Banking services resume in troubled Tigray region

Photo: Ninaras/Wikimedia

ADDIS ABABA - Banking services have resumed in the troubled Tigray region of Ethiopia, the country's biggest lending institution said in a statement, ending a two-year-old siege that impoverished the people following the worst ethnic cleansing that was widely condemned by stakeholders.

The Commercial Bank of Ethiopia noted that it has activated services in a number of towns at Tigray following the war which stagnated critical activities including banking. This comes barely a month after senior leaders from the Tigray People's Liberation Front [TPLF] and the government of Ethiopia signed a peace pact.

African Union brokered the deal in which the TPLF agreed to be disarmed while the Ethiopian forces agreed to persuade their Eritrean counterparts to withdraw from the Tigray region. Former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo and his Kenyan counterpart Uhuru Kenyatta were instrumental in the peace deal.

"Following the peace agreement reached recently, the [CBE] branches we have in Shire, Alamata, and Korem cities have started receiving money sent from abroad and locally as well as depositing money," the country's largest bank said in a statement.

"Our bank was forced to suspend its banking services because of the instability in the northern part of the country," the statement said.

"Conditions permitting we will continue with our efforts to expand our services and step-by-step restart services in all branches."

Besides banking, disruption of power supply and humanitarian activities had been hindered as TPLF confronted government troops with strong backing from the Amhara and Afar militia along with Eritrean troops. Thousands of people are believed to have died.

Since the November 2 peace agreement inked in South Africa, fighting between federal troops and the Tigray People's Liberation Front has ceased, with the TPLF saying that 65 percent of its forces have "disengaged" from battle lines.

Communications and fuel supplies were also cut in the Tigray region leading to an international outcry from thousands of people across the globe. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed was accused of plotting to exterminate the people of Tigray due to traditional political differences.

The death toll resulting from the war is unclear, but the International Crisis Group think-tank and Amnesty International have described it as one of the bloodiest in the world. UN chief Antonio Guterres recently noted that the Tigray conflict is worse than the war between Ukraine and Russia.

GAROWE ONLINE