“Senior Western officials broadly confirmed Tigrayan accounts that the assault, which had been anticipated for weeks, started in the Amhara region, which borders Tigray to the south. “

Source: New York Times

Western officials confirmed Tigrayan reports of an assault on several fronts. Aid workers said it will intensify a dire humanitarian crisis.

Lining up for food aid in the Amhara region of northern Ethiopia on Sunday.Credit…Jemal Countess/Getty Images

By Declan WalshOct. 12, 2021

NAIROBI, Kenya — The conflict in northern Ethiopia has escalated sharply in recent days, as Ethiopian forces began a sweeping offensive in a bid to reverse recent gains by Tigrayan rebels, Western officials and Tigrayan leaders said.

U.N. officials said the attack will deepen the humanitarian crisis in a region that is plunging into the world’s worst famine in a decade. With the Ethiopian government blocking aid shipments, some starving Tigrayans are eating leaves to survive.

Senior Western officials broadly confirmed Tigrayan accounts that the assault, which had been anticipated for weeks, started in the Amhara region, which borders Tigray to the south. But beyond that, it is hard to get a clear picture of the situation.

A strict communications blackout imposed by the government means few details about the fighting can be independently confirmed. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, who was sworn in for a second term last week, has declined to comment in recent days.

His spokeswoman did not respond to a request for comment on Tuesday.

Speaking by phone, Gen. Tsadkan Gebretensae, a member of the central command of the Tigray forces and its leading strategist, said Ethiopian forces had begun the military operation on Friday with a bombardment of Tigrayan positions using warplanes, artillery and drones.

On Monday, the Ethiopians switched to a ground offensive led by thousands of fighters, to be met by a Tigrayan counteroffensive, he said.

“The enemy has been preparing for months, and so have we,” said General Tsadkan, who previously commanded Ethiopia’s armed forces for a decade. He predicted the coming battle would be a “decisive moment” for the country.

“The ramifications will be military, political and diplomatic,” he said. “I don’t think this will be a protracted fight — a matter of days, most probably weeks.”

Ethiopian soldiers training in Dabat last month. Government forces have been preparing for the recent move against the Tigrayan rebels for months.Credit…Amanuel Sileshi/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

For Mr. Abiy, winner of the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize, the offensive is an effort to wrest control of a brutal 11-month war that has ruined his reputation as a peacemaker and slipped beyond his grip as the fighting spread to new areas in recent months.

Mr. Abiy has appeared increasingly isolated from international support as the United States threatens him with the prospect of sanctions, and he clashes with the U.N. leadership. Only a few African leaders have continued to support him.

This month, Ethiopia expelled seven senior U.N. officials it accused of “meddling” in the nation’s internal affairs and diverting aid to the Tigrayan rebels. The U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres denied those charges in unusually sharp language, telling Mr. Abiy the expulsions had no legal basis.

Likening the situation to the devastating Somalia famine of 2011, Mr. Guterres said he warned Mr. Abiy that Ethiopian restrictions on the delivery of aid had created a humanitarian crisis that was “spiraling out of control.”

Over five million Tigrayans urgently need relief aid, and at least 400,000 are in famine-like conditions, the U.N. says. But barely one-tenth of required aid has reached them because Ethiopia has blocked the routes into the region, officials said.

The Biden administration has tried to force Mr. Abiy and the Tigrayans into peace talks by threatening sanctions against “officials and entities” who block humanitarian aid and refuse to stop fighting.

With his latest attack, however, Mr. Abiy seems to be gambling that he can prevail using force.

Western officials said the Ethiopian leader had been preparing the offensive for months. He amassed new weapons from foreign suppliers and recruited tens of thousands of young Ethiopians to help fight Tigrayan forces he has described as “cancer” and “weeds.”

Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed during his inauguration ceremony in Addis Ababa last week, where he was sworn in for a second five-year term.Credit…Mulugeta Ayene/Associated Press

One Western official said Mr. Abiy had acquired new drones built in Iran, Turkey and China, although it is unclear who supplied them to Ethiopia. Websites that track international air traffic have recorded dozens of cargo flights from the United Arab Emirates, and a handful from Iran, into Ethiopian air force bases in the past six weeks.

Tigrayan leaders have accused the U.A.E. of sending armed drones to help Mr. Abiy during the early weeks of the war last November; Emirati officials have refused to comment. Airstrikes took out most of the Tigrayan artillery and forced its troops to retreat into the remote countryside.

A more consequential question now is whether Eritrea will again rally to Mr. Abiy’s side. Eritrean troops offered crucial support in the first phase of the war, until June, and faced many of the worst accusations of atrocities against civilians. The Eritreans are currently occupying Humera, a town in western Tigray, and some have deployed to Amhara, two western officials said.

But it’s unclear if they are participating in the latest fighting.

Tigrayan forces scored a series of surprise victories that forced Ethiopian forces out of Tigray. In July, the Tigrayans pushed into the Amhara region, where the fighting has been centered ever since.

