Ethiopia declares unilateral truce in war-ravaged Tigray

Ethiopia’s government declared a unilateral truce in the northern Tigray region, where a civil war that’s raged since November 2020 has displaced millions of people and brought hundreds of thousands to the brink of starvation.

“The government of Ethiopia hopes that this truce will substantially improve the humanitarian situation on the ground and pave the way for the resolution of the conflict in northern Ethiopia without further bloodshed,” the government’s communication services said in a statement on Thursday.

The rebels ignored a previous government offer of a cease-fire, but have called for international intervention to end the war. This time, the group said it is committed to implementing the truce “effective immediately.”

“The government of Tigray will do everything it can to make sure that this cessation of hostilities is a success,” according to a statement by the Tigray External Affairs Office sent late Thursday. “We call on the Ethiopian authorities to go beyond empty promises and take concrete steps to facilitate unfettered humanitarian access to Tigray.”

The federal government’s declaration of an indefinite humanitarian truce in order to provide aid to the Tigray region is an important step, the International Crisis Group said in a statement. “It is crucial that this promise is speedily translated into action” in the region, where no one has received humanitarian aid since December, it said.

Conflict erupted in Ethiopia when Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed ordered an incursion into Tigray after troops loyal to regional authorities attacked a federal army base. That followed months of tension stemming from Abiy’s sidelining of the TPLF, which had previously been the nation’s pre-eminent power broker.

‘Extreme coping strategies’

Aid agencies have warned of a growing humanitarian crisis, saying they have been unable to reach 200,000 displaced people in the Afdera district in Ethiopia’s Afar region, where Tigray fighters have conducted a monthslong offensive against regional forces allied to the government. Earlier this week, communities in Afar prevented a United Nations convoy from distributing food to displaced people, according to the World Food Programme.

In Tigray, three-quarters of the population is now “using extreme coping strategies to survive,” the U.N.’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in a report last weekend. “The level of food insecurity is expected to worsen in the coming months as remaining food stocks from the last harvest, which was half of normal-year production, get depleted and humanitarian assistance is not delivered at scale.”

The U.N. has also bemoaned crippling fuel shortages in Tigray, which have hampered the distribution of aid that does get through the region.

Abiy’s troops — backed by Amhara militias and Eritrean forces — initially pushed into Tigray in late 2020 only to be pushed back in June last year when the TPLF recaptured the regional capital of Mekele. Tigrayan troops then advanced toward the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, but were repelled when the army staged a counteroffensive. Since then, Tigrayan fighters have attacked regional forces in Afar and Amhara as federal troops retreated.