has not led to any international sanctions or votes of condemnation in the UN General Assembly, analysts have noted.
Mr. Guterres described the war in Ukraine as an “assault” on the world’s most vulnerable people and countries. “We must do everything possible to avert a hurricane of hunger and a meltdown of the global food system,” he said.
The War on Tigray in Numbers: Initial Analysis of Civilian Massacres
Tigray, Ethiopia has seen over one hundred massacres crueler, bloodier, and deadlier than Butscha, Ukraine.
The following is a report from August 11, 2021 – many additional massacres like in Butscha, Ukraine took place/are still taking place since then. Yes, as we read above, Tigray War Has Seen up To Half A Million Dead From Violence And Starvation!
A research project at the University of Ghent has identified the sites of over one hundred massacres in Tigray. The level of cruelty exhibited during the mass killings, gang rapes, property looting and destruction, and torture is unspeakable.
A joint press release by three Tigrayan political parties on 02 February 2021, however, revealed that an estimated 52, 000 Tigrayan civilians had been killed from November 2020 to January 2021. Since then several well-researched and exceedingly credible reports by the international media and human rights organizations have detailed atrocity crimes committed in Tigray by the invading forces including dozens of documented massacres of unarmed civilians. Some of the most notable reports that came out of Tigray include the Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch reports on the Axum massacres; the CNN international report on Dengelat massacres; BBC and CNN reports on the Mahbere Dego massacres; The Telegraph report on Adigrat massacres; The Telegraph reports on Idaga Hamus massacres and Abi Addi massacres; Sky News report about the Cheli massacres; the coverage of the massacre of 9 civilians, mostly women and children, near Abuna Yemata church on 08 May 2021 by the The Guardian. Other credible sources have also reported about the killings of civilians in other places of Tigray. These reports include a preliminary report on Adi Hageray massacres, Goda massacre in Adigrat, Adigrat Addis Pharmaceuticals Factory massacre, Debre Abay massacres, Zalambessa massacres, Irob massacres, Samre massacres, Mekelle massacres, etc.
Other war crimes were also documented by many outlets including the ground coverage by Channel 4 News which recorded testimonies of alleged war crimes. Alleged war crimes include shelling and airstrikes conducted by the air force against civilian areas. The most widely publicized of this has been the bombing of the market town of Togoga in Degua Tembien on market day on 22 June 2021. More than 64 people have been reported killed among them women and children of ages from 2 to 65 according to eyewitnesses and local health officers. The airstrike has also left more than 180 civilians injured.
Massacres and indiscriminate killings of Tigrayan civilians were persistent elements in all parts of Tigray occupied by Ethiopian, Eritrean and Amhara forces. For example, on 23 March 2021, staff members of the MSF (Médecins Sans Frontières, Doctors Without Borders) witnessed the extrajudicial killings of four civilians who were dragged off public buses and executed by Ethiopian government soldiers on the road from Mekelle to Adigrat. According to the witnesses, the MSF team’s driver was also pulled out from the car, beaten with the back of a gun, and threatened to be killed by the soldiers. On the same day, the Ethiopian soldiers stopped two public transport minibusses and shot dead 21 civilians (a graphic video can be found here). The Danish Refugee Council (DRC), International Rescue Committee (IRC), and MSF humanitarian aid workers who were helping the communities affected in Tigray are also victims of the war on Tigray.
This analysis of data collected on 3000 civilian victims identified so far looks at what the numbers and demographics tell us about the massacres in Tigray.
Figure 1 shows districts with the most civilians killed. The identified number of victims ranked by the districts with the most people killed where the number of victims is more than 30 is shown in Table 1. As shown in Figure 1, 7.6% of the identified victims so far are from the city of Axum and the surrounding areas. Other districts hit by the massacre are for example Gulomakeda, Hawzen, Samre, Degua Tembien, Wukro, Embaseneyti, Adigrat, Kola Tembien, Adet, Dengelat, Bora-Selewa, Adi Hageray, Humera, Wukro Maray, Irob, Debre Abay, Shire, Mai Kadra, Tahtay Koraro, Mahbere Dego, Egela, Chilla, Sheraro, Hintalo Wajirat, Mai Kinetal, and Selekhlekha. For more detailed information, refer to Figure 1 and Table 1.