A long-running dispute between Amhara and Tigray over a swath of disputed land drew Amhara militias into the fight against Tigray last November. The Tigrayans say those fighters are also participating in the latest offensives, along with regular Ethiopian troops and young men from across Ethiopia drawn by Mr. Abiy’s appeal for recruits during the summer.

But General Tsadkan, the Tigrayan commander, said he considered the autocratic leader of Eritrea, Isaias Afwerki, who is an old foe of the Tigrayans, as his greatest threat.

“Isaias and his army are the major spoiler in the region,” he said. “If the international community is earnestly looking for a peaceful solution, a settlement will not happen without taking care of Isaias.”

In Amba Giorgis, in the Amhara region of Ethiopia, last month.Credit…Amanuel Sileshi/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Both sides face intense pressures. The Tigrayans, surrounded by enemies, risk running out of supplies soon. Mr. Abiy is wrestling with a steep economic slide that has led to soaring food prices and foreign currency shortages, which American sanctions could soon make worse.

Ethiopian Airlines, Africa’s biggest airline and Ethiopia’s flagship economic success, last week denied a report on CNN that its aircraft had been used to ship weapons and soldiers for the war in Tigray.

On Tuesday, U.S. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken met with the newly appointed African Union envoy to Ethiopia, former Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo, to discuss the crisis.

Some African leaders are standing by Mr. Abiy. Six heads of state, mostly from the region, attended his inauguration celebrations in Addis Ababa last week. But several of the congratulatory speeches included expressions of growing concern, and urged Mr. Abiy toward peace talks.

“Ethiopia is our mother,” said President Uhuru Kenyatta of Kenya. “If our mother is not at peace, neither can the family be at peace.”

The criticism of Mr. Abiy in the West is growing increasingly strident. Last week an essay by Mark Lowcock, a former British diplomat and until recently the U.N.’s humanitarian chief, accused Mr. Abiy of trying to starve the people of Tigray “either into subjugation or out of existence” and warned he risked causing his country to collapse.

“Abiy’s game plan cannot work,” Mr. Lowcock wrote, citing what he said was a growing expert consensus. “If he tries and fails to destroy Tigray, he will be destroyed himself. If he succeeds, he will never survive the backlash that will follow.”

OCTOBER 12, 2021 ERITREA HUB ETHIOPIA, NEWS, TIGRAY

Maureen Achieng – head of United Nation’s migration agency in Ethiopia – withdrawn after she called the TPLF “dirty” and “vicious”, vowing never to return to Tigray.

Source: AFP

Robbie COREY-BOULET

Mon, 11 October 2021, 8:27 pm·3-min read

The departure of Maureen Achieng, confirmed in a letter dated Monday and seen by AFP, risks further undermining an aid response still shaken by Ethiopia’s decision last month to expel seven other senior UN officials for allegedly “meddling” in its affairs.

It comes more than 11 months into a brutal war in northern Ethiopia that has driven hundreds of thousands of people into famine-like conditions, according to UN estimates, and sparked mounting global concern.

Last week, multiple recordings surfaced online of Achieng and another senior UN official granting a lengthy interview to Jeff Pearce, a writer who has published multiple articles defending the government’s conduct of the war against the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF).

In the recordings, Achieng, the International Organization for Migration’s chief of mission to Ethiopia, tears into colleagues who “descended on” Addis Ababa after the war erupted last November and, in her telling, sidelined officials on the ground.

She also calls the TPLF “dirty” and “vicious”, vowing never to return to Tigray.

At one point she accuses the rebels of plotting to have Tigrayan migrant workers facing deportation from Saudi Arabia sent to Rwanda.

“And then you don’t know what guerrilla movement starts from Rwanda. I mean, it’s dirty,” she says.

In an internal note to colleagues last week, also seen by AFP, Achieng said she was “deeply disturbed and disappointed” by the audio, which she said had been “surreptitiously recorded and selectively edited.”

However at several points during the interview the participants openly discuss that it is being recorded.

– ‘We do not take sides’ –

On Monday Antonio Vitorino, director general of IOM, wrote a letter distancing the agency from Achieng’s comments.

“The opinions attributed in the audio recordings to the staff member do not correspond to IOM’s principles and values and should not in any way be considered as expressing IOM’s positions,” it said.

The letter, which does not refer to Achieng by name, says she was “immediately recalled” and “put on administrative leave” pending an investigation.

Her interview violated the IOM’s values and code of conduct, Mohammed Abdiker, the agency’s regional director for the East and Horn of Africa, told AFP.

“In all our operations we try to be impartial and neutral in our work. We do not take sides in a conflict,” Abdiker said, adding that Achieng’s comments raised security concerns for staff members on the ground, including in Tigray.

The dust-up comes amid fears fighting is about to intensify again, with the TPLF saying Monday that government troops had launched ground offensives “on all fronts” including in the northern region of Amhara.

