ADDIS ABABA, Jan 5 (NNN-Xinhua) — Conflict in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray regional state has displaced 2.2 million people, an Ethiopian official said.
“There are 2.2 million Internally Displaced People (IDPs) in Tigray, half of them are whose houses were burnt and lost all their properties, the other half fled by foot from western Tigray and other places in Tigray to regional cities including Axum, Shire, Adigrat and Mekelle,” Gebremeskel Kassa, head of the region’s Interim Administration Office, told state media outlets in Tigray region’s capital Mekelle.
“The IDPs are under great risk, and we’re undertaking widespread mobilization in collaboration with the federal government to provide aid to them,” he said.
At least 4.5 million people need emergency aid, Kassa said, warning the final figure is likely to be much greater as his office has been unable to make a comprehensive study across the region.
The majority of health facilities in the region have been destroyed or looted during the conflict, he added.
Ethiopia’s federal government has been undertaking military operations in the country’s northernmost Tigray regional state since early November against the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), which used to rule the region, after the TPLF reportedly attacked a command base of the Ethiopian Defense Forces.
The clash followed rising tensions between Ethiopia’s ruling Prosperity Party and the TPLF, as each side accused the other of trying to destabilize the country.
Mounting differences between the two sides exacerbated in September, when the Tigray regional government decided to go alone with its planned regional elections, which the Ethiopian parliament had previously postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Meanwhile, security forces in western Ethiopian have arrested 17 Ethiopians suspected of involvement in deadly communal violence, state media outlet Ethiopia News Agency (ENA) reported.
The 17 suspects are accused of attacking civilians in the Metekel zone of the western regional state of Benishangul-Gumuz in recent weeks that left scores dead, the ENA reported.
According to the report, 290 arrows were confiscated from the 17 suspects.
In December 2020, an armed attack by suspected ethnic Gumuz militants in the village of Bekoji, Metekel zone, left at least 207 people dead.
Among the victims were 133 adult men, 35 adult women, some 20 elderly persons as well as 17 children, one of them a six-month-old baby, according to a statement published by the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission, a rights group established by the Ethiopian parliament.
Ethnic violence between various ethnic groups in Benishangul-Gumuz regional state in recent months has left hundreds dead and thousands of others displaced.
The clashes were mainly over access to power and land resources. — NNN-XINHUA
