The U.S. official who wrote a Pulitzer Prize-winning book on
genocide is visiting Ethiopia next week to press the government to lift what
the U.S. calls a blockade on humanitarian aid to the conflict-hit Tigray
region, where hundreds of thousands of people now face deadly famine.
Samantha Power, administrator of the U.S. Agency for International
Development, hopes to meet with Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, who has asserted
that “there is no hunger in Tigray,” and with senior officials who blame the
aid blockade on rival Tigray forces who have retaken much of the region and vow
to pursue “enemies” beyond its borders.
The Ethiopian government’s assertion that Tigray forces are to
blame is “100% not the case,” a senior USAID official told The Associated
Press, adding that “our primary obstacle is the government.” The official was
not authorized to discuss the matter by name and spoke on condition of
anonymity. Witnesses have told the AP this has been the problem in Tigray for
months.
While the senior official said insecurity preventing movement
along roads could be an issue, “what we’re seeing is (aid) convoys being turned
around at checkpoints manned by Ethiopian soldiers or their proxies ... It’s
not a question of being turned around by Tigrayans. I think (the Tigray forces)
have been messaging very clearly they’re ready to support humanitarian
activities.”
Power has requested a meeting with Ethiopia’s prime minister, who
won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019 for restoring ties with neighboring Eritrea
but has since joined forces with Eritrea to wage war in the Tigray region after
a political falling-out with the region’s leaders. The conflict is now
spreading into neighboring regions in Africa’s second most populous country,
long a key U.S. security ally.
Some 6 million Tigray residents have been caught in the fighting
since the war began in November, when Abiy accused Tigray forces of attacking a
military base. Thousands of civilians have since been killed. Now the U.S.
estimates up to 900,000 face famine conditions after Ethiopian and allied
forces destroyed crops, looted food supplies and threatened farmers from
planting. Food prices are rising, while banks remain closed.
Recently Ethiopia’s government accused humanitarian groups of
supporting the Tigray forces, making life more dangerous in a region where aid
workers have been harassed and at least a dozen killed.
The U.S. earlier imposed aid cuts and visa restrictions over the
Tigray crisis, angering Ethiopian officials, and Power’s visit will warn of
“continuing consequences” for the government, the senior official said. There
were no details, but “the longer that this blockage goes on, the more likely we
are to see additional punitive measures.”
Tigray remains almost completely cut off from the outside world.
The United Nations has said some 200 aid-laden trucks are “stuck” in Ethiopia’s
neighboring Afar region on the only remaining road access to Tigray. Bridges on
other routes were destroyed as Ethiopian forces retreated from the region in
June.
“People are starving,” U.N. World Food Program head David Beasley
said this week, warning that the agency will run out of food for Tigray on
Friday. The AP has reported that scores of people have died of starvation in
the world’s worst famine crisis in a decade.
Ethiopia’s government on Wednesday said it stands by the
unilateral cease-fire it declared in June as its military withdrew, saying it
was for humanitarian reasons. The government has said the cease-fire will end
once the planting season in Tigray is over, meaning September, and already
authorities are supporting military recruiting drives amid concerns over a new
offensive.
Abiy’s spokeswoman, Billene Seyoum, accused Tigray forces of
blocking the delivery of aid. “The international community has been shockingly
mute” on the Tigray forces’ actions, which include crossing into the Afar and
neighboring Amhara regions, she said.
The Tigray forces this week said the establishment of multiple
humanitarian aid corridors is a precondition for talks on a negotiated
cease-fire.
Power during her visit will press for “overland access” for aid,
the senior USAID official told the AP. While she is first visiting neighboring
Sudan, which borders Tigray and is a potential supply route, “right now the
principal focus is on getting the Ethiopian government to allow food convoys
through Ethiopia into Tigray,” the senior official said. Other ways are being
explored but would be “inadequate to meet the scale of need.”
The WFP has said 20 convoys of 100 trucks each need to enter
Tigray every month to meet needs and “so far we’ve gotten one,” the senior
official said. A second convoy was attacked in Afar earlier this month. The
U.N. on Wednesday said 44 trucks are now trying to reach Tigray.
The new U.N. humanitarian chief, Martin Griffiths, on Thursday
began a six-day Ethiopia tour and plans to visit Tigray to meet with civilians,
the U.N. said, in another sign of renewed international pressure.
Because of the fighting, Power is “not permitted” to travel to
Tigray, the senior USAID official said.
And while Power has been outspoken about Tigray, she will not use
the word “genocide” in referring to the region because the U.S. State
Department is determining what legal term to use for what’s occurring there,
the senior official said.
“Certainly, ethnic targeting of Tigrayans, the rhetoric seen from
Abiy recently, really dehumanizing rhetoric about his own citizens, is very
concerning and certainly reminiscent of other conflicts in which we’ve seen
mass atrocities committed,” the senior official said.
Ethiopia’s prime minister earlier this month described the Tigray
forces as “weeds” and a “cancer,” further alarming ethnic Tigrayans who have
alleged that thousands of non-combatants have been detained during the conflict
because of their identity alone.
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