Figure 1. Districts-based distribution of the massacred civilian victims.
Place of Killing
Total Number of Victims
Remark
Axum
1000
Civilian victims from the city of Axum and the surrounding areas.
Gulomakeda
194
Civilian victims from the district of Gulomakeda across different areas.
Hawzen
189
Civilian victims from the districts of Hawzen across different areas.
Samre
154
Civilian victims from the districts of Samre and Saharti-Samre.
Degua Tembien
152
Civilian victims from the district of Degua Tembien across different areas.
Wukro
125
Civilian victims in the city of Wukro and the surrounding areas.
Embaseneyti
121
Civilian victims from the districts of Embaseneyti across different areas.
Adigrat
108
Civilian victims from the city of Adigrat and the surrounding areas.
Kola Tembien
106
Civilian victims from Kola Tembien across different areas.
Adet
90
Civilian victims from the district of Adet across different areas.
Dengelat
80
Civilian victims from Dengelat.
Bora-Selewa
77
Civilian victims from the district of Bora-Selewa across different areas.
Adi Hageray
74
Civilian victims from Adi-Hageray.
Humera
74
Civilian victims from Humera.
Wukro Maray
71
Civilian victims from Wukro Maray across different areas.
Irob
70
Civilian victims from the district of Irob across different areas.
Debre Abay
61
Civilian victims from Debre Abay.
Shire
60
Civilian victims from Shire and the surrounding areas.
Mai Kadra
57
Civilian victims from Mai Kadra.
Tahtay Koraro
55
Civilian victims from the district of Tahtay Koraro across different areas.
Mahbere Dego
54
Civilian victims from Mahbere Dego
Egela
53
Civilian victims from the district of Egela across different areas.
Chilla
48
Civilian victims from the district of Chilla across different areas.
Sheraro
46
Civilian victims from Sheraro across different areas.
Hintalo Wajirat
44
Civilian victims from Hintalo Wajirat.
Mai Kinetal
43
Civilian victims from the district of Mai Kinetal across different areas.
Selekhlekha
37
Civilian victims from Selekhlekha.
Figure 2. Gender statistics of the massacred civilian victims.
The chart in Figure 2 shows that 91.8% of the victims were males, 7.6% of them were females while the gender of the remaining 0.6% has not been identified so far. At first glance, this may give the impression that women and girls were not targeted as much as men were, but the truth is that the invading soldiers used rape and sexual violence to break the spirit and bodies of the Tigrayan women and bullets to kill the bodies of the Tigrayan men. The weaponized rape in Tigray has been widely reported by many international media organizations. These include credible reports from CNN, Channel 4 News, DW, Al Jazeera, and France24.
Figure 3. Availability of age information about the civilian victims of the massacres in Tigray.
Despite the communications blackout that lasted for months in the entire Tigray region, which made it difficult to collect accurate and detailed information, we have managed to identify the ages of the victims as shown in Figure 3. As we can see from Figure 3, the ages of 55.6% of the victims are known, and our team is continuously updating the data to fill in the missing information about the ages of the remaining 44.4%.
Figure 4. Age distribution of the massacred civilian victims whose age has been identified.
The chart in Figure 43 shows the age statistics of massacred civilians. The age distribution of the victims whose age has been identified illustrates a clear and shocking pattern. More than two-thirds of the victims are between the ages of 18 and 49, the most productive age bracket in the society. The pattern reveals the intent of the perpetrators. Some of them have clearly stated what they were up to.
We also found out that the median age statistics of the victims is 38. Children and the elderly were not, however, spared. We found out that the youngest victims are of age 2 and the oldest unarmed civilian victims are in their 90s. The massacres are beyond the loss of lives of the victims. The targeting of men of the most productive age will have ramifications that will last for generations in the Tigrayan society.
There is still another round of massacres and extrajudicial killings of innocent civilians in Tigray. We document the continuous massacres of civilians, and the verified list of victims we compiled so far from different sources can be found here.
