"Calls" from every corner for an immediate cessation of hostilities, withdrawal
of Eritrean troops, unfettered access, talks, etc. etc. But who can really believe that Abiy and even more Isayas would listen to simple calls without any concrete action to impose them practically?
(journalist at Le Monde, retired)
Dear reader,
In this Tigray digest we must again address the worsening humanitarian situation, and indeed insist that the international community must act (section
1). In addition to ongoing famine and bloodbaths, the outlooks for the 2022 harvest are bad again (section
2). Further, the academic community is increasingly alarmed by the Ethiopian universities’ support for warfare against Tigray and Tigrayans – the case of
the murder of Prof. Meareg Abraha of Bahir Dar University is emblematic (section
3). The massacres and bombardments call for independent international investigations – we reached out to our network to try and understand what happened in Kobo (section
4). One of the bottlenecks that the international community faces with regard to civil war in Ethiopia, is the functioning of the
UN offices in Addis Ababa (section
5). Among the many Tigray events organised worldwide, we highlight a webinar on 20 October with Lord Alton, Alex De Waal and Sarah Vaughan: ‘Starvation - a
weapon of war’ (section 6), as well as a fundraising event in Slovenia (section
7).
The UN World Food Programme has not been able to send its convoys into Tigray since August 22, when war flared up again. Journalists are not allowed in, no telecommunications, no trade,
no salaries, no banks, no medical supplies (babies in Tigray die
at four times the pre-war level !) and an awful war ongoing on all of Tigray’s borders, especially in the districts along the Eritrean border. The Tigrayans experienced the massacres, rape
and other war crimes of the 2021 occupation and try to fence off the new invasion of ENDF and EDF.
According to the
Ethiopia Food Security Cluster, between 29 September
and 5 October, 414 000
people were assisted with 6535 tonnes of food (cereals, pulses and oil)
in Tigray. Due to shortage of
pulses and vegetable oil, 316 000 people received only partial food baskets.
More food is being dispatched to Asgede to respond to the ongoing influx of new
internally displaced people, coming from the embattled Adiyabo district.
Due to warfare,
most woredas
along the Eritrean border are either partially or fully inaccessible for food
deliveries. As of 10 October,
there remained
only 11,600
liters of fuel and 34,900
tonnes of food in the
humanitarian stores in Tigray. To complete
the ongoing round of distribution, additional 192,000
liter of fuel is
urgently needed to ensure continuous dispatch and distribution of 12,500
tonnes of food or 740,000 people will be left without
food assistance.
Shortage of cash continues to slow down food
response, preventing partners from paying staff salaries and relevant costs for loading, offloading, dispatch and
monitoring.
The question of using international leverage to lessen the suffering of the Tigrayan people is on the table in light of the recent resolution by the European Parliament and the unambiguous
report of the International Commission of Human Rights Experts. A gentle but unsuccessful approach towards the Ethiopian government has so far been favoured by the international community. Without waiting for the UN, individual nations can impose sanctions
such as halting arms sales, revoking Ethiopian Airlines' landing rights, or cancelling other flagship projects. Individual nations should act while influencing others to take equally strong stands.
Further reading:
A team of Mekelle University and Ghent University geographers has carried out a
survey of the crop status on 262 farm plots in Tigray,
late August 2022. The farmers will harvest their farmlands in the coming months, and it may be anticipated that yields will be nearly as bad as in 2021.
Some highlights:
On 3 November 2022, it will be one year since we have tragically lost Professor Meareg Amare Abrha. There is now
enough inside knowledge to have a strong suspicion that the Amhara Special Forces, Bahir Dar University,
Fano militants, and secret agents were all involved in Prof. Meareg’s murder. In remembrance of
their father, his family have created an online memorial page that keeps his cherished memories alive containing a biography, photos, and videos. We hope
that even though the family was denied having a proper funeral ceremony, this page will allow us all a platform to come together and share our condolences and keep his memory alive:
Professor
Meareg Abrha's Online Memorial & Obituary
Further reading:
An article was published in The
Guardian (10 October 2022) detailing the killing of dozens of people, allegedly by Tigray troops during their recent occupation of the town. The article raised much eyebrows, not the least because it lacked context. It
so happens that we know Kobo and its surroundings quite well from previous projects in the Raya area - one of the aims of such projects (a bit naively maybe) was “science for peace”, with a study area covering parts of the Tigray and Amhara regions.
