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Wednesday in the United Nations Security Council, the secretary general criticized the Ethiopian government for recently kicking out UN aid workers. He urged the government to allow aid to flow into the northern region of Tigray, where for nearly the last year, Ethiopia and its allies have been fighting an ethnic, regional force. Nick Schifrin reports.
What’s new? War rages on in Ethiopia’s Tigray region – with civilians bearing the brunt of a brutal conflict marked by atrocities. Under international pressure, Addis Ababa has offered concessions on aid access and pledged that Eritrean troops will withdraw. But prospects of a negotiated settlement appear dim.
Why does it matter? An entrenched Tigrayan resistance combined with Ethiopian and Eritrean authorities’ determination to keep Tigray’s fugitive leaders from power mean that the conflict could evolve into a protracted war. That would further devastate Tigray and greatly harm Ethiopia, the linchpin state in the Horn of Africa.
What should be done? With a decisive battlefield win for either side a remote prospect, parties should consider a cessation of hostilities that allows for expanded humanitarian aid access. This practical first step would reduce civilian suffering and ideally pave the way for a return to dialogue down the road.
Starving Tigray: How Armed Conflict and Mass Atrocities Have Destroyed an Ethiopian Region’s Economy and Food System and Are Threatening Famine
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY They have destroyed Tigray, literally. Mulugeta Gebrehiwot speaking by phone from Tigray January 27, 2021 The people of Tigray, Ethiopia, are suffering a humanitarian crisis that is entirely man-made.
This special report from the World Peace Foundation documents how Ethiopian and Eritrean belligerents in the war in Tigray have comprehensively dismantled the region’s economy and food system. We provide evidence of their ongoing actions to deprive people of objects and activities indispensable to their survival actions that amount to international crimes. We track the process of deprivation conducted in a widespread and systematic manner. We indicate where it is leading: in coming months, to mass starvation and a risk of famine; in the longer term, to sustained food insecurity and dependence on external assist
Share: An Ethiopian refugee, who fled the Tigray conflict, walks in the Tenedba camp in Mafaza, eastern Sudan, on January 8, 2021, after being transported from the reception center. Photo: by Ashraf Shazly/AFP via Getty Images
A civil war in the northern region of Tigray broke out in November. Denial within the international community has prevented much-needed humanitarian aid.
At terrifying speed, a humanitarian disaster of is unfolding in the Tigray region of northern Ethiopia. Amidst an ongoing civil war that broke out in November, the Tigrayan people are starving en masse. Occupying soldiers are killing, raping, and ransacking, mercilessly and systematically. The personable, reformist prime minister Abiy Ahmed Ali who little more than a year ago was basking in the glow of a Nobel Peace prize is driving his country into the abyss. There are indications that he wishes it wasn’t so, but every sign points to the fact that the forces he has unleashed