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Four months after the Ethiopian government declared victory over the rebel Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), tens of thousands of Tigrayans are being driven from their homes again.
This time, it is not due to the fighting, but to regional forces and militiamen from neighboring Amhara seeking to resolve a decades-long land dispute, according to witnesses, aid workers and members of the new Tigray administration.
Amhara officials say the disputed lands, equivalent to about a quarter of Tigray, were seized during the nearly three decades that the TPLF dominated the central government before Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed came to power in 2018.
“Obviously the land belongs to the Amhara region,” Gizachew Muluneh, a spokesman for the Amhara regional administration, told Reuters.
Ababu Negash, 70, said he fled Adebay, a city in western Tigray, after Amhara officials called Tigrayans to meetings in February.
“They said you don’t belong here,” Ababu told Reuters in Shire, a city 100 miles east, where many from western Tigray are fleeing. “They said if we stay, they will kill us.”
This new exodus from western Tigray runs the risk of exacerbating a precarious humanitarian situation in the region, with hundreds of thousands of people already uprooted by the fighting. The territorial dispute is also being closely watched by other regions of Ethiopia’s troubled federation, some with their own border disputes.
Amhara fighters entered western Tigray in support of federal forces after the TPLF, the then ruling Tigray party, attacked military bases there in November. They have remained ever since, and Amhara officials say they have reclaimed a swath of territory that was historically theirs.
Tigrayan officials say the area has long been home to both ethnic groups and that the region’s borders are established by the constitution. Now that the fighting has subsided and the roads have been reopened, they say there is a concerted and illegal push to drive out the Tigrayans.
Reuters interviewed 42 Tigrayans who described attacks, looting and threats by gunmen from Amhara. Two had scars that they said were from gunshots.
“The western part of Tigray is occupied by the Amhara militias and special forces, and they are forcing people to leave their homes,” Mulu Nega, head of the Tigray government-appointed administration in Mekelle, told Reuters. capital of Tigray.
He accused Amhara of exploiting Tigray’s weakness to annex territory. “Those who are committing this crime must be held accountable,” he said.
When asked about the accounts of violence and intimidation by Amhara fighters, Yabsira Eshetie, the administrator of the disputed area, said that no one had been threatened and that only criminals had been detained.
“No one was kicking them out, no one was destroying even their houses. Even the houses are still there. They can go back,” he said. “There are federal police here, there are Amhara special police here. It is legal here.”
Reuters was unable to reach Amhara police and federal police referred questions to regional authorities.
WHOSE LAND?
Gizachew said Amhara now administers the disputed territory, reorganizes schools, police and militia, and provides food and shelter. The Tigrayans were welcome to stay, he said, adding that Amhara has asked the federal government to rule on the dispute and expects a decision in the coming months.
It did not respond to requests for comment on allegations of violence and intimidation by Amhara fighters.
The prime minister’s office referred Reuters to regional authorities to answer questions about the land dispute and the displacement of the Tigrayans, who represent about 5% of Ethiopia’s 110 million people. There was no response from a government task force on Tigray or the military spokesperson.
In a speech to parliament on March 23, Abiy defended Amhara’s regional forces for their role in supporting the government against the TPLF. “Presenting this force as a looter and a conqueror is very wrong,” he said.
The United Nations has warned of possible war crimes in Tigray. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said this month that there have been acts of ethnic cleansing and called for Amhara forces to withdraw from Tigray.
The Ethiopian government strongly denies that it has an ethnic agenda.
“Nothing during or after the end of the main law enforcement operation (against the TPLF) can be identified … as intentional ethnic cleansing and directed against anyone in the region,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement. following Blinken’s comments.
Reuters was unable to determine how many people have fled western Tigray in recent weeks as families move frequently, many are staying with relatives and some have been displaced multiple times.
Local authorities and the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said that about 1,000 arrived in Shire every day, and 45,000 since the end of February.
The Norwegian Refugee Council said between 140,000 and 185,000 came from western Tigray over a two-week period in March.
‘LEAVE OR LOSE YOUR LIFE’
Tewodros Aregai, Acting Head of Northwest Shire, said the city was home to 270,000 displaced people even before the last influx and did not have enough food or shelter.
Four centers set up to house the newcomers are almost full. Families huddle in classrooms, hallways, and half-finished buildings. Others camp under tarps or in open ground.
Ababu said that she and her family arrived in Shire in early March. He fled his farm in November when he said Amhara regional forces killed civilians in nearby Mai Kadra after taking the city with federal forces. She said she spent three months in Adebay but was forced to leave at the end of February.
Reuters was unable to independently verify his account. Communications in Tigray, a mountainous region of roughly 5 million people, have been spotty since the conflict began and the region was off limits to most international media until this month.
Amhara officials in Mai Kadra deny that Tigrayans were attacked there, although dozens of displaced residents provided similar accounts.
People still living in Mai Kadra told Reuters that Tigrayan youth, backed by local security forces, stabbed and beat hundreds of Amhara civilians to death the night before government forces entered the city on the 10th. of November. later, an estimated 600 civilians had died.
The 42 Tigrayans interviewed by Reuters while fleeing the west said they were now being evicted en masse.
“They (Amhara forces) circulated a newspaper that said: ‘If you do not leave the area in two days, you will lose your life,'” said Birhane Tadele, a priest from Rewasa village in western Tigray. “Then they took all the cattle and everything in the house.”
Birhane said she fled to Humera, a town in the disputed area, but was unable to stay because gunmen from Amhara were detaining people with Tigrayan IDs and putting them in jail. Now he lives in a school in Mekelle.
Two other Tigrayans also described such raids in Humera, and three described similar circulars elsewhere demanding that they leave. Reuters was unable to independently verify their accounts.
A farmer from Mylomin, a small village in western Tigray, showed Reuters scars on the stomach and back of his five-year-old son, Kibrom, who he said was shot when the Ethiopian army arrived on November 9 with his allies from Amhara.
The farmer, who did not want his name published for fear of retaliation, said he took the boy to Gondor hospital in Amhara. When they returned, neighbors told him that Amhara’s gunmen had stolen his 60 cattle and other belongings. Now he lives with his family in the courtyard of a Mekelle school.
Reuters was unable to reach Mylomin officials for comment on their account of the fighting. Gondor hospital officials said they received an influx of patients with violence injuries in early November, but did not provide details on specific cases.
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