Eritrean troops in Tigray to ‘leave soon’: Ethiopia UN envoy

Move would be welcomed by the UN whose humanitarian chief accused Eritrean troops of using starvation as a weapon.

A woman walks in front of a damaged house in Tigray [File: Eduardo Soteras/AFP]

Ethiopia’s United Nations ambassador has said Eritrean troops who have fought with his country’s forces in a war against the Tigray region “will definitely leave soon”.

The move would be welcomed by many including the UN whose humanitarian chief accused the Eritreans of using starvation as “a weapon of war”.

The war in Tigray was the subject of Tuesday’s informal closed meeting of the UN Security Council, where aid chief Mark Lowcock warned more than 350,000 people were in famine conditions, with deaths from starvation already reported.

Ethiopia’s UN envoy Taye Atske Selassie Amde on Tuesday disputed the famine-related data but said there is “food insecurity” in Tigray and expressed gratitude for donor help.

Lowcock strongly defended the data released last week showing 350,000 people are facing famine and more than two million are just a step away.

It was released by The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification known as the IPC, which is a global partnership of 15 UN agencies and international humanitarian organisations, and uses five categories of food security ranging from people who have enough to eat to those facing “Famine-Humanitarian Catastrophe”.

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‘Set to get worse’

In his briefing to the Security Council seen by The Associated Press, Lowcock called the IPC “the world’s most sophisticated, authoritative, comprehensive, professionally rigorous assessment” and said if it was wrong, “it is because it is too optimistic”.

“The Tigray administration have reported deaths from starvation,” he said. “The situation is set to get worse in the coming months, not only in Tigray, but in [neighbouring] Afar and Amhara as well.”

Lowcock said the more than 350,000 in “catastrophe” conditions is a larger number than the world has seen since 250,000 Somalis lost their lives to famine in 2011.

The largely agricultural Tigray region of about 5.5 million people already had a food security problem with a locust outbreak when Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed on November 4 announced fighting between his forces and those of the defiant regional government.

Tigray leaders dominated Ethiopia for almost three decades but were sidelined after Abiy introduced reforms that won him the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019.

No one knows how many thousands of civilians or combatants have been killed. More than 50,000 have fled into neighbouring Sudan.

Though Abiy declared victory in late November, Ethiopia’s military and allied fighters remain active including troops from neighbouring Eritrea, a bitter enemy of the now-fugitive officials who once led Tigray.

‘Weapon of war’

In addition to Eritrean soldiers using starvation as “a weapon of war”, Lowcock told the Security Council: “Rape is being used systematically to terrorise women and girls. … Displaced people are being rounded up, beaten and threatened. Aid workers have been killed, interrogated, beaten, blocked from taking aid to the starving and suffering and told not to come back.”

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He warned without an end to the war and a political solution in Tigray, protection of civilians, and the departure of Eritrean soldiers who are responsible for “substantial violations” of international humanitarian law, “no one should be surprised to see a re-run of 1984”.

In the disastrous famine of 1984-85, about two million Africans died of starvation or famine-related ailments, about half in Ethiopia.

Abiy said in late March the Eritrean forces had agreed to go.

Asked when they would leave, Ethiopia’s Amde told reporters after the council meeting: “There is a commitment from my government, and the Eritreans are very clear as well, that it is a matter of sorting out some technical and procedural issues. Our expectation is they will definitely leave soon.”

The United Kingdom’s UN Ambassador Barbara Woodward said “there can be no further delay”.

“Farmers have been unable to plant next year’s crops due to the violence,” she told reporters. “The window for them to do so is about to close. And while the violence continues, it is not only condemning the people of Tigray to desperate hunger this year, but next year, too.”

The three African members of the Security Council – Tunisia, Niger, Kenya joined by Saint Vincent and the Grenadines – issued a statement late on Tuesday expressing “concern for the humanitarian needs faced by 17.1 million Ethiopians including people in the Tigray region” and called for stepped-up aid.

The 14-point statement never mentioned famine and warned the council that any action it takes “must recognise and respond to the reality that Ethiopia is finalising preparations for an election that is barely a week away”.

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Source: News Agencies

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