Africa Must Do Its Part to Break Ethiopia’s Abusive Tigray Siege (Foreign Policy)
Africa Must Do Its Part to Break Ethiopia’s Abusive Tigray Siege
The Ethiopian government’s chokehold on humanitarian aid needs to end.
The United Nations’ first chartered ship carrying Ukrainian grain, which had been sitting in blockaded silos as a result of Russia’s full-scale invasion, docked in Djibouti on Aug. 30. Free passage of this shipment, destined for Ethiopia, followed concerted pressure by African governments on Russia as well as U.N.-led negotiations. But more diplomatic muscle, including by African countries, is needed to end the Ethiopian government’s almost two-year-long chokehold on humanitarian assistance to the beleaguered Tigray region. Otherwise, many of the Ethiopians most at risk of hunger are unlikely to benefit.
Ethiopia is one of six countries the U.N. has singled out for having people at risk of starvation. Millions in the country’s south and east are grappling with alarming levels of hunger and malnutrition due to one of the worst droughts in decades. Communities in conflict-affected areas in the country’s north rely on humanitarian assistance. But it is in the Tigray region, specifically, where a severe starvation crisis has persisted for over a year and could be reversed through government actions.
Since the outbreak of war in Tigray in November 2020, Ethiopian forces and their allies have frequently violated the laws of war. They pillaged and targeted homes and civilian infrastructure—crimes the Tigrayan forces would later replicate in other regions—while shutting off basic services and severely obstructing aid to civilians caught up in the fighting. Then the authorities imposed an effective siege on the entire region, keeping out virtually all humanitarian assistance for civilians in violation of Ethiopian domestic law, international human rights, and humanitarian law.
For the first eight months of the conflict, Ethiopian forces and their allies pillaged businesses, hospitals, banks, livestock, and harvests, leaving the region dependent on assistance. The impact of this destruction has been devastating. It has prevented people from getting health care, food, and other basic services, and stymied the recovery of a health system broken by the conflict. For months, federal and regional forces blocked off the roads, making it nearly impossible for private actors or humanitarian agencies to carry in medical supplies or food. Supplies decreased to alarming levels.
My organization, Human Rights Watch, spoke to doctors in February who had treated dozens of survivors of a deadly drone strike without access to intravenous fluids or protective gloves. A journalist who traveled to Tigray in late May and early June told us he saw “hunger everywhere.” In August, the U.N. warned that one out of three Tigrayan children under the age of 5 is acutely malnourished.
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