‘Don’t know if they are alive’: anguish of Tigrayan families cut off by telecom shutdown
The ‘partial blockade’ of the war-torn Ethiopian region has added to Tigrayans’ fears and distress
When the Ethiopian long-distance runner Gotytom Gebreslase won the women’s marathon gold at the World Athletics Championships in Oregon this month, her jubilation was tinged with sadness: she had broken the championship record, but could not celebrate with her family.
“My mother and father would have been delighted,” she said in a brief interview with the BBC, before bursting into tears.
Three of Ethiopia’s four gold medallists at the championships, including Gotytom, are from Tigray. Their success has has shone a light on one of the world’s longest communications shutdowns, which a senior EU official in June called a “partial blockade”.
“The Tigrayan athletes have still not got the opportunity to contact their families,” said Derartu Tulu, head of the Ethiopian Athletics Federation, at a ceremony in Addis Ababa to welcome the return of the national athletics team on Thursday. “It is my expectation that our honoured president will surely solve this problem.”
Tigray’s links to the outside world were severed when war broke out between the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) and the federal government in November 2020, with all phone and internet links cut. Phone services were mostly restored last year but were shut down again after the TPLF recaptured most of Tigray from federal forces in June 2021.
The conflict has killed tens of thousands of people and uprooted millions from their homes. Most of it happened out of sight of the outside world, with human rights researchers and journalists later uncovering evidence of massacres and rape.
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