OMNA TIGRAY – NOVEMBER 2021 SITUATION REPORT

November 4, 2021, marks one year since Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed declared a genocidal war on the people of Tigray, the northernmost region of the Ethiopian federation, home to an estimated 7 million people. Since November 4, 2020, in partnership with Eritrean dictator Isaias Afwerki and leaders from the neighbouring Amhara regional government, Abiy has unleashed innumerable atrocities that have devastated Tigray, destabilized Ethiopia, and undermined peace and security in the Horn of Africa. In Tigray, an estimated 70,000 people have been killed, more than 22,500 have endured weaponized sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV), 70,000 have fled to neighbouring Sudan, and more than 2.2 million are internally displaced. Humanitarian agencies estimate that more than 900,000 are in famine conditions, with nearly 2 million more on the brink of famine.

The health, educational, economic, and socio-cultural institutions in the region have been deliberately decimated and in parts of Tigray still occupied by invading Amhara and Eritrean forces, such as Western Tigray, Irob, and Kunama, Tigrayans suffer daily atrocities including internment, torture, forced displacement, and extrajudicial executions. Tigrayans living across Ethiopia have been subjected to ethnic profiling and ethnically motivated attacks, with tens of thousands Tigrayan service members as well as civilians detained and forcefully disappeared throughout the country.

In a sharp escalation of its genocidal campaign, the Ethiopian government has been carrying out airstrikes in Tigray since the week of October 18, 2021. These airstrikes have targeted the capital, Mekelle – a city home to 500,000 residents and more than 400,000 Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) – as well as Adwa and May Tsebri towns. Despite the government’s initial denial of these airstrikes and its subsequent justification that it was aiming for military targets, witness testimonies, pictures, and videos from the region clearly demonstrate that these airstrikes targeted civilian infrastructure and residential areas, killing three children on October 18, 2021 alone. The Abiy administration’s airstrikes continued on throughout the weeks of October 18 and October 25, 2021, destroying factories, hotels, and residential neighbourhoods, killing many and wounding scores.

Moreover, on October 22, 2021, the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief coordinator Martin Griffiths released a statement reporting that a United Nations (UN) humanitarian flight destined for Mekelle was forced to return to Addis Ababa due to these airstrikes.

He additionally shared that the UN, which had been given clearance for the trip, had not received any prior warning of the planned attacks on Mekelle. In addition to causing devastating loss of life, psychological trauma, and destruction of civilian infrastructure, the Ethiopian government’s airstrikes have further disrupted the limited humanitarian response in the region.

On October 19, 2021, it was reported that in a call with the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, Abiy refused to open humanitarian access to Tigray unless he received political concessions. This admission, if substantiated, would confirm that Abiy is openly committing war crimes by intentionally starving the entire population of Tigray. It is evident that weaponized starvation has been a key pillar of Abiy’s war strategy since November 4, 2020, when Ethiopian, Eritrean, and Amhara forces began looting and destroying supplies in Tigray while simultaneously closing off supply lines and barring humanitarian organizations from the region. However, since June 28, 2021, when the Tigray Defense Forces (TDF) launched a successful counteroffensive that forced the Ethiopian National Defense Forces (ENDF) to retreat from most areas of Tigray, Abiy has strengthened the siege.

The Abiy administration’s siege on Tigray involves blocking the transportation of humanitarian aid, a communication and transportation blockade and cutting off all essential services and supplies. The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN OCHA) reported on October 28, 2021, that it was only able to reach 38,000 people in Tigray, only 4.4% of the 870,000 people who need aid every week. No trucks with humanitarian supplies have arrived in Tigray since October 18, 2021, because of the Abiy administration’s restrictions. Moreover, following the Ethiopian government’s aerial bombardment of several parts of Tigray, the UN humanitarian air service was forced to suspend humanitarian flights to Tigray. This suspension of humanitarian aid delivery helps Abiy achieve his objective of weaponizing starvation against the entire population of Tigray.

As part of the siege, transportation networks into and out of Tigray are completely blocked, with the federal government prohibiting ground and air travel into or out of Tigray. Additionally, while phone and internet services have been repeatedly disrupted in Tigray since November 2020, starting in July 2021, communication is completely cut off in many parts of the region, with Tigrayans disconnected from telephone and internet services.