💭 Sen. Lindsey Graham defended calling for Russians to assassinate President Vladimir Putin
‘You would be doing your country and the world a great service’: Sen. Lindsey Graham calls on a ‘Brutus of Russia’ to carry out a Julius Caesar-style assassination of Putin prompting furious response from Moscow envoy
On Thursday the Republican Senator invoked Julius Caesar-style assignation of the Russian President who is currently leading an invasion of Ukraine
‘Is there a Brutus in Russia? Is there a more successful Colonel Stauffenberg in the Russian military?’ he tweeted
‘The only way this ends is for somebody in Russia to take this guy out. You would be doing your country — and the world — a great service,’ his tweet continued
In a separate tweet Graham added that the responsibility of eliminating Putin laid solely in the hands of Russian citizens
His tweets come after Europe’s largest nuclear plant was on fire in the early hours of Friday morning after coming under attack by Russian troops
Remarks prompted furious reaction from Russian ambassador to the US Anatoly Antonov
💭 My Note: A couple of days ago Joe Biden Called Putin a ‘War criminal’ now he is demanding the Russian President to be removed from power. Give a dog a bad name and hang him – Listen to Hey, Hey, what do you say?!
But there is no problem for President Biden to Make a ‘Candid’ Phone Call to The Real War Criminal Abiy Ahmed Ali of Ethiopia. He is even sending especial envoys every other month to Ethiopia where real brutal genocide is taking place.
💭 President Joe Biden called Russian President Vladimir Putin a “war criminal” during a White House event.
US President Joe Biden has labeled Vladimir Putin a ‘war criminal’ over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. We wish he would have said the same to the obvious war criminal Abiy Ahmed Ali of Ethiopia – to the real monster War Criminal who was able by the international community to Massacre 500,000 Christians in one Year!
In fact, always ‘gravely concerned’ Joe Biden sends special envoys to Ethiopia every other month, to chat and drink Ethiopian coffee with this genocidal ‘C.I.A’ monster. Isn’t it obvious by now that war criminal Abiy Ahmed Ali and his fascist Oromo regime work for the western and Middle Eastern Arab powers?! Yes, they need him so that he could help them out to exterminate ancient Christians of Ethiopia. Mind boggling, isn’t it?!
👉 Biden is suffering from dementia – he needs to step down and retire
Biden is the reason why this mess happened in the first place
President Joe Biden demanded that Russian President Vladimir Putin be removed from power in a dramatic speech in Warsaw, Poland, on Saturday.
“For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power,” Biden cried out at the conclusion of his speech. “God bless you all and may God defend our freedom.”
It is unclear whether Biden’s comment was part of his prepared remarks.
The president repeatedly called out Putin directly, with disdain in his voice, taunting him for his failure to take over Ukraine.
“Notwithstanding the brutality of Vladimir Putin, let there be no doubt that this war has already been a strategic failure for Russia,” Biden said.
He signaled solidarity with the Ukrainian people, praising them for proving Putin wrong.
“Putin thought Ukrainians would roll over and not fight. Not much of a student of history,” he said. “Instead, Russian forces have met their match with brave and stiff Ukrainian resistance.”
But Biden warned Europe they would need to stay united to defeat Putin.
“This battle will not be won in days, or months either. We need to steel ourselves for a long fight ahead,” he said.
He also called out Putin for lying about Ukraine and his decision to invade.
“Putin has the gall to say he’s denazifying Ukraine,” he said. “It’s a lie. It’s just cynical. He knows that. And it’s also obscene.”
He also condemned Putin for his “war of choice” against Ukraine, accusing him of “using brute force and disinformation to satisfy [his] craving for power and control.”
“Putin has the audacity, like all our autocrats before him, to believe that might will make right,” he continued.
Biden boasted of the success of his economic sanctions to punish Russia for their invasion.
He celebrated that many American businesses had left Russia completely, “from oil companies to McDonalds.”
“As a result of these unprecedented sanctions, the ruble almost is immediately reduced to rubble,” he said.
He praised Ukraine and Europe for their resistance against Putin during the first month of the war, but warned it was critical to stay united.
Biden began his speech in Poland recalling Pope John Paul II’s famous 1979 speech during his visit to his native Poland, which sparked the solidarity movement in the country. which ultimately defeated communism.
