Johannesburg – The medical charity Doctors Without Borders has revealed details of the horrible war going on virtually out of sight in the Tigray region of northern Ethiopia, reporting that government forces executed civilians in cold blood.
Since the outbreak of violence in Tigray, months ago, the Ethiopian government has imposed a media blackout, preventing foreign and local journalists from entering the region until recently. Some journalists have started to approach the fight now, but with little freedom to move, so the veil of secrecy is slowly being lifted and we continue to hear about horrific violence long after the fact.
That is why an eyewitness account by Médecins Sans Frontières – known by the French acronym MSF – of recent brutality has become a key piece of evidence in the ongoing conflict.
The group said his MSF car and two public buses traveling behind him were stopped on a road by Ethiopian soldiers. The driver was beaten but was allowed to return to the vehicle, but the organization said the passengers on the buses were unloaded, the men and women separated and the men, who were at least four, were shot at close range.
Minasse Wondimu Hailu / Anadolu Agency / Getty
It is a horrible report, but the worst is that it seems to be a regular occurrence in the region, as stories of massacres and other violence continue to emerge, usually long after the fact and always difficult to verify.
Sexual violence
On Monday, the United Nations called for an end to indiscriminate and targeted attacks against civilians in Tigray, including rape and other forms of sexual violence.
Gender-based violence has widely used as a weapon of war around the world, and in this particular conflict – which began to look more and more like an example of ethnic cleansing – rape is being used to humiliate, embarrass, destroy dignity and tear the souls of Tigrayan women.
Ethiopian government troops have been accused of joining forces with soldiers from neighboring Eritrea to brutalize and rape Tigrayan women. Some of the limited reports that have emerged from the region suggest that when these women are attacked, they say it is to purify them of their Tigray blood.
Britain’s Channel 4 recently ran a devastating report on these atrocities. One survivor reported to the network a terrible 10-day ordeal, during which she said she and five other women were raped by Eritrean soldiers. She said soldiers played and took pictures while injecting her with a drug, tied her to a stone, stripped her, stabbed and raped her repeatedly.
Doctors who treated Tigrayan women said a woman’s vagina was full of nails, stones and plastic.
For the first time since the start of the conflict, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed acknowledged that atrocities were committed, saying that any soldier found guilty of raping women or other war crimes would be held responsible. But in saying this, he also suggested that circumstances in the region were being exaggerated for propaganda purposes.
What is the war in Tigray about?
The conflict began in November, after Ahmed ordered an offensive against the ruling party in Tigray, a semi-autonomous region of Ethiopia, accusing him of attacking a government military base.
But it was the result of growing tension between the Tigray People’s Liberation Front and Ahmed’s central government in the capital Addis Ababa. The TPLF used to be Ethiopia’s ruling party, dominating politics and enjoying disproportionate economic power for several decades.
Abiy came to power in 2018 following widespread anti-government protests and immediately sought to increase central government control and minimize regional autonomy. TPLF officials have been purged from the government, some being accused of corruption, and tension between the two entities has grown steadily since then until the start of the armed conflict in November.
Eritrean forces crossing the border to join Abiy’s troops have been of particular concern.
In 2019, Abiy received the Nobel Peace Prize for ending the long war between Ethiopia and Eritrea. As of Tuesday this week, Abiy and his government openly denied the presence of any Eritrean forces within Ethiopia, but the evidence was overwhelming, and he was forced to admit that Eritrean troops had crossed the border.
He said they came because they were concerned that they would be attacked by their longtime enemy – the TPLF, whose forces have borne the brunt of the fighting during the Ethiopia-Eritrean war.
Eritrea used to be part of Ethiopia, but it became a separate nation after a war of independence in the early 1990s. Then the war broke out between them again in 1998. Abiy said this week that Eritrea had promised that its forces would withdraw when the Ethiopian military could control the border.
Eritrean forces are now accused of the worst human rights atrocities committed in Tigray since the start of the current conflict.
US intervention?
The Biden government sent $ 50 million in aid and dispatched Senator Chris Coons to speak with leaders in Ethiopia, but many experts argue that not only the US, but the rest of the western world is falling short when it comes to dealing with crisis.
Despite repeated condemnations by the United States and the United Nations about the atrocities, the brutality continued and, from the reports that emerged, it became even more severe.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken called Abiy to call for an end to the conflict and there is no doubt that diplomatic pressure is mounting on the Ethiopian leader to end the violence.
Until recently, Ethiopia, a close American military ally, was seen as the strategic axis in the volatile Horn of Africa, but as the Tigray conflict dragged on, analysts fear that Ethiopia could become yet another source of instability in a region infested by Islamic insurgencies and unrest.
In an indication of the seriousness with which the United States considers the crisis, Blinken announced Wednesday night that a special envoy would be appointed to the Horn of Africa, with Ethiopia being a top priority.
Blinken spoke this week with European Union officials to discuss “a variety of measures to support unrestricted humanitarian access, investigating human rights abuses, an end to hostilities and the immediate withdrawal of Eritrea from Ethiopian territory”.