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The Ethiopian Parliament lifted, on Tuesday February 15, in advance the state of emergency imposed in November 2021, when the Tigrayan rebels threatened to march on Addis Ababa. “The Ethiopian House of Representatives today approved the lifting of the state of emergency imposed for six months”tweeted the Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, three months before the scheduled deadline.
The vote by Ethiopian MPs followed a proposal by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s cabinet to ease the wartime state of emergency initially imposed until May. The state of emergency was declared on November 2, 2021 when fighters from the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) had just seized two strategic towns on the road leading to the Ethiopian capital.
Under the state of emergency, mass arrests of Tigrayans had been carried out in Addis Ababa and the rest of the country, triggering a series of condemnations from international human rights organisations. The state of emergency also coincided with a campaign of general mobilization and shelling that eventually pushed rebel forces back towards Tigray, raising hopes that the fighting would end.
In December, Addis Ababa announced that the army would not pursue them there, but several drone strikes hit Tigray in the following weeks. At the end of January, the TPLF announced that it had resumed fighting in the neighboring region of Afar, after attacks according to it by pro-government forces on its positions.
“Extreme shortage”
The conflict has left several thousand dead, more than 2 million displaced and plunged hundreds of thousands of Ethiopians into conditions close to starvation, according to the United Nations.
Tigray has for several months been subjected to what the UN describes as “de facto blockade” humanitarian aid, with each side passing responsibility for it. Washington accuses the government of blocking aid, while Addis Ababa blames the situation on rebel incursions. The World Food Program (WFP) estimated in January that nearly 40% of the population of Tigray suffered from “extreme shortage of food”.
The WFP said international humanitarian NGOs operating in the area are running out of fuel and forced to provide assistance on foot to malnourished civilians. On Friday, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said that humanitarian operations had almost ceased due to these shortages.
Abiy Ahmed, Nobel Peace Prize 2019, sent the federal army to Tigray in November 2020 to dismiss the regional authorities from the TPLF, who challenged his authority and whom he accused of having attacked military bases. With many twists and turns, the fighting then spread to the neighboring regions of Afar and Amhara.