Tigray is the northernmost region of Ethiopia, with a population of 7,000,000 people. In November 2020, under cover of the Covid pandemic and on the US election day, the war began.
Before the phone lines were cut, news reached us from my husband’s family and friends of the atrocities being committed throughout the region.
At the end of November, Bishop Tesfasellassie Medhin from the town of Adigrat sent a letter via Catholic media channels pleading with the outside world to come to the aid of his people (1). He had recorded many deaths in his own diocese and in the nearby holy city of Axum many hundreds had been killed (2).
Detentions and internments of ethnic Tigrayans began taking place all over the country (3). Ethiopian Airlines, the largest airline in Africa, dismissed all its Tigrayan staff (4).
At Ghent University a team, led by Professor Jan Nyssen, began collecting the names of the dead. The data later compiled into the Humanitarian Atlas of Tigray, one of a number of important documents that mapped out the crimes committed in Tigray (5).
Attack
Tigray was encircled and attacked by the Eritrean army and Somali mercenaries from the north, and by the Ethiopian Army and Ethiopian militia groups from the south. The attacks were supported by drones from the UAE (6).
Massacres and ethnic cleansing forced the displacement of 2,000,000 Tigrayans internally, and across the border to refugee camps in Sudan. Today, 40% of Tigray remains occupied by Ethiopian militia groups. In Western Tigray, new settlers now occupy the homes of the displaced (7).
The war was marked by widespread systemic sexual violence and state-led starvation. The region has experienced forced starvation before, at the hand of past regimes, notably the famines of 1973 and 1984, which gained world attention at that time (8). The unspeakable horrors of sexual violence witnessed in Tigray are considered to be the worst of their kind anywhere in the world (9), with horrific crimes inflicted on over 120,000 victims (10, 11).
Hate speech
Hate speech began before 2020 and intensified rapidly after the war. Dehumanising slurs describing Tigrayans as “devils”, “cockroaches”, “hyenas” and “terrorists” were common terms used (12). In July 2021 the Prime Minister of Ethiopia referred to Tigrayans as “weeds” and “cancer” on his Facebook account. He suggested that “the weeds should be cleared” (13). The EU envoy Pekka Haavisto, on his return from Ethiopia in 2021, told reporters that officials had said they “were going to destroy the Tigrayans and wipe them out for 100 years” (14).
Frances Haugen, a former algorithmic expert and whistleblower at Meta, gave evidence to the UK Government in October 2021 that Facebook was fanning the flames of ethnic violence in Ethiopia (15).
Siege
Food, medicines and humanitarian aid were cut off to the region, as well as electricity, internet and phone communications (16). All banks were closed. The population received no salaries or pensions. Despite no journalists being allowed into the region, CNN’s Nima Elbagir gained access to Tigray in 2021 and sent harrowing reports of massacres and conflict related sexual violence (17). Inside Tigray, the Commission of Inquiry on the Tigray Genocide have identified 480 massacre sites, which have gone without analysis by independent forensic experts, despite visits from diplomats and EU and UN officials since the cessation of hostilities agreement in November 2022. Access to the region remains tightly controlled (18).
Genocide
The war is one of the deadliest conflicts of the 21st century, with an estimated death toll of 600,000-800,000 lives (19). Many experts and human rights organisations characterise the events in Tigray as genocide, yet the crisis has never made headline news. A campaign to suppress reporting on Tigray was led by the Ethiopian Government and facilitated by its allies (20).
In the article, Tigray War: Modern Geographies of mass violence and the invisibilization of populations, author Teklehaymanot Weldemichel asks, “Why, despite its unparalleled scale, has this crisis remained invisible to the world?”. He cautions that the tactics used by the Ethiopian Government could easily be replicated by authoritarian regimes elsewhere (21).
Investigations
Two international investigative mechanisms set up during the war, the UN’s International Commission of Human Rights Experts for Ethiopia (ICHREE) and the African Union’s African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR), were terminated following a relentless diplomatic campaign by the Ethiopian Government. Consequently, following the Cessation of Hostilities Agreement in November 2022, there existed no scrutiny of Ethiopia’s implementation of agreed targets, or indeed the African Union’s monitoring of the situation.
The UK Tigray Inquiry Report was published by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on International Law, Justice and Accountability in September 2023 (22).
Despite the scale of the evidence provided by the UK Tigray Inquiry and ICHREE’s report (23), every member of the UN Human Rights Council voted not to continue investigating the crimes committed in Tigray. The report Genocide in Tigray, published by the New Lines Institute in June 2024 (24), has also been widely ignored by the media and the UN Human Rights Council.
