Progress Online: There is a genocide in Ethiopia but the world is standing by

The world is standing by, allowing a genocide to unfold in Tigray, Ethiopia. After all the promises of “never again”, there’s a deafening silence over the outrages taking place in one of the west’s “go-to” partners in Africa.

At a recent 24-hour global lobby on the crisis, one of the young Tigrayan presenters broke down on air. The cause was social media footage of yet another massacre. Young Tigrayan men, already gunned down by forces from their own country’s government, were being finished off and having their bodies thrown over cliffs by federal soldiers shouting racial abuse.

Sky News: Ethiopia: Hundreds executed, thousands homeless – the human cost of fighting in Tigray

The breadth and depth of human suffering in the Ethiopian region of Tigray is perfectly clear to humanitarian workers, human rights groups and the international diplomatic community.

After four months of warfare between Ethiopia’s national defence force and fighters from the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), observers are collecting a worrying selection of data.

Bloomberg: Ethiopia’s Amhara Seizes Disputed Territory Amid Tigray War

Forces from the Amhara region took control of several areas in Tigray after backing federal troops that staged an incursion into its neighbor’s territory, said Gizachew Muluneh, a spokesman for the Amhara government. Fighting has continued in Tigray since Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed ordered the army to retaliate after forces loyal to Tigray’s ruling party attacked a military camp in November.

The land “was taken by force and now has been returned by force,” Gizachew said. “Although it wasn’t our original objective, it happened by default.”

MSN: ‘The fighting continues’: A Tigray town reels from drawn-out war

“The war is escalating. Now it is focused on the civilians,” Kibrom said.

“How can we live like this?”

Every phase of the four-month-old conflict in Tigray has brought suffering to Wukro, a fast-growing transport hub once best-known for its religious and archaeological sites.

Ahead of federal forces’ arrival in late November, heavy shelling levelled homes and businesses and sent plumes of dust and smoke rising above near-deserted streets.

BBC: Ethiopia’s Tigray crisis: Hospitals ‘vandalised and looted’

Nearly 70% of health facilities in Ethiopia’s conflict-hit northern region of Tigray have been vandalised and equipment looted, a report by medical charity MSF has found.

The facilities were “deliberately” attacked to make them “non-functional”, Médecins Sans Frontières said.

MSF: People left with few healthcare options in Tigray as facilities looted, destroyed

Violence in Ethiopia’s Tigray region has extended to attacks on health facilities, with barely one in 10 functioning. Of the 106 health facilities MSF teams visited, one in five had been or was occupied by armed soldiers; one facility is being used as an army base.

The damaged, looted facilities and resulting lack of medical staff means people in the region have very little access to healthcare. MSF urges all armed groups in the area to respect medical facilities and for services to be restored as soon as possible.

France24: MSF denounces widespread attacks on Tigray clinics

A statement issued Monday by Doctors Without Borders, know by its French initials MSF, said “treatment structures in the Ethiopian region of Tigray were looted, vandalised and destroyed in a deliberate and generalised manner” according to its observers in the area.

The group said it had visited 106 sites between mid-December and early March, and that 70 percent had been looted.

Only 13 percent “functioned normally”, the French-language statement added.

“One health establishment in five visited by MSF teams were occupied by soldiers. In certain cases, this occupation was temporary, while in others, it continued during the visit,” the group said.

Reuters: U.S. will not resume assistance to Ethiopia for most security programs

The State Department on Friday said Washington has decided not to lift the pause in assistance to Ethiopia for most programs in the security sector, days after U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken described acts in Tigray as ethnic cleansing.

The Globe and Mail: ‘A desperate situation’: Thousands flee western Tigray as fear of violence and starvation grows

Skinny, hungry, fleeing threats of violence, thousands of people who have been hiding in rural areas of Ethiopia’s Tigray region have begun arriving in a community that can barely support them – and more are said to be on the way.

EU-Ethiopia relations: EU Council conclusions stress the strategic partnership and EU’s deep concerns about the situation in the Tigray region

The Council today adopted conclusions stressing on the one hand Ethiopia’s important role as a strategic partner and a key multilateral actor, and on the other hand reiterating the EU’s great concerns regarding the situation in the Tigray region and the wider region.