NAIROBI, Kenya – Ethiopia’s government on Thursday announced what it called a “humanitarian ceasefire” with troops it has been fighting for 17 months in the northern region of Tigray, where millions are starving and food aid has not been delivered since December.
The deadly conflict in Africa’s second most populous country has pitted the Ethiopian army against rebels with the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, or TPLF leaders of the TPLF have not immediately responded to reports of the ceasefire but have accused the Ethiopian government of it block access to aid to the region.
Announcing the unilateral ceasefire, which came into effect immediately, the Ethiopian government said it acted as thousands of people from Tigray began flooding into neighboring regions to seek help.
“While it is encouraging to see the brotherly bond and solidarity shown by communities that need and help, the government believes the situation warrants urgent action to ensure that those in need can receive aid in their places the government said in a statement on Twitter and on Facebook.
The war in Ethiopia, which began in November 2020, has killed thousands, displaced more than two million people from their homes and was the center of massive human rights violations, including ethnic cleansing, massacres and sexual violence.
More than 9 million people are in need of food aid in Tigray and the neighboring regions of Afar and Amhara, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Three quarters of the population in Tigray now uses “extreme coping strategies to survive,” the UN humanitarian agency said in a report this month.
The government said it will work with aid groups to accelerate the delivery of food and water to those in need. It added that it hoped the ceasefire would facilitate an end to the conflict, and called on Tigrayan fighters to “renounce all forms of further aggression and withdraw from areas they have in neighboring regions.” busy”.
The Tigray People’s Liberation Front and the Tigray External Affairs Office, which is responsible for official communications from the Tigray government, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The announcement came just days after David Satterfield, the US special envoy to the Horn of Africa, visited senior officials in Ethiopia and urged the delivery of humanitarian aid to the Tigray region.
It is not the first time that the Ethiopian government has declared a unilateral ceasefire in the war. It did so for the first time last June, after the Ethiopian army routed into Tigray and the TPLF recaptured Mekelle, the capital of the Tigray region. Before long, however, fighting erupted elsewhere between government forces, the TPLF fighters and their allies.