Advocacy
The Tigray Government and civil society organisations have been warning of the imminent threat of another war. A military offensive was launched on 1 August 2026, along with encirclement of Tigray and drone attacks.
Following the attacks, open letters were sent by UK and global Tigrayan advocacy groups to the UK and US Governments, the UN, EU and African Union, urgently calling for international action to prevent another genocidal war in Tigray. The academic Dr Sarah Vaughan has cautioned that “If we neglect to push for peace and accountability, we are complicit in entrenching impunity” for atrocity crimes (25).
Advocacy groups urge that the path forward is neither complicated nor unattainable: it requires decisive international action.
Despair
Almost six years on from the start of the war, Tigray remains under siege. The population were not allowed to vote in recent national elections, and the region has not received its budget. Tigray currently does not have any parliamentary representation in the Ethiopian federal system.
There is no fuel to distribute the limited humanitarian aid, and there are severe food shortages. Human Rights Watch reported in April this year that “The persecution of Tigrayans in Western Tigray was unrelenting” (26). The plight of young Tigrayans has seen many make perilous journeys to escape the region in search of safety, only to find despair – for example, those now imprisoned in Saudi Arabia under threat of execution with no legal representation (27).
This year’s planting season has been impeded by drought in some areas and destructive flooding in others. Starvation is the leading cause of death in Tigray, exacerbated by the removal of USAID (28). A reignited war will have catastrophic consequences, which should alarm the international community as conflict risks spreading across the Horn of Africa.
Throughout Tigray and the diaspora, people long for peace, so that the displaced can return home without fear, children can go back to school, farmers can cultivate their land, and communities can finally begin the journey towards healing.
References
1.Concern grows over safety of bishop in Ethiopia – UCA News
2. Ethiopia: The Massacre in Axum – Amnesty International; Martin Plaut and Sarah Vaughan, Understanding Ethiopia’s Tigray war (2023), p 235
3. Ethiopia: Ethnic Tigrayans Forcibly Disappeared – Human Rights Watch
4. Ethiopia Airlines accused of ethnic profiling over civil war with Tigray – The Telegraph
5. (PDF) Tigray: Atlas of the humanitarian situation
6. Martin Plaut and Sarah Vaughan, Understanding Ethiopia’s Tigray war (2023), p 203
7. Home – Commission of Inquiry on Tigray Genocide (CITG)
8 .Starving Tigray: How Armed Conflict and Mass Atrocities Have Destroyed an Ethiopian Region’s Economy and Food System and Are Threatening Famine – World Peace Foundation
9. War-related sexual and gender-based violence in Tigray, Northern Ethiopia: a community-based study – BMJ Global Health
10. Rusted screws, metal spikes and plastic rubbish: the horrific sexual violence used against Tigray’s women – Global development, The Guardian
11. Tigray Inquiry Report, September 2023 – All-Party Parliamentary Group
12. Hagos Nigussie, Gebru Kiflu, Bereket Desta, Echoes of Violence: Analyzing Hate Speech in the Ethiopian Broadcast Media (2024)
13. Tigray Inquiry Report, September 2023, p 104 – translation of Facebook post
14.EU envoy: Ethiopian leadership vowed to ‘wipe out’ Tigrayans – AP News
15. Ethiopia: ‘A death sentence for my father’: Meta’s contribution to human rights abuses in northern Ethiopia – Amnesty International
16. Two years of internet shutdowns: people in Tigray, Ethiopia, deserve better – Access Now
17. CNN uncovers evidence of torture, detention and execution in Tigray – CNN
18. Home – Commission of Inquiry on Tigray Genocide (CITG)
19. Tigray Inquiry Report, September 2023
20. Mark Lowcock: Ethiopian government blocked Tigray famine declaration – Devex
21. Tigray war: Modern geographies of mass violence and the invisibilization of populations – ScienceDirect
22. Tigray Inquiry Report, September 2023
23. Report of the International Commission of Human Rights Experts on Ethiopia (A/HRC/54/55) (Advance Unedited Version) – ReliefWeb
24. Genocide in Tigray: Serious breaches of international law in the Tigray conflict, Ethiopia, and paths to accountability – New Lines Institute
25. Remarks By Dr.Sarah Vaughan at the Inaugural Meeting of the APPG on Tigray. – David Alton
26. Ethiopia: Persecution of Tigrayans Unrelenting – Human Rights Watch
27.Ethiopians on death row in Saudi Arabia: Prisoners calling the BBC from their cells – BBC News
28.Starvation remains the leading cause of death in Tigray, northern Ethiopia, after the Pretoria deal: a call for expedited action – BMC Public Health
Anna Gessesse is a retired Nurse and Midwife and a volunteer with Words and Action for Peace in Edinburgh
