Issue No. 209

The war isn’t over

We are approaching two anniversaries in relation to the Tigray War. The first, 4 November, marks three years since the outbreak of armed conflict in Tigray, when the Ethiopian National Defence Forces (ENDF) and the Eritrean army launched a massive coordinated assault on the region. Two years of destruction and death followed, including horrific war crimes and crimes against humanity. The second, on 3 November, is the first anniversary of the Pretoria agreement that halted the fighting. While it did end most of the fighting, the Cessation of Hostilities accord (CoHA) had major faults.
 
Nearly a year after the agreement, true peace is still a distant dream for many. Those living along Ethiopia’s northern border with Eritrea and in western Tigray remain under occupation by Eritrean forces and Amhara militia. Communities like the Irob, just 35,000 people in north-eastern Tigray, continue to face displacement, sexual assault, and other forms of violence by occupying Eritrean forces. Telecommunications haven’t resumed there, nor humanitarian aid. The advocacy group, Irob Amina, has recorded dozens of disappearances from the Irob district and neighbouring Golomkeda since the Pretoria agreement. And there is still little indication of who might displace these Eritrean occupiers, despite the stipulation of withdrawal by “all non-ENDF” forces from Tigray as stipulated in the Pretoria agreement. For those who do not know the fate of their loved ones, the war has not ended.
 
The implementation of the Pretoria agreement, already a flawed document, has been paltry at best. Thousands of people have been displaced from their homes in western and northern Tigray since the cessation of hostilities almost one year ago. The International Organisation for Migration has estimated that there are over a million internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Tigray. Transitional justice, healthcare, education, reintegration of Tigrayan armed forces, economic support for the people, and the withdrawal of non-ENDF forces have been barely addressed, if at all.
 
The recent termination of the International Commission of Human Rights Experts on Ethiopia (ICHREE) is shameful. An expert on the ICHREE, Steven Rather, called the termination a “great blow” to those seeking justice. The Commission’s final report highlighted the ENDF, as well as Eritrean Defence Forces, and allied Afar and Amhara militias, as answerable for a litany of atrocities. Victims of deliberate starvation, mass killings, and widespread sexual violence may never see justice. Western governments have preferred normalisation of relations with Addis and the gradual return to status quo politics over in-depth investigations and genuine accountability.
 
Meanwhile in Tigray, starvation, hunger, and malnutrition continue to worsen. A largely agrarian economy pre-war, the systematic destruction of livestock, crops, and farming equipment has rendered the majority of the population dependent on food aid. This has made the suspension of humanitarian food aid in May 2023 by the World Food Programme (WFP) and USAID even more devastating; at least 1,400 people have starved to death since May. And this number does not include those living in occupied areas where food aid could not reach even before the suspension. Between November 2022 and May 2023, just 5,500 relief trucks reached Tigray, far below the required aid for a region that had been severed from the world for two full years. While the WFP and USAID have recently resumed partial aid distribution to some, it has not begun to touch the humanitarian crisis.
 
Many basic services have not begun to be rebuilt. A recent World Health Organisation report revealed that 86% of Tigray’s 853 health service delivery units had seen structural damage, and 28 health facilities were entirely destroyed. Telecommunications and internet access remain patchy across much of Tigray, and dozens of schools are still doubling as IDP shelters. As a result of the Covid-19 pandemic and the war, hundreds of thousands of Tigray’s children have lived through years with limited or no schooling. Their childhoods have been robbed from them.
 
In addition, drought is impacting another crucial harvest in Tigray, the third harvest in three years. Southern, southeastern, and eastern Tigray are particularly affected, with drought hitting 20% of the region’s farmland. Plans to cultivate over a million hectares have slumped, to just 660,000 this year, due to drought as well as locust swarms. And with fertile western Tigray still occupied during a national shortage of fertiliser, there is little sign agricultural production will approach pre-war outputs. Once the most developed region of Ethiopia,Tigray is now perhaps its poorest.
 
Over the weekend, beginning 13 October, three days of mourning were held to commemorate the combatants who died in the war. Ceremonies, known as ‘Agobel,’ took place during which photos of the deceased were displayed alongside religious prayers. November’s two imminent anniversaries offer further opportunities for reflection on and resolution of an intense and brutal conflict that has indelibly scarred Tigray, and Ethiopia as a whole. Turning away is not an option. While the response post-war from the international community and Addis has been wanting, it is not too late to change course.
 
Following the Rwanda genocide, and other extreme armed conflicts, the international community has united behind occasionally misguided attempts to support and rebuild ravaged communities. Yet in Tigray, hundreds of non-governmental orgainsations and charities that routinely flock to post-conflict countries are yet to be seen. The moral imperative to support the reconstruction of Tigray has not ebbed; it has only grown stronger. If those in Western capitals believe in the values they espouse, they should commit to supporting Tigray now, no matter the cost.

By the Ethiopian Cable team