Ethiopia’s Tigray crisis: The long, medium, and short story

in ethiopia •  4 years ago 

A conflict between the government of Ethiopia and forces in its northern Tigray region has thrown the country into turmoil.

Fighting has been going on for almost two weeks, destabilising the populous country in East Africa, with reports of hundreds dead.

A power struggle, an election and a push for political reform are among several factors that led to the crisis.

Here, we've broken them down to explain how and why this conflict has flared.

In simple chunks of 100, 300 and 500 words, this is the story of the crisis so far.

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Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed says he is launching the "final phase" of the army's operation in the northern region of Tigray after weeks of fighting.

He said the military would try not to harm civilians in the regional capital Mekelle - a city of 500,000 people - and urged residents to stay at home.

The TPLF party, which controls Mekelle, has vowed to keep fighting.

The UN warns of possible war crimes if the Ethiopian army attacks Mekelle.

UN human rights chief Michele Bachelet told the BBC the city's inhabitants were in "deep peril".

"We're really alarmed by the dangerous situation particularly because of the civilians trapped in Mekelle," she said, adding that there was "potential for serious violations of international humanitarian human rights law".

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Mr Abiy's announcement comes after a deadline he gave for Tigray fighters to surrender passed on Wednesday.

Hundreds of people have reportedly been killed and thousands have been forced from their homes as Ethiopian forces have seized various towns in Tigray from the TPLF.

However, details of the fighting are hard to confirm because all phone, mobile and internet communications with the Tigray region have been cut.

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Local journalist Daniel Berhane, who is in Mekelle, told the BBC there was no sign yet of any attack, and that shops, cafes and restaurants in the city were "almost full".

Three African Union representatives have arrived in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa to try to broker talks but Ethiopia has so far rejected all mediation attempts, saying the conflict is an internal matter and Mr Abiy's government is engaged in a law enforcement mission in Tigray.

The three envoys will not be allowed to travel to Tigray.

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Fears of costly Mekelle offensive

In the "final phase" of the military offensive that PM Abiy launched following the expiry of the 72-hour ultimatum, he spoke of a military strategy in which top personnel of the TPLF would be brought to justice without harming civilians or properties in and around Mekelle.

It is not clear what that strategy is but it will not be easy to carry it out, particularly if there's active fighting in the city. Artillery attacks, as were suggested by an army official last week, and airstrikes are particularly difficult to conduct without killing civilians and destroying civilian infrastructure.

The federal government's troops could be met with a sort of guerrilla warfare from the area outside Mekelle.

And it could also take longer than the government would like to conclude the offensive. That could mean a worsening of the humanitarian crisis and consequently more international pressure.

In the past three weeks the government has taken control of a number of areas in Tigray but at a cost. An offensive on the state capital - believed to be the main stronghold of the TPLF - could be even more costly.

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What did PM Abiy say?
He ordered the Ethiopian military to launch an offensive on Mekelle in the "third and final phase" of the federal government's military campaign against the TPLF.

Mr Abiy said "great care" would be taken to protect civilians and "all efforts" would be made to limit damage to Mekelle.

He urged people in Mekelle and the surrounding areas to disarm, stay at home and keep away from military targets.

Religious and historical sites, institutions and residential areas would not be targeted, he said.

How is the TPLF responding?
The leader of the powerful regional party, Debretsion Gebremichael, has said Tigray forces are "ready to die in defence of our right to administer our region".

The TPLF fighters, drawn mostly from a paramilitary unit and a well-drilled local militia, are thought to number about 250,000. Some analysts fear that the situation could turn into a guerrilla conflict - with the TPLF continuing to mount attacks on government forces even if they take Mekelle.

One example of how this might play out is the battle for Aksum airport, which according to pro-government sources fell to Ethiopian forces on 11 November and is still controlled by them.

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But 11 days after the capture state media published pictures of the runway apparently strewn with rubble and with trenches dug across it to prevent planes landing, accusing the TPLF of sabotage attacks. Mr Debretsion denied destroying the airport, saying his forces had put up obstacles to stop the Ethiopian army.

