Editor s Note
It feels strange to write about a humanitarian crisis in this day and age with barely any pictures, videos or witness testimonies from the ground. But that is what the situation in Ethiopias Tigray region has come to. Since the conflict between the federal government, led by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, and the regional governments ruling party, the Tigray Peoples Liberation Front (TPLF), began in November 2020, access to the region has been extremely limited. Internet and telephone connectivity was cut off as soon as the fighting began, disconnecting about 5 million people. Months later, the internet remains down and telephone communication has only been restored in a few main towns. Journalists and human rights monitors are still denied entry and cannot report to the world the full scale of the violence which has left at least hundreds of people dead and more than 470,000 displaced, according to the UN. - Vanessa Tsehaye, Amnesty International
Thousands of refugees missing in Tigray PA
An Ethiopian woman who fled the ongoing fighting in Tigray, Ethiopia holds her refugee registration document as she waits to receive relief aid at a camp on the Sudan-Ethiopia border, in Kassala State, Sudan, in December
An Ethiopian woman who fled the ongoing fighting in Tigray, Ethiopia holds her refugee registration document as she waits to receive relief aid at a c.
AS MANY as 20,000 refugees have gone missing in the conflict in Tigray, Ethiopia, the head of the UN refugee agency UNHCR, Filippo Grandi, has said. Many are feared to have been forcibly returned to Eritrea by the Eritrean troops from whom they had fled; others might have fled to areas beyond the reach of any assistance.