A humanitarian disaster stares Ethiopia’s Tigray in the face

Ethiopian refugees who fled intense fighting in their homeland of Tigray, wait for their ration of food in the border reception centre of Hamdiyet, in the eastern Sudanese state of Kasala, on November 14, 2020. (AFP/File Photo)
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Updated 25 February 2021
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A humanitarian disaster stares Ethiopia’s Tigray in the face

  • Hunger stalks region of six million people as federal government’s offensive against rebels enters its fourth month
  • Over a million people could starve if aid is not allowed into conflict zone, says Famine Early Warning Systems Network

DUBAI: With their few hurriedly packed belongings wrapped tightly in fabric, entire families, many with young children, are traversing vast distances on foot these days to escape fighting in northern Ethiopia between federal armed forces and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF).

Since the conflict erupted three months ago, nearly two million Ethiopians have been forced to flee the country’s Tigray region, many arriving in neighboring Sudan with axe and knife wounds, others with broken bones and severe mental trauma.

Those who have chosen to stay behind — the vast majority of Tigray’s six million inhabitants — now face shortages of food, medicine and drinking water. Ethiopia is facing accusations of blocking aid and the specter of mass hunger haunts the region.

Most concerning of all is the imminent risk of mass hunger, a phenomenon Ethiopians are tragically familiar with. The Great Famine that afflicted the country between 1888 and 1892 killed roughly one-third of its population. Another in 1983-85 left 1.2 million dead.

According to the Famine Early Warning Systems Network, presided over by the US government, parts of central and eastern Tigray are just a step away from famine, with fears more than a million could die of starvation if aid is not allowed in soon.

In a recent statement, a trio of Tigray opposition parties said that at least 50,000 civilians had been killed in the conflict since November. Aid agencies and journalists have not been permitted access to the region to verify the death toll.

Ethiopian authorities insist aid is being delivered and that nearly 1.5 million people have been reached. But experts on the Horn of Africa believe one of the worst humanitarian disasters in modern history is unfolding in the conflict zone.

“If the world averts its eyes, it is a bystander to one of the most grievous mass atrocities of our era,” Alex de Waal, executive director of the World Peace Foundation and a research professor at The Fletcher School at Tufts University, told Arab News.

“It will be an unforgivable ethical stain. It is also a matter of interest. Do the countries of the Arabian Peninsula want to see another Yemen-like calamity on the southern shores of the Red Sea — a little further away, but even bigger?”




Abiy Ahmed, Chairman of Oromo Peoples' Democratic Organization (OPDO) looks on in Addis Ababa. Spearhead in the fight against the Derg dictatorship, then a real power in Ethiopia for a long time, the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), which the Ethiopian army fights in its northern stronghold of Tigray, has shaped recent history of the country. (AFP/File Photo)

The TPLF, which had dominated Ethiopian politics after the fall of the military dictatorship in 1991 until Abiy’s election victory in 2018, had been in coalition with the current government until the two sides fell out in 2019.

In direct defiance of the federal government’s decision to postpone all votes until the COVID-19 pandemic was under control, Tigray authorities pressed ahead with their own parliamentary election in September. Federal authorities said the vote was illegal.

Tensions escalated further in November when Abiy accused the TPLF of seizing a military base in the regional capital Mekelle. His government responded by declaring a state of emergency, cutting off electricity, internet and telephone services, and designating the TPLF as a terrorist organization.

Although Abiy claimed victory when federal troops entered Mekelle on Nov. 28, the bloodshed has continued as Tigrayan leaders have vowed to fight on.

“The federal government called the conflict a law enforcement operation (intended) to remove from office the Tigray region’s rogue executive,” William Davison, International Crisis Group’s senior analyst for Ethiopia, told Arab News.

“The reality was that Tigray’s defenses were overwhelmed by the full power of the Ethiopian federal military and allied forces.”

UN REPORT HIGHLIGHTS

* Reports from aid workers on the ground indicate rise in acute malnutrition across Tigray region.

* Only 1% of the nearly 920 nutrition treatment facilities are reachable.

* Aid response is drastically inadequate, with little access to rural population off the main roads.

* Some aid workers have to negotiate access with armed actors, even Eritrean ones.

As the campaign got underway, the Ethiopian government presented the TPLF as a treasonous entity that had attacked the military and violated the constitutional order, saying that it had no choice but to act.

