2024-08-03 11:58:06
Prime Minister of Ethiopia, Abiy Ahmedget the Nobel Peace Prize At the end of 2019 and eleven months later, it sparked a civil war in the Horn of Africa country that lasted for two years and killed more than 600,000 people. The semi-autonomous Tigré region in the north is the main battleground. A little more than a year and a half has passed since peace was signed and The situation in this area is “deplorable and hopeless”., opposed Manos Unidas, a Spanish humanitarian NGO working in Ethiopia. “Over 4.5 million people need help to survive,” he warned.
The war has destroyed the social and economic structure of the region. Two million people are displaced and thousands of people are fleeing the country. Not only from Tigré, but also from other areas where there is violence today, like Ahmara and Orimion. Many parts of Ethiopia – made up of 11 regional states – are still suffering from the worst drought of the past twenty years, which threatens to cause a severe famine. More than 15.5 million Ethiopians are food insecure, according to the UN.
The most common escape route used by Ethiopian migrants and refugees is across the Djibouti desert, through the Bad al Mandeb Strait (Gate of Tears in Arabic) on boats, and reached the coast of Yemen, a country that was drowned in the sea. long military conflict. Then you have to travel north, to the border with Saudi Arabia. Travel represents big business for human trafficking mafias.
According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM) More than 100,000 Ethiopians arrived in Yemen last year in this “very dangerous” route. Those who manage to reach Saudi Arabia also risk death at the border. A Human Rights Watch report from last year showed how Saudi police shot and threw explosives at migrants and refugees, killing hundreds of them.
As it happened on the routes that came from the central Mediterranean to reach Europe, There are thousands who died on the way. The last known shipwreck off the coast of Yemen occurred last June. The death toll is 49 dead – among them 31 women and six children – and 140 missing.
Africa’s new talisman
The exodus of Ethiopians from the country is not a new phenomenon, it has been happening for decades, but the warm and centralized policy of Abiy, together with the drought, has caused the exodus. Ethiopia is the second most populous country in Africa, with 110 million inhabitants, divided into 80 ethnic groups, with a turbulent political history of constant ethnic-territorial tension. Abiy took power in 2018, after nearly 30 years in power by the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), a multi-ethnic coalition dominated by Tigray elites who had fallen from grace. he accused corruption, abuse of power and human rights violations. rights.
Ethiopia’s president, who appointed an interim prime minister through parliament until elections are held, formed a coalition government, released thousands of political prisoners, accepted the return of exiles and signed peace with Eritrea, after thirty years of conflict. At the age of 42, Abiy won the Nobel Prize and became a contemporary leader in Africa. That year, the American magazine ‘Time’ included him in the 100 most influential people in the world and the British newspaper “Financial Times” wrote that he is “the new talisman of Africa.”
The spark that ignited the war
After removing the previous leaders from the government, Abiy, from the Orimon tribe, the majority in the country but until then removed from the government, formed a new party, which the Tigrino representative of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front party (FLPT) ) They refused to participate, and the elections scheduled for 2020 were postponed due to the pandemic. The FLPT challenged the Prime Minister and held elections in his constituency. Shortly afterwards, Addis Ababa blamed them for an attack on a military base of the federal army. It was lightning that started the war.
A major offensive by government forces was supported by the army of neighboring Eritrea. The northern region is completely isolated from the world. It suffered a total blockade of basic services such as communications, banks and electricity, schools, hospitals and health centers were robbed and destroyed, and the arrival of humanitarian aid was prevented. Human rights organizations accuse all warring parties of crimes against humanity. “Currently only 40% of students have been able to return to school”, Manos Unidas found on earth this year. Unemployment is close to 80%. There are areas of soldiers also from Eritrea, a country that is in the hands of the defender, Isaias Afewerki.
“War is the epitome of hell for all involved in it,” Abiy said when he received the Nobel Prize in Oslo. “I know because I was there and I came back,” he added, recalling his time as a soldier in the war between Ethiopia and Eritrea between 1998 and 2000. Military conflict in the region of Tigray has been the worst until this century.
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