Mekelle — Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) chairman Debretsion Gebremichael (PhD), cautioned on Friday that pushing displaced persons to return home without addressing security and justice concerns risks creating a "dangerous situation" in the region.
Speaking on Friday after the party's recent Central Committee meeting, Debretsion said conditions for a safe and sustainable return of displaced Tigrayans as outlined by the Pretoria agreement remain unmet.
Among the major challenges include the absence of withdrawal of "invading forces and settlers from occupied areas," lack of accountability of those responsible for "genocide and atrocities in Western Tigray", and dismantling of the state-backed administration in the areas.
"Without addressing these root causes, returning people to their homes would be unsafe and unsustainable," he said, adding that TPLF has detailed repatriation plans but he accused the federal government of lacking the commitment.
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In early July 2024, the first group of 456 IDPs returned to their villages in the Tselemti district, located in the North Western Zone of the Tigray region, followed soon by an additional 2,200 IDPs who arrived days later.
In the third phase, nearly 5,000 IDPs returned to Northwestern Tigray, resettling in May Tsebir town and three other locations within the Tselemti district.
However, the process has since been halted as returnees to Tselemti describe a harrowing reality: homes reduced to rubble, livelihoods destroyed, and a pervasive insecurity inflicted by government-allied forces from the neighboring Amhara region that were installed in the areas during the two-year war in the Tigray region, and remains in place to this day.
Returnees also described of being trapped in a living nightmare characterized by hunger, disease, and a relentless struggle for survival. Many say that the foundations of their existence have been destroyed with healthcare system in ruins. Several of them have since been re-displaced to various part of the region.
Debretsion warned that any attempt to force returns now would worsen the humanitarian crisis.
Addis Standard previously reported of the arrival of some of 47,000 newly displaced individuals, identified as IDPs, who fled 10 districts in Western Tigray six months after the Pretoria Agreement was signed between the federal government and thew TPLF in November 2022.
Well after the first year of the Pretoria Agreement, tens of thousands of IDPs sheltered in different camps, including in Abiy-Adi, central Tigray, were suffering from severe shortage of food and medicine supplies.
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In June last year, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said ethnic cleansing, human rights abuses and forcibly expelling Tigrayans from Western Tigray persists despite the Pretoria peace agreement and urged the federal government to suspend, investigate, and appropriately prosecute commanders and officials implicated in serious rights abuses.
The rights group emphasized that local authorities and Amhara forces in Western Tigray Zone have continued to forcibly expel Tigrayans as part of an ethnic cleansing campaign.
The US State Department's 2023 report on the crimes committed in relation to the two years devastating war in Tigray, Amhara and Afar regions determined that members of the Amhara forces have "committed the crime against humanity of deportation or forcible transfer and committed ethnic cleansing through their treatment of Tigrayans in western Tigray."
This summer, thousands IDPs from Western Tigray staged a protest at the Office of the President of the Tigray Interim Administration, demanding immediate repatriation to their areas of origin, which remains under the control of
In his address Friday, Debretsion condemned the federal government's unconstitutional retention of Western Tigray under its jurisdiction and demanded accountability for ongoing atrocities and injustices in the area.
