The escalating war in Ethiopia devastated the besieged Tigray

An Ethiopian refugee family waiting for help © Amors photos/Shutterstock

NAIROBI, Kenya – Even before the airstrikes resumed, the hospital in the capital of Ethiopia’s Tigray region was barely holding out.

The power at Ayder Referral was cut off for weeks, hospital director Kibrom Gebreselassie said. Medicines and fuel supplies ran out. Doctors and nurses have been working without pay for 16 months.

But an uneasy peace in Ethiopia’s civil war had halted the flow of wounded since at least March. Then last week an airstrike that residents, United Nations officials, and local media blamed on the Ethiopian government ripped through a kindergarten. Gebreselassie said four people – including two children – were pronounced dead upon arrival at the hospital. As staff at Ayder Hospital rushed to treat more than a dozen victims, he said the staff was forced to forego care for their regular cancer, kidney, and heart patients.

“We can’t keep up,” said Gebreselassie, a 44-year-old surgeon.

Almost two years after the start of Ethiopia’s devastating civil war, which has brought millions of people to the brink of starvation in Tigray, intense fighting has resumed between government forces led by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF). The scale of the violence, which included two airstrikes in the area of ​​the regional capital, Mekelle, has dashed hopes of peace talks between the two sides.

Both sides blame each other for launching the attacks. In a statement about the airstrike, the Ethiopian government said its air force only targets military locations and accused the TPLF of “planting fake body bags in civilian areas.”

Those suffering are the 5.5 million people in Tigray, where the Ethiopian government has largely shut down communications and banking services, restricted access for journalists, and curtailed fuel distribution. According to a recent UN report, around 9 in 10 Tigrayans are in need of food aid.

At Ayder, the main hospital in Mekelle, the food supply comes largely from non-profit organizations working in the area, according to Gebreselassie. He said food supplies have been sporadic and staff has at times struggled to have enough food to feed patients. Although many employees are starving themselves, they continue to come to work, Gebreselassie said.

“Siege is a slow killer,” he said, “slowly you lose loved ones, slowly you see people starve or lose hope.”

“If there is active fighting on the blockade, he added, “it is catastrophic for civilians and everyone.”

They fled hundreds of kilometers to escape the war in Ethiopia. But they fear it wasn’t far enough.

Ethiopia was once a source of stability in the Horn of Africa and a partner to the West. But the nation of 117 million people has also long been torn by ethnic divisions.

The TPLF, a guerrilla group from the country’s mountainous north made up mostly of ethnic Tigrayans, was welcomed by many Ethiopians after seizing power from an oppressive Marxist regime in 1991. But for decades in power, the TPLF repressed many of Ethiopia’s larger ethnic groups, including the Amhara and Oromo. Abiy, who is half Amhara and half Ormoro, was heralded as a liberalizing figure when he came to power in 2018 and received the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize for brokering peace with neighboring Eritrea.

What started as a political dispute between his government and the TPLF turned violent in the fall of 2020, when the TPLF attacked an Ethiopian military base in Tigray – Tigrayans called it a pre-emptive strike – and Abiy launched a military offensive in Tigray. Abiy has called the war “existential” and called the TPLF a “weed” and a “cancer” that must be eliminated. Both sides have committed atrocities including executions and mass rapes over the past year, according to a UN report.

Despite pressure from Western countries, the peace talks have made little progress. In a press conference on Tuesday, TPLF spokesman Getachew Reda said the Abiy government had been able to “fool the international community” into believing they were serious about peace. The Ethiopian government on Wednesday accused the TPLF of launching an invasion towards the Sudanese border, and the TPLF on Thursday claimed the government and Eritrean troops had launched a “massive” offensive against Tigray.

“The escalation risks the situation spiraling out of control,” said William Davison, an analyst at the International Crisis Group. “All of this is a major setback for a peace process that was already struggling.”

Actions taken by both sides, including allegations that Tigray authorities stole fuel from the World Food Program, make it unlikely that the federal government will fully end an effective blockade any time soon, he said.

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When the airstrike took place last week, three loud bangs rang out and a laborer named Liwam and her colleagues rushed to her office to seek shelter. She said her mind went blank as she realized what was happening. Then she thought about her family and her three children.

After about an hour, Liwam, who asked to be identified by her middle name because her job doesn’t allow her to speak to the media, went to the site of the RES Kids Paradise airstrike. The daycare center near her home was closed in the summer, she said, but the playground filled up every day with kids making noise about its colorful playsets. What Liwam said she found medical workers loading injured children into ambulances. Weeping women looking for their own children. Blood everywhere.

One of the images she says can’t get out of her head is that of two children killed in the strike, their bodies charred.

“For the siege and blockade, why should we die in front of everyone?” she said. ‘ “Our national government tells us either die or accept… Is our life of no interest to the government?”

Tewelde Legesse, a popular entertainment reporter from Tigray who fled to a neighboring country after war broke out, was sitting with friends when he received a message on WhatsApp that there had been an airstrike near his hometown. Legesse opened a local news channel on YouTube and saw his cousin with her head covered in blood. She told the local TV station that she could not find her children.

He really wanted to call her, but couldn’t. There was no way to get through.

As he watched the aftermath of the air raid, he found himself wondering why it felt like so little of the world was paying attention. This concern has also been echoed in recent weeks by the head of the World Health Organization, who recently described the war as “the world’s worst disaster” and slammed Western leaders for their silence.

Legesse said he appreciated the attention being given to the war in Ukraine, but it still made him ask, “Why not for Tigray?”

In Mekelle, Liwam said her 7-year-old often asked her not to come home for fear of being killed on the mile-long journey back from the office. Her 11-year-old tells her that Tigray has no choice but to win the war because they have already suffered so much. Your 16-year-old is wondering when he will be able to go back to school.

This week, a few days after the kindergarten strike, Liwam and her husband were woken up at dawn by three loud bangs. She realized that another airstrike had just been carried out.

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