![]() Suggestions that missiles are being shot by Eritrean forces speaks to a wider question in the conflict. “Ethiopia is now perched precariously on the ledge - all signs point to a country in a pre-genocide phase,” Rashid Abdi, an independent expert on the Horn of Africa wrote last week. But his sweeping reforms have marginalised the regional Tigrayan government, which once dominated the country’s ruling coalition.Įxperts say the conflict could tear the country apart, unleashing catastrophic ethnic bloodshed, destabilising the Horn of Africa and fracturing a key US security ally. Mr Ahmed won the Nobel Prize for signing a historic peace deal with Eritrea shortly after he was elected amid a wave of hope in April 2018. Tigray itself is a mountainous region home to some of the most battle-hardened fighters on the continent and many of Ethiopia’s top military minds. The conflict broke out on November 4 when the country’s central government accused the region’s local authorities of holding “illegal” elections and seizing a military baseįacing down the Tigrayans is the Ethiopian government led by Nobel Peace Prize-winning Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, who has Russian-made MiG fighter jets, attack helicopters and federal forces at his disposal. Three people told Amnesty International that survivors of the massacre said they were attacked by members of Tigray Special Police Force, a regional paramilitary who are now at war with Ethiopia. Hundreds, probably thousands, have been killed since the conflict erupted two and half weeks ago and accusations of potential war crimes are coming in thick and fast. This newspaper today publishes some of the first accounts of the savage battle raging between one of Africa’s most powerful armies and the regional military in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray that has triggered a mass exodus and a desperate humanitarian crisis.Ī communication blackout after the internet was cut means so far precious few details have emerged of alleged bombings, beatings, machete massacres and even ethnic cleansing. I don’t know how I will face God,” she told the Telegraph after fleeing with thousands of others across hostile terrain with just her passport into the craggy sunbaked wasteland of eastern Sudan. Ms Glahif’s, parched and hungry, was recounting the trauma of a brutal new conflict sweeping northern Ethiopia, Africa’s second most populous nation. Some of them were injured soldiers, some of them were women in labour. ![]() “We heard gunshots and bombs,” the 25-year-old nurse said. ![]() The civil war had arrived, and it was knocking on the door. It didn’t matter that her patients were giving birth, the staff had to leave immediately. "What has been particularly alarming in the current conflict, however, has been the scale and breadth of the violence.The women were midway through their labour when the hospital director came in and told Mihret Glahif she had to run for her life. "Throughout its 30-year history in the country, MSF - as well as other humanitarian organisations and healthcare providers - has repeatedly witnessed violence against staff, patients, vehicles, compounds and healthcare facilities," MSF said, noting that at least 58 people were killed in the grounds of four hospitals. MSF, which has earned a reputation for working in some of toughest war zone conditions across the world, said the situation was the worst it had seen in years, even during the two decades long war that paved the way for South Sudan's independence from Sudan three years ago. "The violence carried out against the wounded and sick, and against those seeking shelter in hospitals and against medical facilities themselves, are not only violations of international laws and humanitarian principles, but an affront to human dignity," MSF said in a report that examined the situation over the last six months.
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