麻豆约拍

Light is slowly being shone into the darkness that has engulfed Ethiopia's northern region of Tigray for the past four months. During its military campaign to defeat the rebellious local administration in Tigray, the TPLF, the federal government imposed a news blackout and denied access to humanitarian organizations, amid multiple reports of human rights abuses including rape...But that started to change this week. The Ethiopian prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, acknowledged there had been atrocities against civilians and admitted what had been known all along - that there were Eritrean troops in Tigray. And those troops were accused this week by a commission affiliated to the government of massacring around a hundred civilians in the Tigrayan town of Axum. And today came an announcement from Abiy Ahmed that Eritrean troops would be leaving. Humanitarian organizations are now gaining access, but the UN has found scenes of destruction at two camps it's visited in Tigray.

So what accounts for the Ethiopian government's new found openness about what's been happening in the Tigray region. Could it be connected to a visit last weekend to Addis Ababa, at the behest of the Biden administration, of US Senator Chris Coons? Tibor Nagy is a former US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs and former ambassador to Ethiopia.

(Photo: Tigor Nagy, US Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs 2018-21. Credit: US Department of State)