Consider This from NPR - Ethiopia's Civil War Is Becoming A Humanitarian Crisis

Episode Date: August 10, 2021

The Tigray region in northern Ethiopia is at the center of a civil war that broke out last November, after rebels there attacked a military base. Since then, the political fight has become an ethnic one, with troops no longer distinguishing civilians from rebel fighters. NPR's Eyder Peralta visited the war-torn region in May and spoke with the people at the center of the conflict. The United Nations says more than 400,000 people are now living in famine conditions in Ethiopia, putting them at risk of starvation if the country's civil war doesn't let up. The United States is the country's largest foreign aid donor. And the person who controls that funding currently is Samantha Power, administrator for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). She spoke with Ari Shapiro about she learned from her recent trip the area. In participating regions, you'll also hear a local news segment that will help you make sense of what's going on in your community.Email us at [e-mail] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Support for NPR and the following message come from the Kauffman Foundation, providing access to opportunities that help people achieve financial stability, upward mobility, and economic prosperity, regardless of race, gender, or geography. Kauffman.org. Hey there, friends. Before we start, I want you to know that today's episode contains graphic descriptions of violence, So take care while listening. For days now, along a river in Sudan, bodies have been washing up on shore. We were called in about five days back when the first bodies started appearing.

Since then, we've been burying people nearly daily. Al Jazeera spoke with some of the Ethiopian refugees who have been collecting, identifying and burying them. And significantly, there are reports that some of the dead washing ashore have tattoos or facial markings known among the Tigray people. Most come with their hands tied behind their backs. Some had gunshots, wounds in the head, others in the back. We buried more than 40 so far. Now Tigray is at the center of a civil war that broke out last November after rebels there attacked an Ethiopian military base. And Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed responded. And since then, the political fight has become an ethnic one, with accusations that troops are no longer

distinguishing civilians from the rebel fighters. In Tigray, entire towns have been destroyed, and people in those towns, the victims of rape and murder. Why there are rules? They don't abide by any rules. Dr. Rhea Isaias is the clinical director of a hospital in the Tigray region. He told NPR correspondent Eder Peralta, the military isn't following any of the normal rules. Even the hospital where they were standing was a target for shelling.

And yet this is a safe haven compared to the other parts of the region. That's the most painful part, you know. They walked down the packed hallways. Some patients had to lie on the floor. In the pediatric ward, a young girl's entire face was bandaged. Her father said she was helping a friend who had been hit by a bullet, when she was then struck by sniper fire as well. Act like this, I don't know. How much pain do they have? How much rage do they have to eliminate? It looks like to eliminate the whole population of the region.

It looks like that. Consider this. Two years ago, the prime minister of Ethiopia was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize. Now he's engaged the country in a civil war that's cascading into a full-blown humanitarian crisis. From NPR, I'm Adi Cornish. It's Tuesday, August 10th. This message comes from NPR sponsor Nature Valley Granola Bars. Having a busy day? Nature Valley invites you to take a minute to re-energize with the sounds of nature, starting with this walk through the forest. For more, visit TakeInTheOutdoors.com

I'm Peter Sagal, host of NPR's Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. That strange sound you heard on our last show was live people laughing and applauding. Be a part of our next show with real live people on August 26th at Tanglewood. Join us live and you too can finally see what our real live legs look like. Legs. Remember those? It's Consider This from NPR. The UN says more than 400,000 people

are now living in famine conditions in Ethiopia, putting them at risk of starvation if the country's civil war doesn't let up. There is famine now in Tigray. That's a UN humanitarian official named Mark Lowcock. The number of people in famine condition is higher than anywhere, anywhere in the world since a quarter of a million Somalis lost their lives in 2011. Now, the Ethiopian government has been accused of blocking aid from reaching millions of people. Linda Thomas-Greenfield, that's the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., told European allies in June that

what's happening right now is, quote, a moment of truth for the international community. We are witnessing a humanitarian nightmare. We cannot make the same mistake twice. We cannot let Ethiopia starve. We're going back to the old era where Ethiopia is really struggling to support and feed millions of Ethiopians. Samuel Gedachou is a freelance journalist based in Ethiopia's capital. For many people, people perhaps a bit older, remember the Ethiopian famine of 1984, which really affected so many people. And many of those famines happened in the region of Tigray. Now, the Ethiopian government denies accusations that they and their allied Eritrean forces

are using hunger as a weapon. That makes Geradou's job much harder. For a better part of the conflict, people like myself, we did not have access to the region. We were really late by the time we went to the region and trying to verify all this information. So everything we're receiving contradicts what we've received previously. For example, the Ethiopian government declared victory just weeks after the fighting started. Yet nine months later, the violence continues. Another example, Ethiopian leaders say they called for a ceasefire