It also moved against those who questioned whether the intervention would be as quick and painless as claimed, such as Davison, who was deported on November 20.




Ethiopian refugees who fled intense fighting in their homeland of Tigray, gather in the border reception centre of Hamdiyet, in the eastern Sudanese state of Kasala, on November 14, 2020. (AFP/File Photo)

Abiy, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019 for restoring relations with Ethiopia's long-time foe Eritrea, is now being accused by some of war crimes in Tigray.

Seyoum Mesfin, a former Ethiopian foreign minister, peacemaker and an elder statesman of Africa, was among three TPLF leaders killed by the military in early January in a move that sparked an international outcry.

Pramila Patten, the UN envoy on sexual violence in conflict, has said there are “disturbing reports of individuals allegedly forced to rape members of their own family, under threats of imminent violence.”

Recently, the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission said 108 cases of rape had been reported over the last two months in the whole of Tigray. It admitted that “local structures such as police and health facilities where victims of sexual violence would normally turn to report such crimes are no longer in place.”




A medic disinfects his tools inside a medical facility for Ethiopian refugee who fled fighting in Tigray province at the Um Raquba camp in Sudan's eastern Gedaref province, on November 21, 2020. (AFP/File Photo)

All this amounts to a sharp reversal of fortune for a country that just months ago was being feted as Africa’s fastest growing economy. Now, Ethiopian journalists and human-rights activists are afraid to speak out, many of them avoiding the border areas and letting military atrocities go unreported.

“We’ve been on our toes for months now. You need to be very careful with your comments,” one Addis Ababa-based political analyst, who did not wish to be identified, told Arab News.

“Human-rights abuses are being committed on all sides: the Amhara militias (one of the two largest ethnic groups in Ethiopia), the federal troops themselves and the Eritreans too.

“The humanitarian aspect of the conflict is frightening and especially the lack of indication from the government’s side in providing aid. They say they will, publicly. But large sections of Tigray are still inaccessible. It’s very difficult to say how long they intend to keep it this way, which is of great concern.”




A member of the Amhara Special Forces holds his gun while another washes his face in Humera, Ethiopia, on November 22, 2020. Prime Minister Ahmed, last year's Nobel Peace Prize winner, announced military operations in Tigray on November 4, 2020, saying they came in response to attacks on federal army camps by the party, the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF). (AFP/File Photo)

Eritrean soldiers have compounded the problem by reportedly attacking the TPLF on behalf of Abiy’s government, prompting calls from Joe Biden’s administration for their immediate withdrawal. (Both Asmara and Addis Ababa deny that Eritrean forces are present in Tigray.)

Reports say many of the estimated 100,000 Eritrean refugees residing in the region are at risk of getting caught in the crossfire or being forcibly returned. Filippo Grandi, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, has said he is “deeply alarmed by reports of refugees being killed, abducted and forcibly returned to Eritrea that would constitute a major violation of international law.”

De Waal of the World Peace Foundation says if the war causes a humanitarian catastrophe and the economic collapse of Ethiopia, there is no doubt that the consequences will be felt far and wide.

“The human and economic price will be paid by the people of the Horn of Africa, but those people will also start moving en masse towards Europe, and the humanitarian cum economic bailout bill will be presented to Europe and the US,” he told Arab News.

“At a time of austerity and reduced aid budgets, this presents aid donors with a terrible dilemma.”

Summing up the Tigray crisis and its potential solution without mincing words, De Waal said: “With every passing day there is more suffering, killing, starvation, deeper bitterness and wider repercussions. Withdraw Eritrean troops. Then start political talks.”

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Twitter: @rebeccaaproctor


Greece to adopt legislation against migrant ‘invasion’ from Libya

Updated 3 sec ago
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Greece to adopt legislation against migrant ‘invasion’ from Libya

