keeping track of shifting alliances
and countless more out of jobs
Hi there,
I spent the weekend mostly indoors, doing laundry and making slow but sure progress on my book (the one I’m reading not writing). I also used this ‘downtime’ to finally get some excruciating administrative tasks out of the way. What else can I say? It was a great weekend.
My name is Maya Misikir, and I’m a freelance reporter based in Addis Abeba. I write Sifter, this newsletter where I send out the week’s top 5 stories on human rights and news in Ethiopia.
Now, to the news.
Politics: ‘exercise restraint’ (please)
I first wrote an update on a serious political rift happening within the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) in September last year. That was not even a full two years since the Pretoria peace deal was signed (November 2022) ending the two-year war in the region.
It was after the Pretoria peace deal, a deal brokered between the TPLF and the federal government, that an interim administration was set up to lead the region post-conflict until Tigray would hold elections.
Who did the TPLF nominate to lead this interim administration at the time? The party’s head, Debretsion Gebremichael. That appointment was not accepted by the Prime Minister. Instead, the party’s spokesperson, Getachew Reda, was appointed to lead it. The rift between the two men has grown since, with both sides accusing the other of trying to sabotage the fragile peace in the region.
The head of the interim administration says that the TPLF is trying to seize power by force (coup), a plan it says has been brewing since January. He suspended higher-level generals in Tigray’s army (accused of siding with the TPLF), and asked the federal government and international parties to step in and intervene before things get to an irreversible stage. Since then, he has clarified by saying that, this intervention is not military.
He’s also convinced that there are ‘multiple regional players’ all playing a part in this mess, specifically Eritrea.
What does Eritrea have to do with this? Eritrea is an opportunist state, according to the region’s interim administration, bent on using Tigray as a path to Addis Abeba. The TPLF, or factions in it, are allegedly forming this alliance with Eritrea, ‘to protect their past and current misdeeds’.
The vice president of the interim administration also says that a war between Ethiopia and Eritrea seems inevitable.
Eritrea ordered a nationwide military mobilization last month, says a story on Reuters, and credible sources say, ‘Ethiopia deployed troops toward the Eritrean border’.
TPLF forces, on the other hand, took over administrative units by force across Tigray last week, as well as a radio station. But the party has rejected the interim administration’s call for federal intervention, saying that this poses a serious threat to the Pretoria agreement.
The party has also rejected the suspension of the high-level military leaders in the Tigray army, saying that suspending them is akin to ‘disbanding the Tigray army’.
What else has the TPLF rejected? Claims that they are secretly colluding with the Eritrean government. (Is the TPLF really colluding with Eritrea, their mortal enemy from just a couple of years ago? The dizzying levels of shifting alliances in this country over the past few years, between Ethiopia, Eritrea, the TPLF, and the Fano militia in Amhara region show that anything is possible around here.)
What do other opposition political parties in the region have to say about this?
They say that political rifts aside, Tigray security forces should be guaranteeing the safety of the people of Tigray, and not aligning with one organization or the other. The parties, Arena Tigray for Democracy and Sovereignty (Arena), the Tigray Independence Party, and the National Congress of Great Tigray (Baytona), say that the TPLF (or rather a group within it) is putting the people of Tigray at risk by controlling top officials within the security forces.
What does this mean for human rights in the region?
The Ethiopian Human Rights says that the confrontations to take over administrative units has resulted in the injury of 4 people in a town known as Adi Gudom, located 40kms from the regional capital (Mekelle). Four other people including the town’s mayor were imprisoned for days before they were released.
In another town (Saharti Samre), the peace and security bureau head (also a member of Tigray Independence Party, an opposition political group) was in jail for a few days.
These are all steps that could potentially take the region back from the progress achieved with the Pretoria peace deal.
The African Union says it’s concerned, and that these parties should ‘exercise restraint’.
This new political crisis has now taken all the attention away from implementing the Pretoria peace deal including the return of over 1 million internally displaced people back to their homes.
People in the region are fearful of how this might end up; some in anticipation have started ‘withdrawing money from their bank accounts’. A former fighter during the Tigray war talks about life these days in Mekelle, in the region’s capital, in this story by The Continent: “I do not wish to return to a senseless war.”
Internet: ‘record-breaking year across the board’
When Access Now did their annual report on internet shutdowns last year, they found that 2023 was the worst year for internet shutdowns since they started documenting this in 2016.
Was 2024 any better? No, 2024 had ‘more internet shutdowns, in more countries, implemented by more offenders, and across more borders.’ This is from their latest report, which documented, ‘296 shutdowns in 54 countries’.