and wanted to open humanitarian access. The opposition, the Tigray People's Liberation Front, or TPLF, said they forced the government to flee and that the military was trying to save face as they lost ground. Regardless of who deserves blame, aid is not getting to people in need as a result. There are many parts of the region that is in conflict. There are also areas we can't access, the humanitarian organizations cannot access. So this conflict has really just begun. So who might have influence with Ethiopia right now? The United States is the country's largest foreign aid donor,

and the person who currently controls the lever of that money, more than $1 billion annually, is Samantha Power. Her name might be familiar because during the Obama years, she served as the ambassador to the UN. Now under President Biden, she heads USAID, that's the U.S. Agency for International Development. I have in my career had occasion to talk to a lot of survivors of mass atrocity and even, unfortunately, of sexual violence. Last week, she traveled to the region. She didn't meet directly with the prime minister of Ethiopia. But my colleague Ari Shapiro spoke to her about what she did see. While I was in Sudan, I traveled to the eastern part of the country atrocities being committed, the venom with which

the perpetrators are seeking to ensure that Tigrayan women cannot have babies in the future, and the emotion among these women. And this, for many of them, it was eight, nine months ago that they came across the border. And as they relived what had been done to them, it was as if it was the day before. I mean, it was so real and just so harrowing. We know that the conditions are dire and that horrific things are happening. But the reports out of Ethiopia have been contradictory and piecemeal, and it's really hard to get a sense of the full scale of the conflict. Having been there, do you feel that you have an understanding of where things stand? Well, the militarization of the conflict is getting worse by the day, by the hour in the day.

You have the government not seeking to come to the peace table for an inclusive dialogue, but rather deploying forces. You see the rebels inside Tigray who won a victory in effectively defeating the Ethiopian government, the Eritrean forces and the militia, and got them out of large swaths of territory. But now those rebels are pushing out and trying to take territory that they traditionally have not occupied in Ethiopia. So I think that picture is clear. What is much more obscured is the conditions of desperate civilians inside Tigray because access has been so severely impeded. And when Ethiopian forces and officials left Tigray, bridges were burned. So it has become a kind of island where inside there, you know, certainly there is not the violence and the atrocities that were occurring before these forces departed, but getting to the people inside has become almost impossible for humanitarians. As USAID administrator, your job is to oversee humanitarian

relief. And you have spent your career in diplomacy and academia trying to create conditions where these crises don't happen, where that kind of relief is not necessary. And so what's it like for you to tour the region now and see these war crimes and this humanitarian disaster that perhaps could have been avoided, that you have spent your life trying to create the conditions that they are avoided? Well, it's a reminder that there is no military solution for political grievances. And yet, nobody seems to get the memo in so many countries. So it's heartbreaking. I mean, Ethiopia's story is one of such progress. Ethiopia, when I was UN ambassador, was an anchor of stability. They deployed peacekeepers throughout the continent to try to prevent atrocities in other countries

on behalf of the international community and our shared humanity. And now to see those same atrocities, to see hateful rhetoric and hate speech and the dehumanization of people who are other, it's crushing because it makes great demands on humanitarian assistance. And in truth, the United States has spent more than a billion dollars over the last year meeting these humanitarian needs. And so I feel incredibly privileged to be part of an agency that can do that, that can prevent people from starving and that can care for them after they've experienced sexual assaults. But those are resources that we would much sooner be investing in fertilizer and in climate adaptation and in digit, and in young people and their education. But conflict takes

so many countries off that development path. I have to ask without diminishing your role, you know, should the US be sending the Secretary of State, somebody who has the authority to help avert conflict rather than somebody who can say, here's food, here's medicine, here's literal band-aids for a problem that perhaps might have been avoidable if the U.S. had engaged more at an earlier stage? Well, President Biden has appointed Jeff Feltman, one of the top diplomats and most experienced diplomats in the world, who was Undersecretary General at the United Nations for Political Affairs, who speaks Arabic, who has spent the better part of the last decade working to mitigate conflicts all around the world, including in sub-Saharan Africa. So Jeff Feltman has been

working relentlessly behind the scenes to try to bring the parties to the negotiating table. But I wouldn't confuse governments and rebels making the wrong choices with an absence of hustle on the part of the United States. The parties each seem to believe that they can win this militarily. And the people who are getting caught in the crosshairs, of course, as always, are the civilians. Samantha Power, Administrator for the U.S. Agency for International Development. In the meantime,

Tigrayan rebels, they're on the offensive and expanding their territory. And Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed is calling on the civilians of Ethiopia to join the war. An official statement posted to Twitter on Tuesday

says now is, quote, the right time for all capable Ethiopians who are of age to join the defense forces, special forces, and militias to show your patriotism. You're listening to Consider This from NPR. I'm Adi Cornish.