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Wounded boy in Tigray
Photo: EDUARDO SOTERAS / AFP
Hunger as a weapon of war is as old as war itself. And hunger is now eating its way through all of Tigray.
The contested federal state in the north of the multi-ethnic state of Ethiopia.
For weeks there have been increasing reports of targeted looting, especially of food, by allies of the Ethiopian army from neighboring Eritrea.
According to reports received by the Belgian Tigray expert Prof. Jan Nyssen, the Ethiopian government is diverting aid supplies destined for Tigray to the neighboring province of Amhara.
"Some of the people eat leaves and twigs"
Professor Jan Nyssen
"Some of the people eat leaves and twigs," says Nyssen.
As early as January 8, an Ethiopian member of the government warned at a meeting of aid organizations that food would either be looted or destroyed, a leaked document shows.
If immediate emergency aid is not mobilized, hundreds of thousands could starve to death, it said.
But it is the Ethiopian government itself that is preventing this aid.
The situation in northern Ethiopia is becoming more and more catastrophic
And the situation is getting worse and worse, says Nyssen.
Seldom has he observed how a region has been so systematically cut off from the rest of the world.
The government officially denies the conditions.
"There is no famine in Ethiopia," said a spokesman for the federal agency for civil protection on January 19.
On November 4th last year, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed declared war on the Tigrin leadership.
For almost three decades, the Tigrins had dominated Ethiopia's politics with an iron hand.
Abiy drove them from the control centers of power.
In 2019 he received the Nobel Peace Prize for his reforms and the peace agreement with neighboring Eritrea.
Since then, the Tigrinians sabotaged Abiy wherever they could.
Until the war broke out.
Thousands have now been killed in the conflict in Tigray.
More than 50,000 people fled to Sudan.
But in other Ethiopian states too, serious, ethnically motivated disputes are becoming more common.
The security forces sometimes proceed with brutal severity.
There is great fear of civil war and the collapse of the country.
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Refugees from Tigray are waiting for water in Sudan: Millions of people depend on food aid.
But the aid organizations only reach a few tens of thousands.
Photo: Abdulmonam Eassa / Getty Images
In Tigray, where hunger rages, aid organizations still have only marginal access to the people who need their help so urgently.
According to the UN, there are more than 2.3 million people.
The government-run Tigray Emergency Coordination Center (ECC) even speaks of 4.5 million people in the region in need of emergency food aid, including 2.3 million internally displaced persons.
The UN says the number of people you can reach is extremely small.
From the beginning of November to early January, only 77,000 people had received food aid.
“There is an extreme urgency to expand humanitarian aid quickly.
People die every day, even now while I say that "
Mari Carmen Viñoles, Doctors Without Borders
“There is an extreme urgency - I don't know what other words to use - to expand humanitarian aid quickly.
People die every day, including now while I am saying this, ”said Mari Carmen Viñoles, head of the MSF emergency department.
The number of civilian victims, she says, is extremely high.
The water supply is also a big problem.
The location was a complete disaster.
Hunger as a weapon
And the hunger seems wanted: According to evaluations of the English »DX Open Network« of satellite images, two alleged warehouses of Welthungerhilfe were destroyed.
In addition, the health system has almost completely collapsed.
The fear of the uncontrolled spread of the coronavirus is growing.
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Children, women and men on the run in the border region of Ethiopia and Sudan at the beginning of December: it is almost impossible for international observers, helpers and journalists to get to the crisis region.
That is why there are only a few current photos that depict the disaster.
Photo: Nariman El-Mofty / AP
And the situation in the conflict in northern Ethiopia, which has now lasted almost three months, is becoming more and more complex.
The fighting in Tigray is changing, from bigger battles to smaller skirmishes.
A typical guerrilla war with targeted attacks by Tigrin units on supply routes and transports has developed.
Outside the state, the war is spreading more and more regional circles.
It has long been known that a large number of Eritrean soldiers are fighting with the Ethiopian central government against the resistance of the Tigrins.
There are increasing reports that Somali soldiers are also going to war alongside Eritrean associations.
And tensions on the border with Sudan are also increasing.
There is increasing speculation about a possible war between the two countries.
Reports of massacres and shootings
Meanwhile, the government in Addis continues to declare that it will only hunt down the former leadership of the Tigray People's Liberation Front in Tigray.
more on the subject
Conflict in Ethiopia: "I will go to the mountains and join the fighters" By Fritz Schaap
Icon: Spiegel Plus Report from Ethiopia: In the realm of fear Fritz Schaap reports from Shashemene
Ethiopian refugees in Sudan: "The world needs to know what is happening in Tigray"
War in Ethiopia: a country on the verge of collapse
But there is obviously much more to it, said Prof. Jan Nyssen.
The entire population is being terrorized.
He kept hearing about massacres and indiscriminate shootings.
The government is evidently more concerned with breaking the will of the Tigrins.
To terrorize the population until a simple message has been indelibly hammered into the collective memory: Never again rise against the Ethiopian government.
The government in Addis Ababa and its allies accept that the whole region could go up in flames if this message were delivered.
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