Tigray: Testimony from Afar
Personal testimony is a form of expression uniquely suited to overcoming the paralyzing results of psychic numbing and pseudoinefficacy. Effective personal testimony typically interweaves informative discussion of humanitarian or environmental issues with the writer’s personal experience and/or emotional response to the subject matter.
In the case of the testimony below, we find a powerful statement of the “second-hand trauma” that results from a family member living abroad and worrying about friends and relatives back home in a war zone. In addition to a vivid depiction of the current humanitarian crisis in Tigray and in Ethiopia as a whole, this testimony includes a poignant paragraph about second-hand trauma that demonstrates the Singularity Effect, the idea that by focusing readers’ attention on a single family member who is experiencing second-hand trauma, the author enables us to empathize with this intense feeling of concern. Of course, the objective of this testimony is not merely to create empathy for the author—readers are also asked to learn more about the current situation in Ethiopia and, if possible, to help galvanize interventions from the international community. But the trigger for such action is the combination of accessible, authoritative information about the crisis and vivid presentation of the writer’s own feelings. [Prefatory Note by Scott Slovic]
Note: The name of the Author of this article is withheld for security reasons.
The war on Tigray started on the 4th of November 2020. Since then, the humanitarian situation in Ethiopia has deteriorated. The political environment is so toxic and polarized, getting any consensus on anything is very difficult. But one thing is for sure, the suffering of the people affected continued to get worse.
A Political Background to What Caused the Current Situation
Since Abiy Ahmed took over power in Ethiopia in spring 2018, there has been an increasing gap between the official rhetoric of peace, dialogue, and unity and the real politics of denial, deceit, and brutality on the ground. From the outset he created a highly toxic political environment by portraying himself as the savior of Ethiopia that liberated the country from its “twenty years of darkness” allegedly caused by the prior government led by the Tigrayan minority. This on its own is not true. The previous government was a coalition between Tigrayan (TPLF), Amhara (ANDM), and Oromo (ODP) parties. Most of the politicians who were in this coalition (except the Tigrayans) are still very active in the body politics of Ethiopia and somehow are blameless. This includes the prime Minister himself who was the founder of the INSA (Ethiopian Intelligence and National Security Agency) during this coalition. He came to power with a completely different view of how the nation should be built. And that was the main political disagreement. Ancient nations like Tigray and others in the periphery disagree with the unitarist view of the PM. And he could not reconcile this main political difference.
Despite his inclusive language of reconciliation, he purged all the key positions in government and the army from Tigrayans, no matter how well they performed. This had fatal consequences when he started to wage war against Tigrayans with an Ethiopian army devoid of leadership and competence. After bombarding Mekele and other Tigrayan cities at random without the desired effect, the Ethiopian government, in close collaboration with the Eritrean dictator, Isaias Afewerki, resorted to a strategy of demoralizing the enemy through rape and starvation. This strategy, including blocking aid, was applied when Mengistu Hailemariam and his Derg regime applied it in the 1980s to wipe out internal armed resistance to his regime.
Yet, the Tigrayan army proved to be surprisingly resilient and eventually went on the offensive, defeating the Ethiopian army in almost every battle. When they started to approach the capital Addis Ababa, Abiy Ahmed was eventually saved thanks to mostly middle eastern powers such as the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Iran, Turkey, and even Israel and China which provided him with surveillance and attack drones that forced the Tigrayan army to retreat. But instead of negotiating for peace, Abiy felt even more emboldened to continue his war against Tigrayan civilians by continuing to deny access to humanitarian aid and bombard refugee camps and civilian infrastructures all over Tigray. Moreover, he is intensifying the witch-hunt against all Tigrayans that live in Addis Ababa by detaining them merely on the grounds of their ethnic affiliation. This has also affected my own family who lives in Addis Ababa, even though it is multiethnic without any direct link to Tigray.
My Story
My mother is Amhara and my late father was Eritrean. But in order to protect ourselves from prosecution and possible eviction during the Ethio/Eritrean war at the end of the 1990s, we labeled ourselves Tigrayans on our Identity cards; after all Tigray shares a long border with Eritrea and the language is quite similar to Tigrynia, one of the languages spoken in Eritrea. Consequently, our fate is now entangled with the fate of Tigrayans in Ethiopia. A few months ago, my sister was detained and let go on a bail of 45,000 birr. The reason given was “selling a good without a receipt when she was 29.” She is now nearing her 40s. We still don’t know or understand who opened this case against her. But we believe the reason given was just a pretext, as we are witnessing the mass incarceration Tigrayans all over the country.
My sister-in-law’s mother is a widower from Tigray in her 60s. She was also detained overnight and let go on suspicion of being in possession of “having arms and weapons.” Her house was searched twice by the police. This has become a very normal everyday occurrence for anyone with a Tigrayan name. Two of my Tigrayan friends have their family members put in makeshift jails similar to concentration camps. But this is nothing compared to what is happening to civilians in Tigray. They have been blocked off from communication, food, medicine, and aid since mid-July 2020 without no humanitarian corridor.
