Media Roll-Up: April 5-11
Humanitarian Aid
DW, April 8th, 2021
The US said "large-scale assistance is urgently needed" in order to prevent the humanitarian situation in Tigray from worsening. The area has seen a violent conflict for several months.
Tigray aid response is too little, too late, poll respondents say
Ben Parker, April 8th, 2021, The New Humanitarian
People in northern Ethiopia get less humanitarian relief compared to those facing the impact of conflicts in northern Nigeria, Afghanistan, or the Central African Republic, an independent poll released today by research group Humanitarian Outcomes found.
Tigray crisis: The Weeknd donates $1m to Ethiopians in conflict
BBC News, April 5th, 2021
R&B singer The Weeknd has promised to donate $1m (£700,000) to Ethiopians caught up in the conflict in Tigray.
Ethiopian Politics
Ethiopia: war in Tigray threatens to end Abiy’s dream of unity
Andres Schipani, David Pilling, April 8th, 2021, Financial Times
PM’s supporters say he can win re-election and get country back on track. Others fear too much damage has been done.
EU's Ethiopia envoy warns of looming Tigray refugee crisis and radicalisation
Ahmed Maher, April 7th, 2021, The National News
The “turbulence and crisis” in Ethiopia’s Tigray region risks leaving a vacuum for extremist groups to spread unless the world works together to resolve it, the EU’s special envoy to the conflict said on Tuesday.
Famine
Tigray Is Being Deliberately Starved to Death
Alex de Waal, April 6th, 2021, World Politics Review
Millions of people in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region are facing starvation. Until now, it’s been a crisis without pictures. Those wrenching images of emaciated children and mothers with dull-eyed gazes, so sadly familiar from famine zones, have yet to emerge.
Ethiopia: Looming famine in Tigray is the making of ‘starvation crimes’ says report by WPF
Patrick Smith, April 9th, 2021, The Africa Report
Without an end to the fighting in Tigray, its people will face starvation more devastating than the “biblical famine” that tore through the region in the 1980s, according to a heavily-detailed survey by researchers from the US-based World Peace Foundation.
Conflict
‘Leave no Tigrayan’: In Ethiopia, an ethnicity is erased
Cara Anna, April 7th, 2021, Associated Press
HAMDAYET, Sudan (AP) — The atrocities have been seared into the skin and the minds of Tigrayans, who take shelter by the thousands within sight of the homeland they fled in northern Ethiopia.
Ethiopia: Amidst hostilities in Tigray, humanitarian situation remains ‘dire’
UN News, April 7th, 2021
The humanitarian situation in Tigray, Ethiopia, remains “dire”, the Spokesperson for the UN Secretary-General said on Wednesday.
Ethiopia’s military crackdown in Tigray prompts accusations of ethnic cleansing (AUDIO)
PBS, April 7th, 2021
Allegations of ethnic cleansing that began last fall amid a military crackdown in northern Ethiopia's Tigray region now threaten to engulf the surrounding areas and permanently tarnish the reputation of the country’s nobel prize-winning prime minister. Thousands are dead, tens of thousands have been displaced, and the Ethiopian government is on the defensive. Coletta Wanjohi reports.
Ethiopia : Foreign Machinations In The Tigray War
Borkena, April 10th, 2021
Writing on the Tigray war, the author says “There was no war in recorded human history that was prosecuted in a humane way. War is doom, better left un-started.”