What was the main reason for these internet shutdowns? Conflict is the number one reason. Others include protests, exams, and elections.
Here’s an excerpt from their statement:
We documented a record-breaking 103 conflict-related shutdowns in 11 countries in 2024, and as we note above, warring parties deployed new tools and tactics to collectively punish or terrorize people living through war and violence.
In this latest list - which has seven new countries joining the ranks of offenders - Ethiopia has been listed as one of 11 countries that have imposed these shutdowns in times of conflict.
Despite the Ethiopian government saying that the internet has been restored in the country’s Tigray and Amhara regions, internet speeds are throttled, and this ‘restoration has not been complete or meaningful’.
But it’s not all bad news. The report says that civil society actors are resisting and making gains by monitoring high-risk elections, denouncing shutdowns, and documenting stories of those impacted by these shutdowns.
In one encouraging instance, ‘authorities in Mauritius rescinded an order to ban social media during their election, following 24 hours of intense pushback’.
The full post from Access Now, here.
Refugees: coming in from South Sudan
Over ten thousand people from South Sudan have crossed over into Ethiopia since March because of the deteriorating security in the country.
A surge in violence, escalating political tensions, and armed confrontations are adding to the destabilization of South Sudan, said the UN’s Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan in a press release earlier this month.
This has now forced thousands of South Sudanese to seek shelter with the local community in Ethiopia’s Gambella region, according to a story by The Reporter.
Here's an excerpt:
Some of the refugees arriving in Gambella have sustained wounds as a result of the conflict in South Sudan, and are receiving medical treatment from MSF, according to local officials.
What makes this situation extra precarious is that the host community in Gambella is in the midst of a cholera outbreak (over 1,500 cases and 31 deaths).
Being displaced by the latest conflict in South Sudan means people are ‘losing access to healthcare, safe water, and sanitation’ – ‘key factors driving the rapid spread of cholera’.
The full story on The Reporter, here.
Media: time to update our CVs
I have been sharing updates on the impact of the US foreign aid freeze in past editions. Yet another executive order signed over the past 24 hours, has ended the federally funded-news organization, Voice of America.
VOA’s director said, ‘he and virtually his entire staff of 1,300 people had been put on paid leave’ according to a story on BBC.
Of course, I could also tell you this directly – as a (former) VOA stringer myself – all reporters and editors here in Ethiopia and across the continent have also been impacted. Bureaus closed, and everybody asked not to come in until further notice.
‘Total confusion and disbelief’ to quote a colleague from the Nairobi Bureau.
But it’s not just VOA. The order targets ‘VOA's parent company US Agency for Global Media (USAGM), which also funds non-profit entities such as Radio Free Europe and Radio Free Asia.’ Their grants have also been terminated.
Why this order? Here’s an excerpt from the story:
A White House statement said the order would "ensure taxpayers are no longer on the hook for radical propaganda", and included quotes from politicians and right-wing media criticizing the broadcaster.
Radical propaganda? VOA?
The full story on BBC, here.
Health: calculating the costs of a free treatment
Do you know what neglected tropical diseases are? They’re diseases that affect people in tropical and subtropical regions, and they’re neglected because they affect impoverished communities. They get far less attention and funding than other major diseases like malaria or HIV.
In Ethiopia, around 3.5 million people are at risk for one of these neglected tropical diseases - visceral leishmaniasis.
Visceral leishmaniasis is ‘spread by the bite of sandflies’, and while it totally preventable and treatable, if left unchecked, ‘this disease is one of the most fatal, with 95 percent of untreated cases leading to death.’
A new study done on one of 32 treatment centers in the country shows that the diagnosis and treatment of the disease, which is provided for free to patients, cost the hospital 189,000 USD to treat 189 patients. To put this in context, this money is a ‘third of the hospital’s overall medication budget’.
Here’s an excerpt from a story I did for The END Fund:
While visceral leishmaniasis patients make up just 3 percent of those admitted, the costs to treat this complex disease take up a disproportionate amount of the hospital’s resources.
This is to say nothing of the costs that patients bear to get this ‘free treatment’, which include ‘lost income from work for the patients, who are mostly pastoralists’ (approximately $400!).
The full story, which has the link to the study on the cost analysis of the disease’s treatment, here.
That’s all for this week. I’ll be back next week with more updates!
In the meantime, feel free to share this with anyone you think can benefit from keeping up with what’s going on in Ethiopia.
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Thank you, Maya.
Glad you got some reading time. Are you also writing a book? 🤔