Status: December 15, 2021 7:13 a.m.
In Ethiopia, fighters from the breakaway north have suffered setbacks – a respite for the beleaguered government troops. Arms deliveries – also with NATO technology – are playing an increasingly important role.
A few stones piled up as makeshift graves. A little further a few concrete tombs with pictures of the dead, sometimes an official passport photo, sometimes a piece of life, with a guitar in hand. Lives that were taken in a civil war that is getting fiercer and bloodier – and in which civilians are still neglected.
The tombs are near the Church of the Holy Trinity in Nefas Mewcha, in the north of the Amhara region. It is rare footage from Reuters news agency that shows priest Merigeta Tsegaw Derrese. He holds out his arm, describes a large semicircle with his finger and says: “They are all civilians. Some were killed immediately after visiting the church, some after leaving the premises, others by exchanges of fire when the enemy was shooting from private homes. Again others were deaf or disabled and could not escape, “says the priest.
A destroyed tank testifies to the events of the Kregs in the Amhara region (Ethiopia)
Image: REUTERS
Reports of war crimes
The human rights organization Human Rights Watch (HRW) has in the meantime even reported on civil executions of 49 people in two locations. All the allegations point towards the fighters of the TPLF, the “People’s Liberation Front of Tigray”, which has been fighting for a year with the central government of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed in Addis Ababa.
On Abiy’s side are his Ethiopian Army (ENDF) and various regional militias, mainly from Amhara and Afar, as well as the army from neighboring Eritrea. In particular, the Oromia Liberation Army (OLA) is fighting together with the TPLF and its military arm (TDF).
Hunger and billions for war
It is what it sounds like: complicated. A country that some experts already see as a “failed state”, a failed state that in just one year turned from a real beacon of hope on the African continent into a serious problem for the entire region.
The war is said to have cost the country the equivalent of almost a billion euros, according to the UN – but recent calculations already speak of twice that amount. The World Food Program (WFP) assumes that seven million people are already starving and starving.
A number that could rise sharply, because it all comes together: there is drought and grasshoppers, which lead to crop losses. Sometimes farmers don’t even get to till their fields. In Tigray it was forbidden to them, especially by Eritrean soldiers, on punishment. Here – as on the other side of the front – many farmers have become fighters, sometimes more, sometimes less voluntarily. As a result of the war, the region no longer produces enough food, but on the other hand it has to feed tens of thousands of fighters.
Advance towards the capital
It is a struggle that has now gripped large parts of the country. The insurgent Tigray in the north, which the government troops and their allies had completely occupied a year ago, has largely been “liberated” by its own troops. The TDF had marched through the neighboring region of Amhara, up to about 150 kilometers from the capital Addis Ababa.
It is high time for the Prime Minister to check himself out at the front in a camouflage uniform. In the past week, a few cities were promptly retaken and enemy lines severed. The general was able to travel back to the capital without showing gratitude and confidence in the midst of his troops: “The country exists because of you,” Abiy said in front of the cameras. “You ensure that Ethiopia continues to exist by sleeping in such a cold place and accepting all sacrifices. The enemy has been defeated.”
The enemy, Abiy continues, is “a shameful thief and rapist who has no respect for women and the country and who has degraded himself and wants to degrade us.”
Words from a war leader: In a TV interview, Ethiopia’s President Abiy praised the morale of the government troops.
Image: AP
Rape as a weapon of war
The fact is that, according to human rights organizations, rape as a weapon of war is still the order of the day – three regions are currently affected, depending on where the front is. In the beginning the women in Tigray fell victim to the government troops and their allies, now there are more and more cases by the Tigray troops in the Amhara region.
It is similar with all other violations of human rights in this war – much remains in the dark, because free reporting is expressly undesirable.
Combat drones from Turkey and China
The fact that there has been a certain turnaround in favor of Abiy’s alliance is probably also due to massive support for the Ethiopian army from abroad. It can hardly be denied that Turkey has delivered “Bayraktar TB2” drones, which, incidentally, may also contain technology from NATO partners – even if Canada and Austria have stopped delivering drives and optical parts to the manufacturer for months.
The Chinese are there with their Wing Loong drone, which is also armed, plus Russia. A large part of the deliveries apparently come via the United Arab Emirates (UAE), which – like everyone else – have an economic and power-political interest in Ethiopia becoming stable again in their favor.
In the meantime, Ethiopia is said to have amassed the equivalent of more than 25 billion euros in foreign debt – half of it to China alone.
The Bayraktor drone was also used in the most recent armed conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia.
Image: AFP
Failed in peace efforts
It is what it sounds like: complicated. Many interests, many players, in a war that began as an alleged “police operation” but was quickly and quietly internationalized through arms deliveries.
Foreign countries are less successful in brokering peace, because both sides still believe they can win.