With increasing tensions between Abiy and the TPLF, Isaias saw an opportunity to settle old accounts and reassert himself in the region, said Martin Plaut, author of “Understanding Eritrea” and a senior researcher at the University of London.
“It is typical of Isaias,” said Plaut. “He seeks to project power in ways completely unimaginable for the leader of such a small country.”
Aid groups warn that without immediate access, Tigray will soon face a humanitarian disaster. The war broke out at a time when residents were getting ready to harvest, in a region that was already struggling with swarms of locusts and recurring droughts.
Refugees are especially vulnerable. According to the United Nations, 96,000 Eritrean refugees were in Tigray at the start of the fight, although some camps have since been emptied. An internal UN report of December 12, seen by The Times, described the situation in Hitsats as “extremely terrible”, without food or water.
Further north, in the Shimelba camp, Eritrean soldiers beat up refugees, tied their hands and left them in the sun all day, said Efrem, a resident who later fled to Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital.
“They poured milk on their bodies so that they were surrounded by flies,” he said.
Later, said Efrem, the soldiers arrested 40 refugees and forced them to travel back across the border to Eritrea.
Declan Walsh reported from Nairobi, Kenya, and Simon Marks from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. contributed reporting from Washington, a Christiaan Triebert of New York.