He tried to connect the fight against communism with the fight against Putin, talking about the generational battle the free world faced with autocrats and dictators like Putin.
“We stand with you. Period,” he said in a message to the Ukrainian people.
The president also spoke about visiting with Ukrainian refugees in Warsaw and interacting with some of the children.
“I saw tears in many of the mothers’ eyes as I embraced them… I didn’t have to speak the language to feel the emotion in their eyes, the way they gripped my hand. The little kids hung onto my leg,” he recalled.
Biden said American troops were sent to bolster the defense of Poland and the NATO nations, not to fight Russians in Ukraine.
“It’s Vladimir Putin who is to blame,” Biden said. “Don’t even think about moving onto one single inch of NATO territory. We have a sacred obligation under Article 5 to defend each and every inch of NATO territory.”
Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on March 23, 2022
A new survey by the Canadian national polling firm EKOS has found that the more “vaccine” injections a person gets for the Wuhan coronavirus (COVID-19), the more likely he or she is to believe every word of corporate media propaganda about the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Unvaccinated Canadians, EKOS found, are 12 times more likely than those who received three “doses” of a Fauci Flu shot to believe that Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine was justified. Almost nobody who is “fully vaccinated” supports Putin’s actions, the survey revealed.
A mere two percent of triple vaccinated Canadians said they support Putin’s attack compared to 26 percent of people who received no jabs. This, says EKOS president Frank Graves, shows that vaccination status is a strong predictor of one’s views on the war.
From the seizing of property from Russian oligarchs to providing non-military aid to Ukraine, the fully jabbed support just about anything that is “pro-Ukraine,” the survey found. And this is because the same media that told them to get injected for their own “safety” is now saying that Ukraine is good and Russia is bad.
“In each case, a vast majority of vaccinated Canadians agreed with measures to help Ukraine and oppose Russia, a view held by only a small minority of unvaccinated people,” reported the Toronto Star, which apparently supports Ukraine.
Graves says unvaccinated support Russia because they read too much news “online”
Conducted from March 9 to March 13, the survey asked a random sampling of 1,035 Canadians a series of questions about Russia and Ukraine. It reported a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
Ten percent of those surveyed, or about 105 people, identified as unvaccinated. The rest had received anywhere from one to three injections of a Fauci Flu shot in obedience to Justin Trudeau’s regime.
Of those Canadians who received three injections for COVID, a whopping 82 percent said they agree with imposing tougher sanctions on Russia, even if doing so means much higher prices for food and fuel at home.
Conversely, only 18 percent of unvaccinated survey respondents said they support sanctions.
As for taking in Ukrainian refugees, 85 percent of triple-jabbed respondents said they would welcome an influx with open arms. Only 30 percent of unvaccinated respondents feel the same.
Based on what the Western media and government officials are saying, the triple jabbed almost unanimously believe that Russia is guilty of committing war crimes with the invasion. Less than 33 percent of unvaccinated Canadians, meanwhile, believe similarly.
All in all, the study found, a “plurality of vaccine refusers are much more sympathetic to Russia.” This is probably due to the fact that, just like they did with COVID injections, the unvaccinated did their own due diligence and independent research, and did not simply digest whatever they were told about the war by propagandists.
Naturally, the Toronto Sun reported this as a negative thing. Graves himself was also upset by the results, calling them evidence of “the highly corrosive influences of disinformation.”
Unironically, Graves said that the unvaccinated believe differently than the fully jabbed because they are “reading this online” and “consuming this from the same sources that were giving them the anti-vax stuff.”
The same is true of the fully jabbed, of course, who receive all of their information from the likes of CNN, but Graves made no mention of that. Instead, he tried to pretend as though his opinions are facts and everyone else’s beliefs are “misinformation.”
More related news about how the fully jabbed believe and obey everything they are told by the media can be found at Propaganda.news.
Researchers from Belgium’s Ghent University estimate between 50,000-100,000 people have died from fighting, 150,000-200,000 from starvation & more than 100,000 from lack of medical attention.