  • Conservative lawmakers are expected to approve emergency legislation enforcing the temporary ban
  • Proposed law to allow authorities to detain asylum seekers in camps for up to 18 months
ATHENS: Greece on Friday was to enforce a three-month freeze on asylum claims from migrants arriving by boat from North Africa, to stem a surge from Libya that the government has called an “invasion.”
Conservative lawmakers, who hold a parliamentary majority, are expected to approve emergency legislation enforcing the temporary ban, allowing authorities to detain asylum seekers in camps for up to 18 months.
“We have made the difficult but absolutely necessary decision to temporarily suspend the examination process of asylum applications for those arriving by sea from North African countries,” Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said in a statement to German tabloid Bild on Friday.
“This decision sends a clear message, leaving no room for misinterpretation, to human trafficking networks: Greece is not an open transit route. The journey is dangerous, the outcome uncertain, and the money paid to smugglers ultimately wasted,” he said.
Greece’s migration ministry says over 14,000 migrants have reached the country this year, including over 2,000 in recent days from Libya.
“Greece cannot have boats totaling 1,000 people a day,” Migration Minister Thanos Plevris told Skai TV, adding that the country will undertake a “draconian revision” of how it deals with migrants.
Plevris – formerly a member of the far-right LAOS party and now part of Mitsotakis’s New Democracy party – has called the recent influx an “invasion from North Africa.”
The move has been criticized by rights groups as a violation of international and EU law, and opposition parties have called it unconstitutional.
Noting an “exceptional” situation, European Commission migration spokesperson Markus Lammert said on Thursday: “We are in close contact with the Greek authorities to obtain necessary information on these measures.”
Greece took similar steps in 2020 during a migration surge at its land border with Turkiye.
To manage the influx, the government could reopen camps built after the 2015 migration crisis, government spokesman Pavlos Marinakis said this week.
Mitsotakis also told parliament that it would build up to two additional camps on the island of Crete.

Kremlin says it awaits ‘major statement’ from Trump

Updated 5 min 58 sec ago
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Kremlin says it awaits ‘major statement’ from Trump

  • Trump has expressed frustration with Russian President Vladimir Putin over the Russia-Ukraine conflict

MOSCOW: Russia is awaiting the “major statement” that US President Donald Trump announced he would deliver on Monday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday.

Trump told NBC News on Thursday that he will make a “major statement” on Russia on Monday, without elaborating what it will be about.

In recent days, Trump has expressed frustration with Russian President Vladimir Putin over the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

When asked about the new NATO weapons deliveries to Ukraine, Peskov called it “just business” as Kyiv had already been receiving weapons prior to this development.


Rubio meets China’s Wang in Malaysia amid trade tension

Updated 52 min 21 sec ago
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Rubio meets China’s Wang in Malaysia amid trade tension

  • Washington’s top diplomat is in Malaysia on his first trip to Asia since taking office
  • Marco Rubio’s visit is part of an effort to renew US focus on the Indo-Pacific region

KUALA LUMPUR: US Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Kuala Lumpur on Friday, their first in-person meeting at a time of simmering trade tensions between the two major powers.

Washington’s top diplomat is in Malaysia on his first trip to Asia since taking office, attending the East Asia Summit and ASEAN Regional Forum alongside counterparts from Japan, China, South Korea, Russia, Australia, India, the European Union and Southeast Asian states.

His meeting with Wang comes amid escalating friction globally over US President Donald Trump’s tariffs offensive, with China this week warning the United States against reinstating hefty levies on its goods next month.

Beijing has also threatened to retaliate against nations that strike deals with the United States to cut China out of supply chains. Rubio’s visit is part of an effort to renew US focus on the Indo-Pacific region and look beyond conflicts in the Middle East and Europe that have consumed much of the Trump administration’s attention.

But that has been overshadowed by this week’s announcement of steep US tariffs on many Asian countries and US allies that include 25 percent on Japan, South Korea and Malaysia, 32 percent for Indonesia, 36 percent for Thailand and Cambodia and 40 percent on Myanmar and Laos.

Analysts said Rubio would be looking to press the case that the United States remains a better partner than China, Washington’s main strategic rival, during the visit. The State Department said Rubio met counterparts of Thailand, Cambodia and Indonesia on Friday.

A day earlier, he told Southeast Asian foreign ministers the Indo-Pacific remained a focal point of US foreign policy.

China, initially singled out with tariffs exceeding 100 percent, has until August 12 to reach a deal with the White House to keep Trump from reinstating additional import curbs imposed during tit-for-tat tariff exchanges in April and May.

‘Bullying behavior’

China’s Wang has been fierce in his criticism of the United States in Kuala Lumpur and told Malaysia’s foreign minister the US tariffs were “typical unilateral bullying behavior” that no country should support or agree with, according to remarks released by Beijing on Friday.

He told Thailand’s foreign minister the tariffs had been abused and “undermined the free trade system, and interfered with the stability of the global production and supply chain.”

