In the Ethiopian state of Tigray, a conflict has been raging since the beginning of November in which hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced. It’s a war behind closed doors, because no one knows exactly what is happening in the area. There are credible allegations of looting and murders, of kidnapped refugees and of an army invasion from neighboring Eritrea. Some even speak of a genocide.
While there is overwhelming evidence of a major humanitarian crisis, the Ethiopian government says there have been no deaths and no Eritrean soldiers in Tigray. The government locked the door, aid workers and journalists barely get in.
Fearful refugees
UN Refugee Commissioner Filippo Grandi thus knew that his visit to the region would be one of the most difficult of his career. Because how do you get the truth out of the way without kicking your hosts in the shins? During his visit this week, the Ethiopian government allowed him to travel to only one of the four major Eritrean refugee camps in Tigray.
Surrounded by Ethiopian officials, he had to find out from the fearful refugees who stayed behind if the Eritrean army had invaded and kidnapped camp residents. Grandi dropped his diplomatic courtesies and made a harsh statement afterwards.
“The situation in Tigray is very serious and very urgent,” he said. And: “Many refugees got stuck in the fighting and were forcibly sent back to Eritrea”. That’s unusually straightforward for a diplomat.
Massacre in a church
The UN Security Council in New York decided a few days later to talk about Tigray behind closed doors. Information leaked from that meeting that again contradicts the official Ethiopian declaration of the war. Mark Lowcock, Under Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs, said that “the government controls 60 to 80 percent of Tigray but has no control over Eritrean soldiers and militias from the neighboring state of Amhara.”
“Tigray is a big black hole for us,” a diplomat said recently. Journalists face the same dilemma. Already in November we heard from civilians in Eritrea about troop movements to Tigray, we received reports from anonymous sources from Tigray about bombings.
And later about mass slaughter, rape and the killing of children. Eyewitnesses told of a massacre in a church in the historic city of Axum, the shelling of a mosque, and Eritrean tanks loaded with looted goods.
Here lies the conflict area:
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