“I haven’t heard in the last few months any head of state talking about the Tigray situation anywhere in the developed world. Anywhere. Why? Maybe the reason is the color of the skin of the people in Tigray.” – WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus – himself an Ethnic Tigrayan
Ghebreyesus has stated that six million Tigrayans have been living under siege by the Ethiopian government for twenty-one months. Critics of the Ethiopian government say that the entire ethnic group is being punished as part of Ethiopia’s war against the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front [TPLF].
Four ethnic-based political parties ruled Ethiopia as a coalition called the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front [EPRDF] for twenty-eight years. The TPLF was the largest political party in the EPRDF.
In 2018, Abiy Ahmed, an ethnic Oromo, was named Prime Minister of Ethiopia. Ahmed created a near single-party state by merging three of the members of EPRDF with other smaller parties to form the Prosperity Party. However, the TPLF refused to join. They did not want to lose their prominent role in government. After Ahmed postponed the 2020 election, tensions escalated to open warfare in November.
When the election was finally held in 2021, Ahmed’s Prosperity Party won 74.9% of the seats, and 22.3% were left vacant due to the war.
In an emotional statement at a press briefing today @WHO Director-General @DrTedros said the situation in his home country of #Ethiopia, where 6 million people in #Tigray have essentially been cut from the world, is worse than any other humanitarian crisis in the world. pic.twitter.com/x7vOL2y6Lz
— Aklil Studios (@AklilStudios) August 17, 2022
