"We are about to be silenced once more" - Christians in Tigray

Church in 6th Debre Damo Monastery, TIgray. Image: A.Savin, WikiCommons

The Vatican is being urged to bring its moral authority to bear on the leaders of Ethiopia, Tigray and Eritrea, where conflict has resumed, ending five months of uneasy truce. On August 26th, an Ethiopian airstrike hit the Tigrayan capital, Mekelle, killing children at a kindergarten. Addis Ababa blames Tigray for launching a new offensive, a claim refuted by the Tigrayan People's Liberation Front. UNICEF chief, Catherine Russell, condemned the resumption of war, saying "the escalation of violence in northern Ethiopia has caused children to pay the heaviest price."

The Daughters of Charity in Ethiopia are calling on the international community to bring pressure to bear on all sides to stop the spreading conflict. Sister Medhin Tesfay, the Regional Coordinator of the Daughters of Charity, has appealed for help, writing, "If the worst comes to pass and communications are completely cut off, kindly know that we will be on this side of the world trying our best, with prayers and efforts to serve our community."

The Daughters of Charity have worked in Ethiopia since 1927, with programmes in seven regions. They have 61 Ethiopian sisters and ten from overseas, running humanitarian projects. The order was founded by Saint Vincent de Paul and Louise de Marillac in France in 1633.

"It is painful to watch the poor we treated with much love succumb to hunger, while food sits just beyond their reach," writes Sister Tesfay. "I cannot imagine how they will survive after the hardships that they have endured. And with all the support structures they relied on for their daily sustenance no longer able to provide them with support when they need it most, I am afraid that the death toll is going to be monumental."

Martin Plaut, a former BBC reporter and an expert on the Horn of Africa, is urging Pope Francis to speak out directly in condemning the violence. Plaut told ICN there are steps the international community could be taking, such as applying targeted Magnitsky sanctions on the architects of the bloodshed. However, the Pope, alone among world leaders, has the moral authority to speak directly to those perpetuating the violence.

Plaut commends the Biden administration for its concerted efforts, applying sanctions and suspending the African Growth and Opportunity Act which gives trade benefits to African partner nations. Yet, he says the international community must apply more pressure with further targeted sanctions on individual leaders complicit in the violence.

Efforts to debate the conflict at the United Nations have been vetoed by Russia and China. Meanwhile, the African Union mediator, former Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo is thought to have lost the confidence of the parties who will have to negotiate a peaceful solution. The AU regards Ethiopia, a country of 120 million people, as central to security in the Horn of Africa, where fundamentalist Islamist militants threaten the region. Plaut says that separate rebellions in the Oromia region and Western Ethiopia challenge the integrity of the unified state. Islamists might take advantage of a weakened Ethiopia to advance their military activities.

The Norwegian-funded Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre estimates that five million people have been displaced by the war in which Ethiopia and its former enemy Eritrea have joined forces in fighting the Tigrayan People's Liberation Front in the north of Ethiopia. Human rights groups believe that as many as half a million people may have been killed since the war began in November 2020. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty have documented atrocities on all sides, and the UN has condemned the Ethiopian government's blockade, stopping food and medicine reaching Tigray for much of the conflict. The World Food Programme has blamed Tigrayan forces for stealing fuel from a WFP compound in Mekelle, imperilling attempts to distribute aid.

Sister Tesfay writes, "I beseech you to pray on our behalf, and become our voices as we are about to be silenced once more. In the name of the poor, please advocate for this madness to end, as your support is critically needed right now. This is the juncture from which there will be no return, and in such time, it would show how humanity could prevail over injustice and cruelty."