By Jason Burke
Hopes for quick relief for millions of civilians threatened by malnutrition, disease and direct attacks in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region were dashed this weekend as long-awaited peace talks were postponed without any new date set.
The meeting between the warring sides in the two-year-old conflict in Tigray would have been the first since a ceasefire broke down in late August.
However, poor organisation, logistical issues and a failure to consult key participants in advance appear to have derailed the initiative by the African Union (AU), a body representing more than 50 countries on the continent.
The conflict between the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), a political organisation that has ruled the region for decades, and Ethiopian central government forces began in November 2020. Federal forces are supported by troops from neighbouring Eritrea as well as local paramilitaries, which will complicate any peace negotiations.
William Davison, an expert in Ethiopia from the International Crisis Group, said the diplomatic effort was long overdue. However, he said:
“There is also a lot of military activity, with reports of tens of thousands of combat fatalities over just the last six weeks. While the numbers are uncertain, there is no doubt that a huge number of people are dying.”
The TPLF cautiously welcomed the new initiative by the AU last week but requested more information on participants, agendas and security arrangements for their delegates, documents seen by the Observer reveal.
“We are committed to a peaceful resolution of the current conflict … but need clarification to establish an auspicious start to the peace talks,” a letter sent to the AU by the TPLF leader Debretsion Gebremichael said.
A US envoy will also attempt to kickstart negotiations after arriving in the region last week.
Analysts say it may be difficult to bring both sides to the table when battles are still being fought in Tigray. There has been fierce fighting around the town of Kobo through much of September, though the most intense clashes are now thought to be in more northern areas, close to the border with Eritrea.
Tigray has been under a blockade since the beginning of the war, with limited humanitarian aid. Most communications have been cut off, while banking and other commercial services have ceased. Healthcare has been reduced to minimal levels as facilities shut and medication runs short.
Analysts say no durable resolution will be possible without both a temporary ceasefire and an end to the blockade, but that neither side currently appears keen to make necessary concessions.
The true death toll is unknown but could be approaching levels that make the conflict one of the most lethal anywhere in the world. With no access for independent journalists and a limited presence of international humanitarians, reliable data is scarce.
Researchers at Ghent University have calculated that several hundred thousand people in Tigray may have lost their lives since the outbreak of the conflict, including those who have died from a lack of healthcare and after being weakened by widespread malnutrition. More have died in neighbouring regions too, and the total would put the war in northern Ethiopia among the most lethal in recent decades.
“[This war] is in Africa and so it tends to be forgotten,” said Prof Jan Nyssen, a senior member of the team. “We have been tallying the known direct victims but the indirect are clearly more numerous because the whole of society is disrupted. We are trying not to exaggerate.”
The head of the World Health Organization, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has suggested racism may be contributing to the lack of international interest in such a deadly conflict.
Ghebreyesus – who is an ethnic Tigrayan – said in August that the situation caused by the conflict in his home country was worse than any other humanitarian crisis in the world, wondering whether the lack of global engagement could be linked to “the colour of the skin of the people”.
More than 50 people were killed in an airstrike on a school in northern Tigray that was sheltering people displaced by conflict last week, aid workers and Tigray forces said.
The attack in the town of Adi Daero, about 25 miles from the border with Eritrea, on Tuesday appears to be one of the deadliest carried out during the conflict.
The school was on a list of sites housing internally displaced persons that the UN sent to Ethiopia’s foreign ministry in January, according to aid workers and UN sources. One witness described the attack as causing “total carnage”. The government has denied targeting civilians in the conflict.
Aid workers in the region said that the TPLF had made rapid advances towards the border in recent weeks but were then forced to retreat when they came under sustained fire from Eritrean artillery.
Eritrean troops were heavily engaged in the most recent bout of fighting, prompting authorities there to begin mobilising new conscripts including older men previously spared service.
Analysts and diplomats have repeatedly raised concerns that the conflict threatens to destabilise a swath of east Africa.
“Currently it’s basically just a rehashing of what we saw last year: a back and forth with no one able to land a decisive blow. It looks like it has been contained [in Tigray] … but watching the security reports from around the region is just dizzying,” said one regionally based senior humanitarian working on the conflict, who requested anonymity.
All those involved are accused of widespread human rights abuses. UN-backed investigators said last month they found evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity by Ethiopian government forces, Tigray forces and Eritrea’s military – including rape, murder and pillage.
Ethiopia’s government has previously called the UN commission’s investigation “politically motivated”.
The investigators described “an escalation in drone attacks, which are employing explosive weapons with wide-area effects in populated areas”, following the outbreak of renewed fighting.
Hundreds of thousands in Tigray have been displaced in recent weeks but the renewed violence has halted even the already limited flow of aid.
The UN says that the fighting this year has left an estimated 13 million people in Tigray and the neighbouring government-controlled regions of Amhara and Afar in “desperate need of food assistance”.
Prime minister Abiy Ahmed’s government accuses the TPLF, which played a leading role in Ethiopia’s ruling coalition until Abiy came to power in 2018, of trying to reassert Tigrayan dominance over the entire country.
Tigrayan leaders accuse Abiy of repressive government and discrimination against Tigrayans. Both deny each other’s accusations.
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