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The conflict in Tigray in Ethiopia is reaching a critical point. The Ethiopian parliament appointed a new head of government for the separatist region. The military offensive continued. The EU fears a humanitarian catastrophe.
The Ethiopian parliament has appointed a new head of government in the separatist region of Tigray. The decision was made a day after Parliament overthrew Tigray’s former president, Debretsion Gebremichael.
Gebremichael was elected in September and is director of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front TPLF. However, the central government in Addis Ababa did not recognize the elections, which have now led to a military conflict. Government troops continued their offensive in the region.
Many civilian casualties
Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed announced on Thursday that government troops had already controlled parts of the separatist state of Tigray. The UN refugee agency spoke of 11,000 people alone who had fled to neighboring Sudan due to the week-long fighting.
There were apparently many civilian casualties in the fighting. Images circulating on social media show dozens of bodies being transported by a town in the northwest of the Tigray region. Amnesty International spoke of a massacre among civilians. According to the human rights organization, the authenticity of the images has been confirmed.
Worry about climbing
The EU Commission fears a disaster for the population and an expansion of the conflict. “The military escalation in Ethiopia threatens the stability of the whole country and the region,” said EU Commissioner for Crisis Management, Janez Lenarcic, of the “German editorial network”. The risk of the violence spreading is very real.
Lenarcic called on the Ethiopian government to grant aid organizations quick and unconditional access to the Tigray region. “I am afraid that this crisis will have catastrophic humanitarian consequences for the whole country,” said the European Commissioner. Even before the crisis, around three million people in Tigray and 15 million people across the country were dependent on humanitarian aid.
The conflict has been burning for years
The conflict in Ethiopia escalated after Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed postponed parliamentary elections scheduled for the summer due to the crown pandemic, without giving a specific new date.
In Tigray, with its more than five million inhabitants, there has been a dispute between the central government of Addis Ababa and the TPLF for years. These are ethnic tensions between the Tigrayers, who had controlled the country for decades, and Abiy Ahmed of the Oromo majority.
Abiy has been Prime Minister of Ethiopia since April 2018. The TPLF did not join the unity government formed by him. Abiy received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019 for his efforts to achieve reconciliation with neighboring Eritrea. It also opened up Ethiopia economically and politically, but failed to control ethnic unrest.
With information from Antje Diekhans, ARD-Studio Nairobi.
