Millions of people in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region are facing starvation. Until now, it’s been a crisis without pictures. Those wrenching images of emaciated children and mothers with dull-eyed gazes, so sadly familiar from famine zones, have yet to emerge. But that’s because journalists aren’t permitted to travel to the worst-hit areas of Tigray, where hunger is deepening by the day. When the media can finally get access, or when starving villagers abandon their homes and flee to towns, the pictures will surely remind viewers of drought victims from Ethiopia’s 1984 famine, which prompted the famous LiveAid benefit concert and a vast outpouring of charity.
Category: Weaponized Starvation
NRC: Ethiopia: Hunger and disease rife among displaced as aid workers gain access to new parts of Tigray
“The situation in Sheraro is beyond dire. Despite families arriving every day, no aid has been delivered for weeks. Food, water and medicine are running out fast. People could die unless they get humanitarian aid now,” warned Jan Egeland, Secretary General of the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC).
“People have told us that they fled sexual violence, killings and widespread violence in Tigray, only to arrive in Sheraro and find a desperately helpless situation. We also heard accounts of refugees hiding in remote villages scared to be identified, which puts them at the risk of being cut off from any assistance. Lactating mothers also told us that they have been unable to produce milk for their babies,” he added.
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.
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.
The Hill: Fighting in Ethiopia threatens US security interests
It is a grave mistake to frame the Ethiopian conflict narrowly as a humanitarian and human rights problem. It is a regional crisis that threatens U.S. security interests. The United States must work, foremost with African countries, to stop the fighting before it is too late.
global2p: Joint NGO Letter to H.E. Ms. Linda Thomas-Greenfield, Permanent Representative of the US to the UN in New York, on the crisis in Ethiopia
We, the undersigned human rights organizations, would like to take this opportunity to congratulate you on your appointment as Permanent Representative of the United States to the United Nations in New York. Your appointment comes at a time of unprecedented crisis, with a global pandemic and a multitude of conflict-related crises that demand the attention of the UN Security Council. This includes the worsening situation in Tigray, Ethiopia.
msf: Tigray Crisis: “We are suffering from a lack of medical care
Inside Tigray, Ethiopia, most of the displaced people stay with the host community, while tens of thousands live in informal sites or are still hiding in the bush or the mountains. Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) is deeply concerned about the humanitarian situation of hundreds of thousands of people who have been deprived of medical care for months and have received little humanitarian assistance.
FP: The U.N. Must End the Horrors of Ethiopia’s Tigray War
Recent human rights investigations confirm the atrocities that journalists reported in November. A strong multilateral push can force an Eritrean withdrawal and put the region on the path to peace.
mg: Investigate crimes in Tigray now, or risk a fragmented Ethiopia
I was arrested on the evening of my birthday.
After nearly four months of violent conflict in the Tigray region of Ethiopia, the government has admitted that widespread crimes have been committed, including massacres and sexual violence, as well as widespread looting and the destruction of refugee camps. Despite credible reports that members of the Ethiopian armed forces have perpetrated some of this violence, the government has rejected calls for external involvement in investigations, arguing that it is capable of conducting impartial investigations and holding perpetrators to account.
dw: Anger and collective trauma scar Ethiopia’s Tigray region
The conflict in Tigray, the northern region of Ethiopia, has mostly been unfolding under a media blackout since early November. Thousands of civilians have likely died as a result of the crisis.