Africa. The horrors of hidden warfare . 'At the age of eight, you were abused in Tigrai’
Eight-year-old girls and elderly women raped by Ethiopian and Eritrean troops in front of their families. And shooting at children in the streets of occupied cities while the corpses are left to be eaten by the hyenas.
New arrivals from Tigray, dramatic testimony, even from religious sources, on the horrors of a war kept hidden and ignored by the international community and increasingly inhumane. Started 190 days ago as an internal operation in Ethiopia between the government forces of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and the Eritrean allies and the rebels of the Tigrinya Popular Liberation Front ( Tplf), continued with fierce clashes outside the cities, on both, the heights where the Tigrinya guerrilla hides and strikes, it has long since become an international conflict in which no one knows how many are dead and wounded. Operators and the reports of international organizations have been repeating this for some time: the risk of famine is very high due to lack of access to humanitarian aid for the population, for the damage suffered by crops in the first months of the offensive and for the recent blockade of seeds by Ethiopians and Eritreans and the systematic destruction of factories.
The Tigrai in a few months has jumped back by 40 years, when the Marxist Derg regime caused the famine made famous by the Live Aid concert. According to the UN at least 5,2 millions of people need assistance and al 3 May only about 350,000 had been helped. The situation is desperate in the northwest of the region. Tens of thousands of people displaced by the fighting continue to pour into camps on the outskirts of cities such as the capital Macallè, Shire, Axum and Adua which are therefore collapsing.
A region on its knees due to the conflict
5,2 millions
of people on 5,7 million inhabitants of Tigray, they need emergency food assistance according to the UN
12%
it is the assisted part of the over three million inhabitants who need emergency shelter and non-food products
90 millions
euros are the amount of debt payments suspended by the European Union in favor of the government of Ethiopia
From Macallè the Ethiopian NGO Shadaida, that welcomes 3.500 displaced on behalf of the UN agency Ocha, confirm the lack of water, food and medicines. In the Tigrinya hospitals that survived the destruction, anesthetics are difficult to find, chemical reagents and disinfectants. An Ethiopian nun, anonymous for security reasons, complained to the British Guardian newspaper that “the dead are denied the dignity of burial, with the bodies left to be fed to the hyenas ». While the rapes, “They don't even spare eight-year-old girls or elderly women, they are on the agenda, happen everywhere and one wonders if the people who do this are human». For the nun, the main perpetrators of the atrocities are the Ethiopian and Eritrean forces, whose presence was denied by Addis Ababa and Asmara until the end of March.
Other religious sources also confirm that girls up to 12 years were raped by Eritrean soldiers, often in Ethiopian uniforms and recognized by cadences. The boys are shot in the street: a 12-year-old boy had his leg mangled by shots fired in the pile by Eritreans amputated in a village outside Adwa. Media, agencies and NGOs report repeated abuses and violations of human rights. The New York Times correspondent has had his work permit taken away.
Meanwhile, the US has expressed deep concern over the growing ethnic and political polarization in Ethiopia, where the general election of 5 June have been postponed indefinitely. Washington, after the return of the special envoy to the Horn of Africa Jeffrey Feltman from a tour of the capitals, he said he will work with allies for a ceasefire and to prosecute those who violated human rights. Feltman said he told Eritrean President Isaias Afewerki to immediately withdraw soldiers from Tigray. The EU has also asked Asmara for the umpteenth time, recalling that the use of aid as a weapon of war is an international crime. Yet another of an out-of-control war where mercy is dead.
