17/01/2021 News and Commentaries – Tigray War

‘Extreme urgent need’: Starvation haunts Ethiopia’s Tigray. 

From “emaciated” refugees to crops burned on the brink of harvest, starvation threatens the survivors of more than two months of fighting in Ethiopia’s Tigray region.

The first humanitarian workers to arrive after pleading with the Ethiopian government for access describe weakened children dying from diarrhea after drinking from rivers. Shops were looted or depleted weeks ago.

A local official told a Jan. 1 crisis meeting of government and aid workers that hungry people had asked for “a single biscuit.” Washington Post

Report: “Hundreds of Somali troops used as cannon-fodder in Ethiopia’s Tigray War”

Dozens of Somali soldiers were killed in Ethiopia’s Tigray region months after crossing over the border with Eritrean troops on November last year following their graduation from military training camps in Eritrea | Somalia. Somali Guardian

Ethiopia is massing military forces on the borders in locations facing the Sudanese army deployment sites.

عاجل | وزير الدفاع السوداني: إثيوبيا تحشد قوات عسكرية على الحدود في مواقع مواجهة لمواقع انتشار الجيش السوداني

— الجزيرة – عاجل (@AJABreaking) January 17, 2021

Sudanese troops have been deployed on the border in agreement with Ethiopia’s PM: al-Burhan

The head of the Sudanese Sovereign Council, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, disclosed Saturday that he had agreed with the Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed to deploy the Sudanese troops to secure the borders between countries. Sudan Tribune

‘Major violations’ of international law at Tigray refugee camps.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said satellite imagery showed fires burning and fresh signs of destruction at the Shimelba and Hitsats camps for refugees from neighbouring Eritrea which people fled due to political persecution and compulsory military service before the conflict in Tigray.

“These are concrete indications of major violations of international law,” Filippo Grandi, commissioner of the UNHCR, said in a statement on Thursday. Al Jazeera

EU’s Borrell says ‘possible war crimes’ in Ethiopia’s Tigray.

The European Union’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell on Friday said that “possible war crimes” have been reported in Ethiopia’s Tigray region and insisted authorities must open humanitarian access.

“The situation on the ground goes well beyond a purely internal ‘law and order’ operation. We receive consistent reports of ethnic-targeted violence, killings, massive looting, rapes, forceful returns of refugees and possible war crimes,” Borrell wrote in a blog post.

“More than two million people have been internally displaced. And while people are in dire need of aid, access to the affected region remains limited, which makes it very difficult to deliver humanitarian assistance.” AFP

Meet the people forced to flee Ethiopia’s Tigray region.

“We saw many dead bodies”, Melashu, 65 .

“I saw they were killing young men, so I fled. Here I feel safe,” Ashenafi, 19.

“I wish I didn’t have to give birth to my baby in this place,” Leilti, 30. Norwegian Refugee Council