Coming from a Nobel Peace Prize winner, Abiy Ahmed’s call for restraint and diplomacy to end the war in Ukraine might have attracted more attention if the Ethiopian prime minister hadn’t stained his laurels with the blood of his own people. Reports of hideous war crimes committed by his forces and those of his Eritrean allies against civilians in the rebel northern province of Tigray make a mockery of his appeals for nonviolence in other parts of the world.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has diverted international attention from conflicts elsewhere, including those in Yemen, Mozambique and Africa’s Sahel, the region just south of the Sahara. In Ethiopia, Africa’s second-most populous nation, a bloody civil war is now in its 16th month. The fighting between Abiy’s forces and the rebel Tigray People’s Liberation Front seems at a standstill, but human-rights groups and multilateral organizations have condemned atrocities on both sides.
Caught in the middle are civilians in the northern province, who now face a calamity that is being likened to horrors of Africa’s — and Ethiopia’s — past: mass starvation and ethnocide. World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, himself an Ethiopian, says there is “nowhere on earth where the health of millions of people is more under threat” than the Tigray region.
Abiy’s government, which had celebrated Tedros’s elevation to the leadership of the WHO as a matter of national pride, now is trying to tar him because his family has origins in Tigray. But as well as anecdotal evidence, there is a growing body of data to support Tedros’s claim that the province is on the edge of a major humanitarian disaster.
Though the war’s true toll is impossible to know, researchers from Belgium’s Ghent University estimate as many as half a million people have died so far: between 50,000 and 100,000 from the fighting, 150,000 to 200,000 from starvation and more than 100,000 from the lack of medical attention. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has expressed concern about possible ethnic cleansing in Tigray, but the government in Addis Ababa has dismissed this as “spurious.”
The Tigrayan rebels have been accused of crimes, including murder and rape, against other ethnic groups. But Abiy’s soldiers are blamed for most of the civilian casualties, especially those from starvation and neglect. Government forces are preventing food aid and medicine from reaching Tigray, humanitarian groups say.
And they are no slouches at other kinds of atrocity, including the recent immolation of a Tigrayan man, which even the government-affiliated human rights commission has blamed on Abiy’s forces.
Such outrages are likely to multiply and escalate as the war remains stalemated. Late last year, government troops were able to beat back a rebel advance toward the capital and retake towns on the border with Tigray. The use of military drones, apparently supplied by Turkey, helped turn the tide. (Turkish drones have also helped Ukrainian forces slow the Russian advance.)
While his ground forces seem to have stopped short of an assault on Tigray, where the mountainous terrain has previously proved to be a distinct rebel advantage, Abiy has no qualms about ordering airstrikes that have inflicted heavy civilian casualties. Michelle Bachelet, head of the U.N. Human Rights Commission, says her staff have recorded hundreds of deaths from aerial attacks “apparently carried out by the Ethiopian Air Force.” The government has denied this.
Abiy and the TPLF leadership have both said they are willing to negotiate an end to the civil war, but neither side has demonstrated much flexibility on their demands. The prime minister want the rebels to disarm and accept rule from Addis Ababa, while the TPLF wants greater autonomy for Tigray and an accounting for atrocities committed by Ethiopian and Eritrean forces.
There is little prospect of progress toward reconciliation and peace without more outside pressure. But with the world’s attention focused on Ukraine and Russia, there is every chance that both sides in the Ethiopian civil war will use the stalemate to rearm for still more fighting.
Who can prevent this from happening? The African Union’s attempts at mediation have proved singularly ineffective. The European Union has done little since suspending some budgetary support for Ethiopia early last year. The U.S. has already exerted considerable effort — President Joe Biden has spoken directly with Abiy, his Horn of Africa envoy has traveled to Addis Ababa and his administration has terminated favorable access for Ethiopian goods to the U.S.
The only strategy that hasn’t yet been tried is the imposition of sanctions against the TPLF leadership and top government figures, including Abiy himself. With Tigray on the precipice of a humanitarian catastrophe, it’s time for Biden to signal that option is, at the very least, on the table. – Bloomberg.
💭 Joe Biden Calls Putin a ‘War criminal’ – But, He Makes a ‘Candid’ Phone Call to The Real War Criminal