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ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia – Even before clashes began in November between the Ethiopian government and powerful military forces in the northern Tigray region, the area was home to as many as 200,000 refugees and displaced people, according to United Nations agencies.
Now, with the increase in air strikes and the escalation of the conflict, international aid groups say tens of thousands more are on the run. But the organizations say they have been prevented from helping.
On Tuesday, aid groups called on the Ethiopian government to ensure access to the Tigray region so that they can replenish dwindling supplies for people stranded by the fighting. In the Tigray refugee camps, fuel is running dangerously low, a major concern because the camps rely on generators to pump water.
“We have fuel for a week, and that may have been reduced to days,” said Ann Encontre, a resident representative for the UN refugee agency in Ethiopia. “So you can imagine how desperate everything is.”
The conflict began in early November when Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed ordered the Ethiopian army to launch a military offensive against the powerful ruling faction in Tigray. Abiy accused the region’s ruling Tigray People’s Liberation Front of arming irregular militias and orchestrating an attack on a federal army base.
The TPLF had been the dominant force in Ethiopia’s government for decades, but when Abiy became prime minister in 2018, he accused the region’s leaders of corruption and tried to undermine their power. They resigned from the coalition government and proceeded to hold regional elections in Tigray, challenging Mr Abiy, who had canceled the elections, citing the pandemic.
While reports from the region are scant, analysts and humanitarian workers say hundreds of people have died in the fighting since then and thousands have been displaced.
Saviano Abreu, spokesman for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, East Africa, said: “Since the conflict began in early November, we have received reports of tens of thousands of people who have been displaced within Tigray.”
Additionally, 5,000 people crossed the border from Ethiopia into Sudan on Monday alone. So far, more than 27,000 people fleeing the violence in Tigray have arrived in Sudan, Abreu said.
With the roads to Tigray cut off, the provision of food and other supplies to the refugees has become impossible, the aid group says. And since most lines of communication are also cut, it’s hard to even know what to do.
“Due to the communications blackout, it is really difficult to corroborate much of the information that we obtain,” said Encontre.
Speaking to reporters in Addis Ababa on Monday, Redwan Hussein, Ethiopia’s foreign minister, offered assurances.
“We will arrive in a couple of days with a solution,” he said. “We will develop a plan to solve the humanitarian problem before it becomes a crisis.”
But humanitarian workers are becoming increasingly frantic, with a senior UN official complaining of “a de facto economic blockade.”
The United Nations has food, health supplies and other relief items in warehouses ready to be shipped to Tigray. The only problem is getting there.
“Telecommunications are down, access to roads is closed and fuel, water and cash are cut off, particularly for our remaining staff and civilians to buy food wherever they are,” said Catherine Sozi, coordinator United Nations resident in Ethiopia.
“Things are getting pretty tough,” he said.
Aid groups are in talks with the government and leaders of the Tigray region about opening a humanitarian corridor. But in the meantime, thousands of refugees have decided that their safest course of action is to flee.
Abiy received the Nobel Peace Prize last year “for his efforts to achieve peace and international cooperation, and in particular for his decisive initiative to resolve the border conflict with neighboring Eritrea.”
But with the fighting spreading in Ethiopia and the threat of sparking a broader conflict in the region, the Nobel Peace Prize committee on Tuesday issued a rare, if unspoken rebuke to one of its honorees.
“The Norwegian Nobel Committee is closely monitoring developments in Ethiopia and is deeply concerned,” it said in a statement.
Henrik Urdal, director of the Oslo Peace Research Institute, which analyzes the Nobel Peace Prize selections, said it is “very unusual” for the Nobel committee to issue such a statement.
“The committee hopes, of course, that the laureates feel responsible for honoring the award and show restraint,” he said.
Simon Marks reported from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and Eric Nagourney from New York. Rick Gladstone contributed a report from New York.
