Fears of ‘slow, certain death’ stalk Tigray amid rumblings of renewed war | Conflict News

Tigray, Ethiopia – Saba Gedion was 17 when the peace agreement that ended the conflict in her home country of Tigray in northern Ethiopia was signed in 2022.

She had hoped then that fighting would be a thing of the past, but the last few months had convinced her that strife loomed again, and she felt paralyzed with despair.

“Many people are leaving the region in droves,” Gedion told Al Jazeera as she sat under the shade of a tree selling coffee to the occasional customer in an area frequented by internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Tigray’s capital, Mekelle.

Gedion – himself a displaced person – is from the town of Humera, a now disputed area with the Amhara region that saw heavy clashes during the 2020-2022 war between Ethiopia’s federal government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF).

The now 21-year-old remembers the horrors she witnessed. Some of her family were killed, while others were kidnapped to neighboring Eritrea, she says. She hasn’t heard from them since.

Although she made it out alive, her life was turned upside down when she was forced to flee to Mekelle for safety.

Years later, Gedion sees similar patterns as people leave Tigray – most heading for the neighboring Afar region – again in search of the safety that has become elusive at home.

“Recurrent conflict and civil war have made us zombies rather than citizens,” she told Al Jazeera.

In recent weeks, hostility between Ethiopia and Eritrea has escalated amid separate accusations by both sides.

Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed addressed Ethiopia’s parliament in early February, access to the seaand says “the Red Sea and Ethiopia cannot remain separated forever.” This led to accusations by Eritrea that Addis Ababa was trying to invade its country and try to reclaim the Red Sea Assab seaport, which it lost in 1993 with the independence of Eritrea.

Meanwhile, Ethiopia has accused Eritrean troops of doing so occupied its territory along parts of their shared border, and called for the immediate withdrawal of soldiers from the towns of Sheraro and Gulomakada, among others. Addis Ababa also accuses Eritrea of ​​arming rebels in the vast Horn of Africa country.

Observers say the rising tensions point to an imminent war between the two countries – one that could once again involve Tigray.

Unhealed scars of war

In Tigray’s capital, a once-thriving city of tourism and business, most streets are quiet.

The young people who used to visit cafes are now regularly seen applying for visas and talking to smugglers in the hope of leaving Tigray.

Helen Gessese (36) lives in a temporary GOP camp on the outskirts of Mekelle. She is worried about what will become of the already struggling region should another conflict break out.

Gessese is an ethnic Irob, a persecuted Catholic minority group from the border town of Dewhan in the northeastern part of Tigray.

During the Tigray war, several of her family members were kidnapped, she said, as Eritrean troops expanded their hold on the area.

As the war escalated, she fled to Mekelle, about 150 km away, in search of safety. Her elderly parents were too frail to join her on foot, so she was forced to leave them behind. Like Gedion, she has not heard from them or the rest of her family since 2022.

“My life has been put on hold, not knowing if my elderly parents are still alive,” she told Al Jazeera, the stress of the last few years making her look much older than she is.

In Mekelle, it is not unusual to meet people who are anxious or frustrated – some from the renewed tension, and many from the trauma of the previous conflict.

More than 80 percent of hospitals was laid in ruins during the war in Tigray, according to humanitarian organizations, while sexual violence what defined the two-year conflict is still a recurring issue. Hundreds of thousands of young people are still out of school, foreign investment that created jobs in the past has largely evaporated, and the economy remains crippled after years of war.

Meanwhile, almost four years later, the federal government’s decision to withdraw foreign funds intended for the region deepens a humanitarian crisis. For example, most of the civil service in the region has not been paid for months.

The Ethiopia-Eritrea relationship has also deteriorated in recent years.

The long-time enemies waged war against each other between 1998 and 2000, but in 2018 they signed a peace agreement. They then became allies during the 2020-2022 civil war in Tigray against the common enemy, the TPLF.

But relations between Ethiopia and Eritrea have deteriorated sharply since the signing of the 2022 agreement that ended the Tigray war – an agreement to which Asmara was not a party.

‘Acts of outright aggression’

Earlier this month, Ethiopia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Gedion Timothy He wrote an open letter acknowledging the presence of Eritrean troops hanging around on the Ethiopian side of the border and asking them to leave.

“The invasion of Eritrean troops…” he wrote, “are not just provocations but acts of outright aggression.”

Asmara continues to deny the presence of its troops on the Ethiopian side, and Eritrean information minister Yemane Gebremeskel called such accusations “an agenda of war against Eritrea”.

In a sign of worsening relations between the two neighbors, Ethiopia’s Abiy, in his speech to lawmakers in early February, also accused Eritrean troops of committing atrocities during the Tigray war. The accusation was a first from the prime minister, following repeated denials by his government about reported mass killings, looting and the destruction of factories by Eritrean troops during the Tigray conflict.

Eritrea’s government has rejected Abiy’s claims of atrocities, with Gebremeskel citing it “cheap and despicable lies”and notes that until recently, Abiy’s government has been handing out “commendations and state medals” to Eritrean army officers.

As tensions escalate, many observers say war between the two is now inevitable and have called for dialogue and the de-escalation of the situation.

“The situation remains very volatile and we fear that it will deteriorate, which will worsen the region’s already precarious human rights and humanitarian situation,” said the United Nations Human Rights Spokesperson, Ravina Shamdasani, this month.

Kjetil Tronvoll, a professor of peace and conflict studies at Oslo New University College, told Al Jazeera that a new war would have “far-reaching implications for the region” – regardless of the outcome.

He believes the impending conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea could take the form of a new civil war, which again positions Addis Ababa against Tigray’s leadership.

On Ethiopia’s side, he argues that the goal will be regime change in both Asmara and Mekelle, noting that “regime change in Eritrea could lead to Ethiopia gaining control of Assab.” For Asmara and Mekelle, the goal would also be regime change in Addis Ababa, he suggests.

“If it erupts, it will be devastating for Tigray,” Tronvoll said. “The outcome of such a war is likely to fundamentally change the political landscape of Ethiopia and the Horn (of Africa),” he warned, pointing out that regional states could also be drawn into a proxy war.

Fears for the future

For many in Tigray, memories of massacres committed during the 2020-2022 war are still fresh.

Axum, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in the central zone of the Tigray region, is known for its tall obelisk remains of an ancient kingdom. But for 24 hours in November 2020, the city was the site of killings carried out by the Eritrean army. “Many hundreds of civilians” were killed, rights group Amnesty International said said.

While the killings were denied for many years by both the Eritrean and Ethiopian governments, Abiy this month admitted that they had taken place.

However, despite the fact that he spoke of “mass killings” in Axum, he was silent on the fact that the Ethiopian and Eritrean armies openly cooperated as allies during that war.

Marta Keberom, a resident in her forties who comes from Axum, says very few people in her hometown have not been affected by violence in the past five years.

“The killings that took place during the war were not just a conflict, they had the characteristics of a genocide where entire families were killed without cause,” she said of the killings targeting Tigrayans.

“Reviving it,” Keberom said, speaking at a GOP center in Mekelle, would be “something I cannot begin to understand.”

Gedion waits for customers at his coffee stand in the city and is also afraid of what may come next.

She once aspired to become an engineer, but since being uprooted from her village, she now dreams of a future far away from Ethiopia.

She has already contacted a smuggler to help her leave, she says, through Libya and to the Mediterranean – despite the extreme risks of such a journey.

“I’d rather take a chance than die a slow, certain death with little future prospects,” she said.