USA Today Explainer: World's most deadly war over the last year has not been in Ukraine, but in Tigray
Tigray, Eritrea and Ethiopia's 2-year-long civil war has killed more people than the war in Ukraine, yet nobody's talking about it.
USA TODAY
Published 10:00 AM GMT Nov. 21, 2022 Updated 11:32 AM GMT Nov. 21, 2022
No working ambulances for a population of more than 5.5 million. No banking services. Hundreds of thousands killed by fighting and famine. A near-total military siege that has all but cut off essential supplies and forced families to stay in touch by word of mouth or through handwritten letters.
Russia's invasion of Ukraine has preoccupied U.S. and international policymakers and military planners since early 2022. There has been intense focus on the humanitarian impact, from displaced people to allegations of war crimes, from energy prices to questions around global security, including whether President Vladimir Putin would dare use nuclear weapons.
But there is another, bigger and deadlier conflict in which over the past two years the abject horrors of war have been all but hidden to the West because of a combination of a border blockade, a communications blackout, complex regional dynamics and few visible sustained signs of meaningful engagement from Western capitals.
This conflict, a civil war, is being fought in Tigray, an ancient kingdom in northern Ethiopia, on the Horn of Africa.
Tigray has been under assault from Ethiopian forces led by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, Eritrean forces led by President Isaias Afwerki and various militias accused of extrajudicial executions, sexual violence and indiscriminate shelling. There has been widespread destruction of civilian hospitals, schools, residences, factories and businesses. Experts say Eritrea is involved in the conflict partly out of a desire to reassert itself on the regional stage and a result of long-running animosity against Tigrayans. The Ethiopian government and Tigrayan forces recently signed an agreement laying out a roadmap for a peace deal, but experts are unsure to what extent it is meaningfully being observed.
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