Tigray Crisis - The Forgotten Crisis

thesaigonglorynews
Oct 17, 2023
3 min read

War Recap

February 1975 - January 2021

The Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), as a one-time rebel movement, had taken over Ethiopian politics for nearly three decades since February 1975. Since the death of Mr Zenawi, former Ethiopia prime minister, in 2012, the power of the party weakened, paving the way for Mr Abiy to become prime minister in 2018.

Despite his one-time alliance with the TPLF, Abiy set about draining the party of its political power in preparation for establishing a new political party in 2019. In defiance to join the newly-formed power, the people of Tigray were infuriated by this action. From there, tensions grew.

November 2020: Civil war broke out in Tigray - now

The conflict officially broke out when the TPLF first attacked the federal Ethiopian forces led by Mr Abiy - the current Ethiopian Prime Minister. Quickly after the incident, a nationwide six-month state of emergency was declared by the government. As victims of the war crimes committed by Eritrean and Ethiopian soldiers, the civilians have since suffered in a large-scale ethnic cleansing campaign and widespread human rights violations. Although fighting has gradually died down since the Tigrayans were forced back to their homeland by the government troops around the end of 2020, signs of war raging again in Tigray have recently been detected by satellite images.

The Impact

For months after the conflict erupted, Prime minister Abiy declared to reporters that there were no interruptions in the civilians’ lives and the people were protected from the warfare activities. However, staggering evidence of the conflict’s atrocities began to be discovered by international investigations and human rights organisations.

At a press conference on August 17, Dr Tedros - Head of the World Health Organisation, who is an ethnic Tigrayan, publicly criticised the government’s blockade of basic services. He stated that “nowhere in the world you would see this level of cruelty” and “It’s a government [that] punishes 6 million of its people for more than 21 months.”

International aids, though inadequate, are unable to reach the people. The government and Eritrean forces are deliberately causing a “man-made” famine by blocking and looting food relief in multiple parts of Tigray, plunging the area into aggravating food insecurity and emergency level of malnutrition, where amongst 5 million citizens who are vulnerable to starvation, over 400,000 people are suffering in famine conditions. According to USAID, the government-imposed blockade has prevented more than 90% of the relief aid from reaching the regions in urgent need of help.

The OCHA Situation Report of September 2022 highlighted that 16 million people are struggling in drought-affected areas, amongst the total of 20 million people who are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance. Despite the government’s repeating rejection of the allegations, separate investigations conducted by CNN and Amnesty International disclosed heart-breaking evidence of massacres and sexual violence executed by the Eritrean troops in the towns of Dengelate and Axum. Beyond such atrocities, the deaths and dislocation of thousands of people alongside evidence of razed refugee shelters, sexual violence, massacres, looting, and extrajudicial killings were also uncovered through various other reports.

Racial Discrimination

Despite the growing tension and complications of the conflict, the Tigrayan war remained largely unattended by the public as much of the world’s focus was dominated by the Russia-Ukraine war. Thus, this conflict is also referred to as the Ethiopian “forgotten war”.

Noticing the absence of discussion about the Tigray situation in any head of state in the developed world, Dr Tedros - Head of the World Health Organisation (WHO) suggested that racism may be driving the lack of international attention in the ongoing war.

In unavoidable comparisons regarding the ongoing conflicts around the world, the question of whether the huge gap of international interest between the Russia-Ukraine war and the Ethiopian conflict was due to the difference in the colour of skin is brought about. Although acknowledging that the conflict in the eastern European country has detrimental global consequences, critics are sceptical over whether biased perceptions of human value based on racial background influence the public’s voluntary concern towards the Tigray conflict.

How to help?

According to disaster experts, one of the most conventional and efficient ways of helping the people in Tigray that anyone can do right now is donating cash to humanitarian NGOs that support Ethiopia's Humanitarian Response Plan (HRP). This way of support facilitates the process of agencies distributing funds to most significant areas of need and prevents material donations from detracting.

List of NGOs