Half a Million Dead In Tigray and the World Just Yawns

Abiy Ahmed, architect of the genocide ban on the Tigre. Photo: African Union/Wikimedia

Is anyone listening to the suffering of people standing on the verge of destruction? A genocide is underway in the northern Ethiopian regional state of Tigre after Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed declared war of choice on his own people, the Nobel Peace Prize winner, on November 4, 2020.

Abiy called this a “law enforcement campaign”, aimed at arresting the leaders of the Tigre People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) with whom he had a political dispute and falling out that could be resolved through negotiations. Strategic planning was done with his newly found friend, Isaias Afwerki, the business dictator of Eritrea before the war.

The plot culminated in a multi-pronged invasion of Tigre, deploying the bulk of the Ethiopian National Defense Forces, including its air force, Eritrean infantry and mechanized divisions, special forces and armed militias from the adjacent Amhara State. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) provided the flying drones from its base in Eritrea.

Failing to achieve their stated objective, the invading forces unleashed their fury on the civilian population of the Tigre, including massacres, non-judicial killings of young men and boys, gang rapes of women of all ages, and even nuns. Not even spared including committed war crimes. The attackers launched airstrikes and artillery fire in cities, targeting churches, mosques and cultural heritage sites. Widespread looting of private and public properties, systematic and needless destruction of health, educational and economic infrastructure of the state were some of the most widely reported war crimes.

TPLF forces evacuated the Tigre capital Mekele and other major cities and dispersed towards the country. They were able to regroup and reorganized themselves as the Tigre Defense Force (TDF) within six months. After his ranks were swollen by an influx of new recruits, he launched an effective and successful counter-offensive against the Ethiopian and Eritrean defense forces, pushing him out of much of the Tigre.

Abiy Ahmed’s government, in retaliation, imposed restrictions on the area, stopping the flow of food, medicine and fuel in addition to enforcing a complete communications blackout. There was no internet, telephone, electricity and banking services. No independent journalist was allowed.

The Abiy government-owned news network was the only source of information that presented “alternative facts” to borrow a term coined by a former Trump administration official. Abiy’s ministers at the United Nations repeatedly reassured the UN Secretary-General and the rest of the international community that no Eritrean troops were involved in the invasion and that aid was flowing to Tigre, and that the atrocities reported in Tigre never occurred.

The series of reports by Kara Anna of the Associated Press, based on interviews with Tigrayan, who fled for his life across the border to Sudan, outlines the intent and purpose of the invading forces. AP headlines like erasing an ethnicity, floating bodies, Food is often a weapon of war, leave no tigress , left no doubt about the genocidal nature of this campaign against the Tigre.

Similar reports from the New York Times, BBC, CNN, Aljazeera, DW and AFP were repeatedly raising the alarm over war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said “ethnic cleansing has been carried out in the Western Tigre.” The UN’s humanitarian chief, Martin Griffith, called Tigre’s position “a blot on our conscience”.

rare joint report The history, released by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch on April 6, 2022, details the gruesome crimes against humanity in the Western Tigre.

These reports have failed to inspire the international community to act. By preventing food and medicine from entering the area, the war, combined with the blockade of the Tigre, caused damage according to research from the University of Ghent. half a million lives in tigre

The African Union (AU) finds itself impotent, incompetent and unwilling to implement its own Peace and Security Council provision and has chosen to stand on the sidelines. Under the current president of the African Union, Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi, and AU Commission chairman Moussa Faki, the body has become an embarrassment. The AU looks more and more like its predecessor the Organization for African Unity (OAU), a club for self-preservation. It needs a wholesale restructuring to reflect the will and interest of the African people.

The United Nations hasn’t done any better. The Security Council had since its inception to protect the interests of the five permanent veto-regional powers, the United States, the Soviet Union—now Russia—the United Kingdom, France, and China, when it joined the United Nations.

These powers have divergent interests in the current crisis in Ethiopia, which does not involve decisive unified action to stop the genocide. The AU and the UN call for the sovereignty of Ethiopia to be absolved of the responsibility to act. Abi-Issais Cabal is effectively playing that card. How many more tigers need to die for the international community to care?

Is there a finite number of times that triggers the action? million? Two lakhs? More? Or are we waiting for the entire population to die out?

Then there will be some hand-mouthing, finger-pointing and crocodile tears, along with some morality and remorse. No doubt we will hear the vows for the fifteenth time about “Never Again”, a slogan that has lost its meaning and purpose.

Now is the time for Africans and people of color around the world to realize that they are being told that their lives do not matter. This has the effect of waking up on time and making their collective voices heard and using their numerical majority in the United Nations.

More importantly, demand immediate action to stop the genocide in Tigre. No issue in the world is more important today than the genocide and humanitarian devastation on the people of the Tigre.

Mohammed A. Noorhusain MD

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