What's going on in Ethiopia? · Refugee Week 2024
Since November 2020, the Ethiopian federal government and Tigrayan fighters have been in conflict, resulting in the deaths of thousands of people and the displacement of millions of Ethiopians.
Abiy Ahmed, Ethiopia’s prime minister, took office in 2018 following anti-government protests against the ruling coalition- the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF).
Since 1994, Ethiopia has had a federal system in which different ethnic groups control the affairs of 10 regions. For three decades the EPRDF had been in power and the coalition was previously dominated by the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF). When Abiy Ahmed was elected as leader, he promised a transition to democratic rule and political reform. In his early years, he saw the release of thousands of political prisoners, and the removal of some opposition parties from lists of terrorist groups. He was also awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in 2019 for the work he did ending the country’s long-running border dispute with Eritrea.
The TPLF (Tigray People’s Liberation Front) saw its power in government diminish with Abiy Ahmed’s instalment. Tigray's leaders viewed Abiy Ahmed’s reforms as an attempt to centralise power and destroy Ethiopia's federal system. As a result, relations between the TPLF and the Ethiopian federal government soured. The feud came to a head when the TPLF ran their own regional elections in September 2020, despite the federal government's decision to postpone all elections due to the covid-19 pandemic. It was an unprecedented act of defiance against the federal government and both sides then labelled the other as "illegitimate."
Tensions escalated and the conflict erupted on 4 November 2020, when Abiy Ahmed ordered a military offensive against regional forces in Tigray. He claimed it was in response to an attack on a military base housing government troops, but the TPLF asserted that their forces were acting in self-defence against a planned federal attack.
Fighters on all sides deliberately hindered humanitarian access and committed atrocities against civilians. During the conflict, several European Parliament resolutions condemned the human rights abuses and non-respect of international humanitarian law by all parties.
Estimates by Professor Jan Nyssen at Ghent University suggest that since August 2022 as many as:
600,000 people have died in the conflict
Between 31,300 and 89,300 civilians have been killed or massacred
Between 228,000 and 356,100 people have died due to famine
Between 124,000 and 155,000 have died from lack of medical attention.
The exact number of casualties is not clear and aid workers have been unable to access large areas of Tigray where communications are largely cut.
More than two million of Tigray's six million people have fled their homes since 4 November 2020. And tens of thousands of people have sought refuge in neighbouring Sudan and beyond.
Sources:
Ethiopia's Abiy Ahmed: The Nobel Prize winner who went to war - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-43567007
Ethiopia’s Tigray war: The short, medium and long story - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-54964378
Ethiopian civil war - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/topics/cr2pnx1173dt
Conflict in the Tigray region of Ethiopia - https://lordslibrary.parliament.uk/conflict-in-the-tigray-region-of-ethiopia/
Ethiopia: War in Tigray- Background and state of play - https://www.europarl.europa.eu/thinktank/en/document/EPRS_BRI(2022)739244#:~:text=The%20European%20Parliament%20has%20been,humanitarian%20law%20by%20all%20parties.