seyoum Mesfin, a former Ethiopian foreign minister, was one of the most important African diplomats of his generation. He was shot this month in Tigray by the armed forces of an inferior man – Abiy Ahmed, Prime Minister of Ethiopia and Nobel Peace Prize winner. Some suggest that it was the Eritrean military, Abiy’s allies, who killed Seyoum, although his presence in Tigray is officially denied. The circumstances of his death remain unclear.
As with most of the unreported and unchallenged murders and chaos currently occurring in northern Ethiopia, Abiy prefers obscure. When he ordered the army to attack the separatist region of Tigray in November, he blocked the internet, closed aid agencies and banned journalists. It is a conflict that he claims to have won – but the emerging reality is very different. It is a war waged in the shadows, with the outside world kept in the dark.
After aid workers finally obtained limited access this month, it is estimated that 4.5 million of Tigray’s 6 million inhabitants need emergency food aid. Hundreds of thousands are said to face hunger. The UN warns that Eritrean refugees in the camps of Mai Aini and Adi Harush are in “desperate need of supplies” and are being pursued by armed gangs. Some are said to have been forcibly and illegally repatriated.
Access continues to be denied to two other camps, Shimelba and Hitsats, which were set on fire. Many camp residents are believed to have fled Eritrean looters and Amhara militiamen. Satellite images published by the UK’s DX Open Network show damage to 400 structures in Shimelba. Filippo Grandi, head of the UN refugee agency, points to “concrete indications of serious violations of international law”.
There are persistent and unconfirmed reports of massacres, torture, rapes, abductions and pillaging or destruction of centenary manuscripts and artifacts in Tigray. Last week, EEPA, an NGO based in Belgium, described a massacre of 750 people in a cathedral in Aksum that allegedly houses the Ark of the Covenant. Ethiopian troops and Amhara militias are accused of the murders in the Church of Santa Maria de Sião, which is part of the UN World Heritage. The report has not been independently verified.
Despite Abiy’s claims that the war is over and no civilians were injured, sporadic fighting continues, said an analyst familiar with the government’s thinking. Thousands of people have died, about 50,000 have fled to Sudan and many are homeless, sheltered in caves. Intentional artillery attacks destroyed hospitals and health centers in an echo of the war in Syria, the analyst said.
Gathered this month in Mekelle, the capital of Tigray, aid workers complained that the Ethiopian government was still impeding relief efforts and demanded full access. “People are starving. In Adwa, people die in their sleep. [It’s] the same in other areas, ”said regional administrator Berhane Gebretsadik. But Addis Ababa’s response was sparse.
Official denials from Ethiopia and Eritrea that Eritrean forces are operating in Tigray are contradicted by eyewitness reports. Amid the darkness, it seems clear that Eritrean President Dictator Isaias Afwerki made common cause with Abiy. The two met in Addis Ababa in October, just before the start of the war, to discuss “consolidating regional cooperation”.
Afwerki is an old enemy who runs a brutally repressive regime. But he shares Abiy’s hatred for the Tigrayan leadership that dominated the government of former Prime Minister Meles Zenawi during Ethiopia’s 20-year border war with Eritrea. Abiy, an oromo from Ethiopia’s largest ethnic group, made peace with Eritrea in 2018, expelled his rivals Tigrayan and has been fighting with them ever since.
Other evidence of secret alliances comes from Somalia. O Guardian of Somalia reported this month that 2,500 Somali recruits were treated like “cannon fodder” after being sent to a military base in Eritrea for training, then deployed in Tigray with Eritrean forces. Dozens of people are said to have died.
The international scrutiny of Abiy’s war in Tigray has largely been lacking. An exception is the EU, which has indefinitely suspended € 88 million in aid to Addis Ababa. “We have received consistent reports of violence against ethnic targets, murders, looting, rapes, forced refugee return and possible war crimes,” said Josep Borrell, EU foreign affairs chief.
The UN and EU warnings, along with the shocking murder of the internationally respected Seyoum Mesfin, can now bring a closer look. I met Seyoum, one of the founders in 1975 of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front in Addis, in 2008. He was a master diplomat. According to Alex de Waal, the Africa expert, Seyoum was a skilled peacemaker in Rwanda and Sudan who “chaired the rehabilitation of Ethiopia’s international position” after 1991.
Abiy now risks destroying that position. “The circumstances of Seyoum’s death are not clear. The Ethiopian government is not a reliable source of information. Eritrea – which may well have carried out the murders – remains silent. The official report that Seyoum and his colleagues ‘refused to surrender’ is opaque, ”wrote De Waal.
He noted that the other two elderly Tigrayans killed alongside Seyoum, 71, were Abay Tsehaye, who had just had heart surgery, and Asmelash Woldeselassie, who was blind. This trio hardly posed a physical threat to heavily armed troops.
Abiy seems to have lost control of the events. There is anger in Mekelle, where a puppet administration has been installed, over ongoing security issues, including rape. The threat of rural hunger is great. In the mid-1980s, mass famine in Ethiopia shocked the world. About 1 million people died. These horrors were subsequently overcome by decades of hard work.
Much to Abiy’s shame, the specter of hunger now haunts Ethiopia again. The good work of the past is being undone. He must return his Nobel Peace Prize and answer for his actions in Tigray.