The information that we could collect from two sources in Kobo is as follows: “The town is quite big and the large majority of the people are newcomers; in absence of social cohesion, we mostly hear rumours. I personally
know one person who was killed, that is teacher Kassa of the catholic school; I don’t know who killed him. Several other people were killed but I doubt whether it was done by Tigray soldiers – there have been many shootings though between the Tigrayan [soldiers]
and fano or other Amhara militia that got killed. So many bad things have happened in Kobo. When TDF entered the town, they went to the hospitals and took the medicines, that is because there are no medicines at all available in Tigray. After that,
inhabitants of Kobo went in group to the catholic mission and destroyed the school, the hospital, the chapel even with its religious objects. Earlier on, they had already stolen all the cows and the iron sheet roofs from the mission’s farm and they shared
it among themselves. This was not done by any of the warring factions, this was done by people from Kobo. Similarly, if individuals were killed, it could as well be by
shifta [bandits], or by fano. Of course, afterwards they will blame it on Tigray. There are people in Kobo who are known for making up stories, they like to blame everything on Tigray.”
The contacts reminded me of the continuous vandalism that was done to our own project installations around Kobo in the years before the war, simply because the project was run by Mekelle University.
“There are all kinds of rumours; some inhabitants of Kobo will blame air bombardments and drone strikes to the Tigray army, though the latter does not have airplanes or drones. I suggest not to buy directly the claims
that those civilians were killed by Tigray forces.”
Also here, like in all other cases, there is high need for independent investigations. The ICHREE should receive sufficient funds and be allowed to travel all over the country to do its own investigations.
In the meantime, there are large-scale air bombardments and drone strikes all over Tigray, with numerous civilian casualties.
Further reading on massacres in the Tigray War
Since the beginning of the war, observers have been surprised by covert support for the Ethiopian regime by staff of UN agencies in Addis Ababa. This was directly visible in the form of maps with “Amhara” written over
large parts of Tigray on maps, or burner tweets posted by official UN accounts.
The report of the International Commission of Human Rights Experts on Ethiopia also mentioned: "Requests to various UN entities operating in Ethiopia to share documents
and materials of interest were largely deflected, or responded to after an inordinate delay." (The ICHREE report may be
downloaded here).
And now ALNAP (Active Learning Network for Accountability and Performance, a UK based non-profit organization) published
this article: What’s happened to principled humanitarian action in conflicts?
The case of Tigray, as part of a series that tells
the humanitarian stories behind key findings and lessons emerging in ALNAP’s
State of the Humanitarian System 2022 report.
Citation: “The conflict was heavily politicised at every level, and the humanitarian system was widely felt to be naive in its response to this: too closely aligned to the government, and lacking
experience and unity. National staff often held partisan views on the crisis, while many international staff had deep relationships with government officials built over many years of living in Addis. After
multiple incidents of partisan social media posts and leaking of online meeting recordings, agencies had to give regular reminders to staff about neutrality and impartiality.”
On Thursday 20 October at 7 PM London time (20:00 GMT), the Union Chapel is hosting a webinar titled ‘Starvation - a weapon of war’ which is intended to develop the discussion from their earlier webinar
‘Tigray - the prevention of genocide’ (watch
online). Speakers include Lord Alton of Liverpool (co-chair of the UK’s All-Party Parliamentary Group on Eritrea), alongside academics Alex de Waal and Sarah Vaughan.
Register
to attend.
Earlier on, we reported about solidarity for Tigray in Spain, the Netherlands, Belgium, UK, the USA, also in Italy, France, South Africa and Japan. No way to have
the full inventory of all these activities. For now, we wish to highlight an
upcoming event in Slovenia.
On Saturday, November 12, 2022, at 7:00 p.m., a holy mass and a concert for Tigray will be held in the Church of St. Mary in Ljubljana - the Franciscan church on
Tromostovje. There will be fundraising for the people of Tigray.
Some recent articles in Slovenian
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----------------------------------------------------------
Jan Nyssen
Em. Senior Full Professor
Department of Geography
Ghent University
Belgium
(0032) 9 264 46 23
https://www.researchgate.net/project/War-and-humanitarian-crisis-in-Tigray-and-Ethiopia