During a meeting with his Cambodian counterpart, he said the US levies were an attempt to deprive Southeast Asian countries of their legitimate right to development.

“We believe that Southeast Asian countries have the ability to cope with complex situations, adhere to principled positions, and safeguard their own interests,” Wang said, according to China’s foreign ministry.

The foreign secretary of US ally the Philippines said on Friday President Ferdinand Marcos Jr would meet Trump in Washington this month and discussions would include the increase in the US tariff on its former colony.

Rubio told reporters on Thursday he would also likely raise with Wang US concerns over China’s support for Russia in its war against Ukraine.

“The Chinese clearly have been supportive of the Russian effort and I think that generally, they’ve been willing to help them as much as they can without getting caught,” he said.

Rubio met together with Japanese foreign minister and South Korea’s first vice foreign minister in Malaysia on Friday, at a time of concerns about the tariffs.

According to a US State Department statement, they discussed regional security and a strengthening of their “indispensable trilateral partnership” including security and resilience of critical technologies and supply chains, energy, trusted digital infrastructure, and shipbuilding.


Pakistani father kills daughter over TikTok account: police

Updated 11 July 2025
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Pakistani father kills daughter over TikTok account: police

  • TikTok is wildly popular in Pakistan, in part because of its accessibility to a population with low literacy levels
  • Pakistani women have found both audience and income on the app, which is rare in the country

RAWALPINDI: Pakistan police on Friday said a father shot dead his daughter after she refused to delete her account on popular video-sharing app TikTok.

In the Muslim-majority country, women can be subjected to violence by family members for not following strict rules on how to behave in public, including in online spaces.

“The girl’s father had asked her to delete her TikTok account. On refusal, he killed her,” a police spokesperson said.

According to a police report shared with AFP, investigators said the father killed his 16-year-old daughter on Tuesday “for honor.” He was subsequently arrested.

The victim’s family initially tried to “portray the murder as a suicide” according to police in the city of Rawalpindi, where the attack happened, next to the capital Islamabad.

Last month, a 17-year-old girl and TikTok influencer with hundreds of thousands of online followers was killed at home by a man whose advances she had refused.

Sana Yousaf had racked up more than a million followers on social media accounts including TikTok, where she shared videos of her favorite cafes, skincare products, and traditional outfits.

TikTok is wildly popular in Pakistan, in part because of its accessibility to a population with low literacy levels.

Women have found both audience and income on the app, which is rare in a country where fewer than a quarter of the women participate in the formal economy.

However, only 30 percent of women in Pakistan own a smartphone compared to twice as many men (58 percent), the largest gap in the world, according to the Mobile Gender Gap Report of 2025.

Pakistani telecommunications authorities have repeatedly blocked or threatened to block the app over what it calls “immoral behavior,” amid backlash against LGBTQ and sexual content.

In southwestern Balochistan, where tribal law governs many rural areas, a man confessed to orchestrating the murder of his 14-year-old daughter earlier this year over TikTok videos that he said compromised her “honor.”


Wildfires force evacuations at Grand Canyon’s North Rim and Colorado’s Black Canyon national park

Updated 11 July 2025
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Wildfires force evacuations at Grand Canyon’s North Rim and Colorado’s Black Canyon national park

  • The Grand Canyon’s North Rim in Arizona also closed Thursday because of a wildfire on adjacent Bureau of Land Management land near Jacob Lake

JACOB LAKE, Ariz: Visitors and staff at two national parks in the US West have been evacuated because of wildfires.
Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, about 260 miles (418 kilometers) southwest of Denver, closed Thursday morning after lighting sparked blazes on both rims, the park said. The wildfire on the South Rim has burned 2.5 square miles (6.5 square kilometers), with no containment of the perimeter.
The conditions there have been ripe for wildfire with hot temperatures, low humidity, gusty winds and dry vegetation, the park said, adding that weather will remain a concern Friday.
The Grand Canyon’s North Rim in Arizona also closed Thursday because of a wildfire on adjacent Bureau of Land Management land near Jacob Lake. The Coconino County Sheriff’s Office said it helped evacuate people from an area north of Jacob Lake and campers in the Kaibab National Forest nearby.
The fire began Wednesday evening after a thunderstorm moved through the area, fire officials said. It has burned about 1.5 square miles (3.9 square kilometers) with zero containment.