Ethiopia, Tigray Observe Year Since Ceasefire, Challenges Remain

Fighting and serious rights abuses persist in northern Ethiopia a year after the signing of the cessation of hostilities agreement, Human Rights Watch said today, November 2, 2023. The two main warring parties, the Ethiopian government and Tigrayan authorities, signed an African Union-led agreement in Pretoria, South Africa on November 2, 2022, ending active hostilities in the Tigray region.

Hostilities escalated when Tigray People's Liberation Front forces attacked the northern command headquarters of the Ethiopian National Defense Force, sparking a two-year war from November 2, 2020 to November 2, 2022. Thousands of people were killed in the conflict and hundreds of thousands were displaced, fleeing to neighbouring countries.

An investigation into human rights abuses on the part of Eritrea who sided with the Ethiopian government and the diversion of humanitarian aid to Tigray camps, found that the Ethiopian federal government entities and Eritrean forces had higher roles in the diversion of food aid. Organisations such as U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the World Food Programme, withdrew their assistance after the findings.

A commission ordered by the UN to investigate possible war crimes in the Tigray conflict halted its work, with no country calling for it to continue. Thousands died, Tigray and the wider area are still scarred, wrote Deutsche Welle on October 4, 2023.

On October 31, 2023 Amnesty International in a new report, accused Facebook owner Meta of serious human rights abuses against Ethiopia's Tigrayan community.