Ethiopian officials have not confirmed the new offensive, though a spokeswoman for Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said the government had “a responsibility to protect its citizens in all parts of the country from any acts of terrorism”.

Humanitarian and rebel sources told AFP over the weekend that Ethiopian troops had launched air and ground strikes as part of the first phase of an offensive which — if confirmed — would come just one week after Abiy was sworn in for a new five-year term.

A US State Department spokesperson told AFP Monday that Washington was considering “the use of targeted economic sanctions to hold accountable those responsible for, or complicit in, prolonging the conflict”.

OCTOBER 12, 2021 ERITREA HUB ETHIOPIA, NEWS, TIGRAY

“Prominent members of the Ethiopian government or pro-government activists have been ramping up anti-Tigrayan rhetoric, as well as anti-journalist, anti-activist, inflammatory rhetoric targeting anyone who might be deemed critical of the Ethiopian government or critical of the Ethiopian government’s narratives. This has more or less normalized the state violence that’s been targeting ethnic Tigrayans over the course of the past 11 months, instilled a degree of fear amongst Ethiopian population.”

Source: National Public Radio

A whistleblower says Facebook’s algorithms could be stoking tensions and fanning ethnic violence in Ethiopia.

AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:

Hate and division on Facebook are not just a problem in the U.S. That’s one of the messages whistleblower Frances Haugen took to Congress last week, where she accused Facebook’s algorithms of quote, “literally fanning ethnic violence in Ethiopia,” a country that’s endured nearly a year of civil war.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

FRANCES HAUGEN: My fear is that without action, divisive and extremist behaviors we see today are only the beginning. What we saw in Myanmar and are now seeing in Ethiopia are only the opening chapters of a story so terrifying, no one wants to read the end of it.

CORNISH: The United Nations says millions of people have been forced from their homes. Hundreds of thousands are facing famine-like conditions because of the conflict between the Ethiopian government and Tigray rebels. Freelance journalist Zecharias Zelalem has been reporting extensively on Ethiopia, and he says he agrees with Haugen’s assessment. And we’ll pause here to note that Facebook is among NPR’s financial supporters.

Now, earlier, Zelalem described the role of social media in the conflict.

ZECHARIAS ZELALEM: Just looking at the instances of documented evidence over the course of the past three years in which prominent Facebook posters would post unverified, often inflammatory posts or rhetoric that would then go on to incite mob violence, ethnic clashes, crackdowns on independent press or outspoken voices.

CORNISH: Who were some of the perpetrators of this kind of violence? I mean, when you say someone posts misinformation, what could that look like that could start a mob?

ZELALEM: Well, in recent times, if we’re going to make reference to the ongoing conflict now, prominent members of the Ethiopian government or pro-government activists have been ramping up anti-Tigrayan rhetoric, as well as anti-journalist, anti-activist, inflammatory rhetoric targeting anyone who might be deemed critical of the Ethiopian government or critical of the Ethiopian government’s narratives. This has more or less normalized the state violence that’s been targeting ethnic Tigrayans over the course of the past 11 months, instilled a degree of fear amongst Ethiopian population.

CORNISH: The Ethiopian government has denied ethnic cleansing accusations. Can you talk about how the conflict is upending the lives of civilians?

ZELALEM: Well, I mean, the ethnic cleansing accusations are something that are very well-documented and corroborated by dozens of credible media sources and diplomatic sources, human rights organizations. At this point, 11 months into the conflict, it’s not really something that’s up for – it’s not really something that’s up for debate anymore.

CORNISH: Facebook has responded to Haugen’s criticisms by saying, quote, “to suggest we encourage bad content and do nothing is just not true.” They also talk about the idea of having to balance freedom of expression in places where people use the platform. What, if anything, is this conversation like in Ethiopia? Is anyone talking about Facebook? From your position, are they doing what they say?

ZELALEM: Well, with regards to your second question, Ethiopia being a relatively authoritarian society, critical conversation is not something that’s encouraged. It’s something that could wind you up behind bars. So there isn’t that much of an open societal debate. But I can quite honestly say that Facebook has – if it has done anything, it’s not nearly enough, at least, because there have been more than enough documented incidents.

I know of a very recent instance where a media outlet posted an inflammatory post blaming members of an ethnic minority for carrying out the murders and kidnappings that took place on September 27. And this Facebook post got hundreds of shares, hundreds of likes, all sorts of reaction. And a day later, on the 28 of September – so just barely two weeks ago – the village cited in the Facebook post was ransacked, burnt to the ground, inhabitants murdered. Like I said, this is very recent. This is barely two weeks ago. And despite multiple efforts to report the post, it remains up and live as of this moment.

CORNISH: We’ve been speaking to journalist Zecharias Zelalem. Thank you for sharing your reporting.

ZELALEM: Thank you for having me.

CORNISH: We reached out to Facebook. They told NPR that Ethiopia is a company priority and that it has worked to improve proactive detection to remove more harmful content at scale.