Jacques Chirac, at the 4th Earth Summit, in 2002, said: “The house is on fire but we are looking elsewhere.“ Just a year ago, in Ethiopia, in the Tigray region, the house was on fire and the US presidential election captured all the attention. At the same time, out of sight, this country in the heart of the Horn of Africa, which had nevertheless made peace, started war.
For a year, bombings have been raining regularly. On the night of November 3-4, 2020, the Ethiopian Prime Minister launched an offensive on the Tigray region, a semi-autonomous state of Ethiopia, the continent’s second largest country by population, with 110 million inhabitants. Tigray has more than five million. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed had promised rapid, targeted intervention. A year later, it is confirmed: Ethiopia is not at peace and the dead number probably in the thousands, even if the information is difficult to verify. A conflict behind closed doors, in short.
Abiy Ahmed was however the man of reconciliation with the Eritrean neighbor and received in 2019 the Nobel Peace Prize. With, on the menu, a speech and promises: “Make peace with your brothers!” Evil was gnawing at Ethiopia from the inside.
Tigray is led by the People’s Liberation Front, says TPLF, which ruled Ethiopia for three decades and had a hard time with Abiy Ahmed’s coming to power in 2018. The November 2020 intervention therefore marked the end of the year. the height of several months of tension between TPLF and the federal government. Two camps are opposed and blame each other on the outbreak of hostilities: the TPLF allied to other rebel groups and the Ethiopian federal army, which received in particular the reinforcement of soldiers sent by Eritrea, even if Abiy Ahmed had a hard time recognizing it. The rebels claimed a few days ago the capture of two strategic towns, Dessie and Kombolcha, 400 kilometers north of the capital, Addis Ababa. The central government denies these advances but at the same time declares a state of emergency throughout the territory.
And war, as often, rhymes with humanitarian crisis. And famine, which threatens some 400,000 people. Food aid is struggling to find its way to Tigray. NGOs are hampered by a “de facto” blockade, according to the UN. Again, the two sides accuse each other of “starving” civilians.
The conflict in Tigray is marked by “extreme brutality”, in the words of Michelle Bachelet, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights who carried out an investigation, revealed this week, in which she evokes possible “war crimes” and “crimes against humanity”, committed by both sides.