Reuters quoted a diplomatic source as saying the TPLF "have mobilised lots of people in Mekelle". The person added: "They are digging trenches and everyone has an AK-47 [rifle]."

Aid groups fear the conflict could trigger a humanitarian crisis and destabilise the Horn of Africa region.

Ethiopia's state-appointed Human Rights Commission has accused a Tigrayan youth group of being behind a massacre earlier this month in which it says more than 600 non-Tigrayan civilians in the town of Mai-Kadra were killed. The TPLF has denied involvement.

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What is the fighting about?
The conflict is rooted in longstanding tension between Ethiopia's central government and the TPLF, which was the dominant political force in the whole country until Mr Abiy came to power in 2018 and introduced a series of far-reaching reforms.

When Mr Abiy postponed a national election because of coronavirus in June, relations further deteriorated.
The TPLF said the central government's mandate to rule had expired, arguing that Mr Abiy had not been tested in a national election.

In September the party held its own election, which the central government said was "illegal".

Then, on 4 November, the Ethiopian prime minister announced an operation against the TPLF, accusing its forces of attacking the army's northern command headquarters in Mekelle.

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Some Tigrayans in Ethiopia have described to the BBC how they have been harassed, detained or discriminated against since fighting began in their home region on 4 November.

Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has emphasised that the conflict in the northern Tigray region is against a "criminal clique" within the dominant party there, the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), but reports from elsewhere in the country suggest there is an ethnic dimension to the crisis.

Tigrayans make up around 6% of the Ethiopia's more than 110 million people and many live outside their regional state.

The government has denied that there has been ethnic profiling and said any action carried out against individuals was for justified security reasons.

Some in the security forces have told the BBC that they have been disarmed and ordered to stay at home.

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'Hand over your weapon'
One of those was a female officer who had been working as a policewoman for more than 20 years, but was once a member of the TPLF, which was originally a militia force.

She said that two days after the fighting began, she received a call from a superior who asked her to report to the office the next day.

On her arrival she was "ordered to hand over all government property and my firearm".

She added that some high-ranking officials, who were also Tigrayan, were given the same strict order.

The government has not commented on the allegation that police officers have been disarmed because of their ethnicity.

But speaking about the issue in general, Mamo Mihretu, a senor adviser to the prime minister, told the BBC that "taking law-enforcement measures based on ethnicity and identity is something that we take seriously and would condemn - this is not acceptable".

However "there is a clear instruction to the security agencies to take their measures based on risk and actionable intelligence", he said adding that it was aimed at "hardliners - disgruntled and reactionary elements of the TPLF".

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Since coming to power in 2018, the prime minister has tried to emphasise national unity while also respecting the identities and rights of the different groups which govern the country's 10 ethnically based federal states.

But the fallout from this conflict has exposed the difficulties of maintaining that position.

The BBC has also heard from a federal soldier of 14 years' experience who alleged he and others were singled out because they were Tigrayan in what he described as "shocking" treatment.

He said he was detained in a warehouse by his fellow soldiers with nearly 90 other Tigrayan members of the armed forces. They had their phones confiscated and were "treated as prisoners of war", he alleged.

"It was only the Tigrayans who were disarmed and detained together. So, it's obviously based on our ethnicity," added the soldier, who wanted to remain anonymous.

When those detained challenged the people who were holding them "they said: 'The TPLF attacked our [base in the north] and this order to detain you came from the top'", he told the BBC.

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'Disguised Tigrayan accent'
Among those held were veterans of the TPLF's struggle against Marxist dictator Mengistu Hailemariam, who was toppled in 1991. The TPLF then became the dominant political force in the whole country but say they were sidelined by Mr Abiy when he came to power in 2018

Others were high-ranking military officials, some of whom had spent time in the African Union force in Somalia, he said.

"I had never imagined those people who had relentlessly served the national army and their country would be treated this way."

He later managed to escape from the warehouse, disguise himself as a civilian and flee to a neighbouring country, from where he spoke to the BBC.

He said that as he was crossing the border, he was careful to hide his Tigrayan accent so as not to arouse suspicion, adding that he fears for the lives of his comrades who he left behind in the warehouse.

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