Berliner Boersenzeitung - 'Afar has been raided': Suffering stalks Ethiopia's forgotten front

EUR -
AED 3.8674
AFN 72.51661
ALL 98.235115
AMD 415.772645
ANG 1.898697
AOA 960.681351
ARS 1070.046624
AUD 1.652741
AWG 1.896338
AZN 1.793366
BAM 1.956555
BBD 2.127221
BDT 125.89859
BGN 1.956114
BHD 0.397057
BIF 3049.830214
BMD 1.052936
BND 1.412705
BOB 7.27936
BRL 6.365737
BSD 1.053507
BTN 89.396955
BWP 14.294635
BYN 3.447732
BYR 20637.552976
BZD 2.123579
CAD 1.492906
CDF 3022.980581
CHF 0.929459
CLF 0.037204
CLP 1026.581507
CNY 7.633052
CNH 7.64276
COP 4599.75256
CRC 531.905287
CUC 1.052936
CUP 27.902814
CVE 110.821292
CZK 25.092629
DJF 187.127906
DKK 7.457501
DOP 63.755066
DZD 140.67482
EGP 53.125322
ERN 15.794046
ETB 133.715953
FJD 2.436286
FKP 0.831101
GBP 0.824294
GEL 2.946243
GGP 0.831101
GHS 15.531113
GIP 0.831101
GMD 75.811716
GNF 9086.840846
GTQ 8.11998
GYD 220.401457
HKD 8.186017
HNL 26.698797
HRK 7.510868
HTG 138.00064
HUF 410.232965
IDR 16769.064729
ILS 3.779178
IMP 0.831101
INR 89.378768
IQD 1379.346653
IRR 44328.621579
ISK 145.905283
JEP 0.831101
JMD 164.995246
JOD 0.746954
JPY 159.796255
KES 136.356211
KGS 91.394671
KHR 4234.910166
KMF 490.800003
KPW 947.64234
KRW 1510.610937
KWD 0.323851
KYD 0.877885
KZT 538.602526
LAK 23048.777293
LBP 94343.099075
LKR 305.788018
LRD 188.974296
LSL 18.710448
LTL 3.109048
LVL 0.636911
LYD 5.127996
MAD 10.537263
MDL 19.289254
MGA 4963.82148
MKD 61.52771
MMK 3419.896278
MNT 3577.87775
MOP 8.438436
MRU 41.933218
MUR 48.993246
MVR 16.217001
MWK 1825.269008
MXN 21.241296
MYR 4.662928
MZN 67.278554
NAD 18.710509
NGN 1660.806838
NIO 38.774965
NOK 11.742878
NPR 143.035128
NZD 1.815893
OMR 0.405366
PAB 1.053457
PEN 3.92272
PGK 4.260685
PHP 61.217884
PKR 292.532033
PLN 4.258959
PYG 8219.015978
QAR 3.83321
RON 4.970805
RSD 116.93863
RUB 108.506657
RWF 1460.422754
SAR 3.956641
SBD 8.812572
SCR 15.063374
SDG 633.341135
SEK 11.546848
SGD 1.412625
SHP 0.831101
SLE 24.007986
SLL 22079.55433
SOS 601.751977
SRD 37.067537
STD 21793.65712
SVC 9.21847
SYP 2645.534084
SZL 18.710727
THB 35.505344
TJS 11.482923
TMT 3.695807
TND 3.319383
TOP 2.466084
TRY 36.707973
TTD 7.149624
TWD 34.275715
TZS 2621.8111
UAH 43.917667
UGX 3857.488781
USD 1.052936
UYU 45.888146
UZS 13563.492404
VES 51.646029
VND 26707.731185
VUV 125.006722
WST 2.939368
XAF 656.169739
XAG 0.032992
XAU 0.000391
XCD 2.845613
XDR 0.799486
XOF 656.216496
XPF 119.331742
YER 263.628967
ZAR 18.758235
ZMK 9477.702665
ZMW 28.997815
ZWL 339.045084
  • RBGPF

    -1.1800

    59.32

    -1.99%

  • SCS

    -0.3000

    13.16

    -2.28%

  • RYCEF

    -0.2200

    7.18

    -3.06%

  • CMSC

    0.0500

    24.62

    +0.2%

  • RELX

    0.0900

    47.07

    +0.19%

  • GSK

    -0.7800

    35.21

    -2.22%

  • AZN

    -1.4000

    67.18

    -2.08%

  • BCC

    -2.8900

    142.43

    -2.03%

  • NGG

    -0.6400

    60.94

    -1.05%

  • RIO

    -0.0700

    64.82

    -0.11%

  • CMSD

    0.0300

    24.39

    +0.12%

  • BCE

    -0.4400

    26.46

    -1.66%

  • VOD

    -0.0800

    8.84

    -0.9%

  • JRI

    -0.1100

    13.31

    -0.83%

  • BP

    0.0100

    30.1

    +0.03%

  • BTI

    -0.1300

    37.73

    -0.34%

'Afar has been raided': Suffering stalks Ethiopia's forgotten front
'Afar has been raided': Suffering stalks Ethiopia's forgotten front

'Afar has been raided': Suffering stalks Ethiopia's forgotten front

The shell crashed through Aicha Nur's flimsy hut just as she was serving a lunch of bread and milk to her nine-year-old son Tahir.