The last direct communication we had from Tigray, was from our prior neighbor in Addis Ababa who moved to Mekelle right before the war broke out. It was a young family with four small kids. The mother reached out as she was struggling to feed her kids. We somehow managed to send some food via informal channels, with the help from some NGOs who were active in the area at the time. Finding someone to deliver the prepared food to a war zone was a logistical challenge. But then the phone lines were cut-off and that was the last we heard of our friends and some other family members (on the side of my sister-in-law). We still worry and think about their wellbeing and survival. The only report that is coming out is about how many people are starving, how many children are dying of starvation, and how many fail to obtain emergency support in local hospitals that are deprived of access to electricity, medicine, and medical equipment. And there is the constant news about indiscriminate bombardments, shelling, and drone attacks.
Hearing all this from a safe distance and not being able to do anything about it is extremely difficult to process. It is stressful, emotionally draining and it’s causing me to develop an irrational resentment. I live in a very peacefully prosperous place but everything I hear and see is the opposite. People and children, I personally know could be dying of starvation, but that means very little to the people around me. And even if it means a lot to me, there is nothing I can do about it. It is suffocating. It’s a very confusing state of being and lived reality. Every time I hear about the lack of food and medicine, the first person that comes to my mind is our little neighbor boy, Hiyab, who is only few months older than my own child. When I went to Ethiopia to visit my family, this little boy would come early in the morning to wake me up. We nicknamed him “Alarm Clock.” He’d play with my child on the floor. Sometimes I see my children, the affluence, peace, and abundance they live in, and remember Hiyab and his siblings probably didn't eat that day. If they are still alive, that is. The thought depresses and distresses me. But, then again, compared to many I am very lucky. My family is not from Tigray—only by marriage and identity are we linked to the region. So is it even justified that I feel this deeply, when many of my friends have not heard from their mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, etc.? They are in a much much worse emotional distress than I am. Some are coping with alcohol, some with medications, some with drugs, and some can’t cope altogether and are living with depression and thoughts of self-harm. Compared to them, mine is a second-hand trauma.
We understand the politics behind this civil war is complicated and difficult to solve; and for sure, the counterattacks by the Tigrayan army have also resulted in massacres. But we don’t understand why millions of children and mothers are just forgotten and left to starve. All we ask is to protect the lives of innocent civilians and their families. Aid and medicine must be delivered to them, and a humanitarian corridor organized. But the latest news shows the complete opposite. Ayeder hospital (the biggest hospital in Mekelle) will now halt its operations because doctors have run out of medical equipment. On their last communication (see the links below), they said their only job has become signing death certificates. There is now an established pattern observed since the onset of the war 14 months ago. The Ethiopian government either denies that there is any sort of humanitarian problem in the Tigray region or it temporarily lifts its embargo to appease the international community just to close borders again immediately afterwards.
If the international community is really prepared to avert another humanitarian disaster that borders on genocide in Africa, it has to bring all parties to the table, including those foreign powers that currently enable the Ethiopian government to commit the atrocities against civilians through the provision of unconventional weapons and unconditional military assistance.
I have attached several links and verified reports to corroborate all the things I said above.
Thank you.
Links
Tigray situation report from the UN:
https://reports.unocha.org/en/country/ethiopia/card/4nmWe1eMdY/
Tigray’s hospitals running out of food for starving children:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-59893216
A communication by Doctors from Ayeder Hospital Mekelle:
https://www.tghat.com/2022/01/04/ayder-doctors-and-health-professionals-hoping-against-hope/
Patients dying as medicines run out:
Two children killed on a strike on a refugee camp and 5.2 million in need of help, UN:
https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/01/1109282
Aid organizations suspending work in Tigray after an airstrike on an Internally displaced people leaving 56 dead, including children:
https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/article-692027
More on the war and the siege on Tigray:
https://twitter.com/GerrySimpsonHRW/status/1479799779567751172?s=20
https://twitter.com/geoffreyyork/status/1479171784268259328?s=20
WHO’s Dr. Tedrose talking about the blockade in Tigray:
https://twitter.com/drtedros/status/1480611626361446409?s=12
Very disturbing footage of a drone strike on civilians:
https://twitter.com/tedros_axum/status/1475106710423543809?s=20
https://twitter.com/hayet_alem/status/1480460153933770755?s=20
UNICEF’s response to the second video showing children who were killed by the air strike:
Tigrayan migrants deported from Saud Arabia imprisoned and abused after arriving in Ethiopia:
https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/01/05/ethiopia-returned-tigrayans-detained-abused
Article about drones and who is supplying them:
https://www.oryxspioenkop.com/2022/01/recap-uae-air-force-armed-drones-over.html
Sever hunger tightens up on northern Ethiopia:
https://www.wfp.org/news/severe-hunger-tightens-grip-northern-ethiopia
https://twitter.com/wfp_media/status/1487000717789380608?s=21
Severe acute malnutrition significantly increased:
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/langlo/article/PIIS2214-109X(22)00023-7/fulltext
Addis Ababa (ICRC) – The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on Friday flew in its tenth cargo plane in ten days carrying vital medical supplies into the Tigray region of Ethiopia:
First photograph is by Achilli Family, CC BY 2.0