At least 56 people died and another 30 were injured on Saturday after an air strike on a camp for displaced people in the Tigray region of northern Ethiopia, in a demonstration that even the dialogue with opponents announced by the government the day before was still will have serious consequences for the population.
The information was confirmed by two aid workers to the Reuters news agency. For fear of reprisals, they preferred not to be identified, but reported that the place attacked was home to many children and elderly people, who are among the dead and wounded. The local government, they said, had already confirmed the number of victims.
The conflict in the Tigré region, which opposes the government and the TPLF (Front for the Liberation of the People of Tigré), began more than a year ago and triggered a wave of internally displaced persons, in addition to the deterioration of the economic and social crises. Over the period, an estimated 2 million people left their homes and 400,000 went hungry.
The country’s military spokesman, Getnet Adane, and government spokesman, Legesse Tulu, did not respond to Reuters requests for comment, as did Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s spokesman Billene Seyoum. The prime minister has been on the battlefield for about a month alongside the country’s soldiers.
The TPLF blames the government for the attacks. The group’s spokesman, Getachew Reda, wrote on social media that the drone attack is insensitive. “The saddest part of this story is that the victims are people displaced by the genocidal campaign promoted by the regime,” he concluded.
One of the aid workers, who visited the Shire Suhul General Hospital, where the wounded in the attack were taken, told Reuters of conversations he had with some of the displaced. Asefa Gebrehaworia, 75, told the employee she lost friends in the episode. Fighting forced him to leave his home, and the recent attack destroyed the camp where, although he faced hunger, he had shelter.
Before the latest attack, at least 146 people had been killed and 213 injured in airstrikes in the Tigray region since October 18, according to a survey by humanitarian agencies.
The Ethiopian government had announced on Friday that it would start a dialogue with the opposition. He also freed political prisoners, including Sebhat Nega, co-founder of the TPLF, and Abay Weldu, former president of the Tigre region, the main stronghold of the opposition.
The US government said Prime Minister Ahmed was paving the way for national reconciliation. “We welcome the release of prisoners as a positive move in this context,” said a US State Department spokesperson.
The European Union (EU) said that, although the release of opposition leaders was a positive step, the ongoing conflict in Tigre, like the most recent air strike, is still worrying. “All parties must seize the moment to quickly end the conflict and enter into dialogue,” the bloc said in a statement.
The TPLF, for its part, reacted skeptically to Ahmed’s appeal. “His daily routine of denying helpless children drugs and sending drones against civilians runs counter to his hypocritical claims,” spokesman Getachew said on Twitter. The TPLF accuses national authorities of imposing an aid blockade on the region, leading to famine and shortages of fuel and medicine. The government denies blocking the passage of humanitarian aid convoys.
Ethiopian Awol Allo, a law professor at Keele University in England, said in an interview with the American newspaper The New York Times that Ahmed’s announcement was a political maneuver. “A national dialogue to solve our problems is not the same as peace negotiations to end the war,” he said.
The prime minister even won the Novel of Peace award in 2019 for his conciliatory efforts and efforts to end the war that began in the 1990s with neighboring Eritrea. Since the conflict in Tigre began, however, his figure has been questioned internationally due to accusations of widespread human rights abuses and ethnic cleansing in the region.
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