Text size:

His slim body quickly became engulfed in flames.

She grabbed Tahir and another son before fleeing on foot to safety, dodging an artillery assault allegedly carried out by Tigrayan rebels on her village in northern Ethiopia's Afar region.

They managed to escape, but Aicha's six other children remain unaccounted for.

She worries she has lost them forever to what has quietly emerged as the most active front in Ethiopia's grinding war.

More than 15 months since the first shots rang out, foreign envoys are talking up paths to peace for Ethiopia and Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed publicly refers to the conflict in the past tense.

But Afar is enduring its roughest period yet, sparked by a fresh rebel offensive that has yielded massive destruction and displacement, according to officials and residents.

Across the arid, punishingly hot region, shell-shocked survivors await food handouts at schools that have been transformed into makeshift displacement sites.

Afar's only referral hospital is stretched well beyond its bed capacity, with doctors running low on anaesthesia amid a seemingly endless influx of civilians with fractured limbs.

All the while, patients wonder aloud why no one seems to be paying attention, complaining that "their voices haven't been heard", said hospital CEO Hussein Aden.

"We've been dying for a long time now, but nobody has listened to us," Aicha told AFP as she propped Tahir up on his hospital bed, fanning away flies from his burned and blistered face.

- Outgunned -

The war erupted in Ethiopia's northernmost Tigray region in November 2020, but Afar did not see combat until July 2021 when the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) rebel group expanded its operations.

Late last year, fighting intensified in Afar before Abiy, winner of the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize, deployed to the region as part of a counter-offensive that ultimately pushed the rebels back into Tigray.

Those bouts of hostilities pale in comparison to what Afar residents say has unfolded in recent weeks: unremitting attacks involving many more Tigrayan fighters and much heavier weapons, including tanks and automated cannons.

Afar forces, armed with Kalashnikov rifles and lacking military backing, have been thoroughly outgunned.

"You can't defeat mortars with a Kalashnikov," said Ibrahim Abdala, a militia fighter who was shot in the chest in Afar's Kuneba district this month.

- 'Not even a rug to sleep on' -

Afar civilians fleeing the latest attacks describe harrowing, days-long journeys on foot towards towns that are more secure but woefully ill-equipped to feed and shelter them.

Regional government documents seen by AFP indicate 294,000 people were displaced in January, and a regional spokesman said the number is now up to 350,000 since the start of the year.

It's unclear when or even if they will be able to return home, with Afar's western border reportedly occupied by the TPLF.

"All the schools, clinics, hospitals that were constructed in this space of time are now gone on the western border. The whole lot," said Valerie Browning, an aid worker who has lived in Afar for more than three decades.

"Afar has been raided, vandalised, and there is not that much left."

Her claims could not be independently verified.

On a recent afternoon, scores of women and children sat in a sweltering dried-out riverbed, clustered under shade provided by acacia trees and sharing food handouts as boys struggled to play football using a plastic water bottle.

"You see the truth with your own eyes. We have been evicted from our homes and are eating biscuits," said Mohammad Adem Endrisi, a 32-year-old schoolteacher from Kuneba.

"There are pregnant women among us... There is not even a rug to sleep on here."

- 'Path of destruction' -

Aid workers are also worried about sky-high malnutrition rates in Tigray.

The UN says recent fighting has made it impossible for humanitarian convoys to enter Tigray via the Afar capital Semera -- currently the only functioning overland route.

The TPLF has defended its push into Afar, saying it was provoked by attacks on its positions within Tigray and claiming it "does not have a plan to remain in Afar for long."

It also points out that Tigray has been under what the UN terms a "de facto humanitarian blockade" since long before the latest clashes erupted in Afar, while maintaining that its fighters have never prevented aid trucks from passing.

But that argument does not resonate with Afar residents.

"The TPLF has chosen the path of destruction, not the path of peace," said Ahmed Nuro, a local official in the border town of Abala.

"They will never stop firing."

(A.Berg--BBZ)