{"id":11179,"date":"2020-11-21T07:14:59","date_gmt":"2020-11-21T15:14:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=11179"},"modified":"2020-11-21T07:17:58","modified_gmt":"2020-11-21T15:17:58","slug":"she-fled-ethiopias-fighting-now-she-warns-of-catastrophe-associated-press","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/?p=11179","title":{"rendered":"“She fled Ethiopia\u2019s fighting. Now she warns of \u2018catastrophe\u2019”, Associated Press"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Cara Anna November 21, 2020<\/p>\n

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) \u2014 Shaken by the gunfire erupting around her town in Ethiopia\u2019s northern Tigray region, the woman decided to get out. She joined a long line at the local government office for the paperwork needed to travel. But when she reached the official, he told her she had wasted her time.<\/p>\n

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Ethiopian refugees gather in Qadarif region, easter Sudan, Friday, Nov 20, 2020. Thousands of Ethiopians fled the war in Tigray region into Sudan. (AP Photo\/Marwan Ali)<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis is for people who are volunteering to fight,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

As Ethiopia\u2019s government wages war in its Tigray region and seeks to arrest its defiant leaders, who regard the federal government as illegitimate after a falling-out<\/a> over power, the fighting that could destabilize the Horn of Africa is hidden from outside view. Communications are severed, roads blocked and airports close.<\/p>\n

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But as one of the few hundred people who were evacuated this week from Tigray, the woman in an interview with The Associated Press offered rare details of anger, desperation and growing hunger as both sides reject international calls for dialogue, or even a humanitarian corridor for aid, in their third week of deadly fighting. The United Nations says<\/a> food and other essentials \u201cwill soon be exhausted, putting millions at risk.\u201d<\/p>\n

With supplies blocked at the Tigray borders and frantic aid workers using a dwindling number of satellite phones to reach the world, it is extremely difficult to hear accounts from those suffering on the ground. At least several hundred people have been killed, and the United Nations has condemned \u201dtargeted attacks against civilians based on their ethnicity<\/a> or religion.\u201d<\/p>\n

The woman, an Ethiopian aid expert who spoke on condition of anonymity out of concern for herself and loved ones, gave one of the most detailed accounts yet of a population of some 6 million short of food, fuel, cash and even water, and without electricity as Ethiopia\u2019s army marches closer to the Tigray capital every day.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am telling you, people will slowly start to die,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Not all of her account could be verified. But the description of her passage through the Tigray capital, Mekele, to Ethiopia\u2019s capital, Addis Ababa, fit with others that have trickled out from aid workers, diplomats, a senior university official and some of the more than 30,000 refugees who have fled into Sudan after the fighting began Nov. 4. She was connected with the AP by a foreign evacuee.<\/p>\n

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As borders, roads and airports swiftly closed after Ethiopia\u2019s prime minister<\/a>announced that Tigray forces had attacked a military base, the woman felt torn. She had family in Addis Ababa and wanted to be with them.<\/p>\n

Banks had closed, but loved ones gave her enough money to travel to Mekele. As she drove, she squeezed her car through makeshift barriers of stones piled up by local youth. She said she did not see fighting.<\/p>\n

In Mekele, she met with friends around the university. She was shocked by what she saw. \u201cIt was a panic,\u201d she said. \u201cStudents were sleeping outside the university because they had come from all over.\u201d There was little to feed them. Supplies in the markets were running low.<\/p>\n

While in Mekele, she said, she heard three \u201cbombardments\u201d against the city. Ethiopia\u2019s government has confirmed airstrikes around the city. When Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed in televised comments told civilians in Tigray not to congregate for their safety, \u201cthat was a big panic,\u201d she said. \u201cPeople said, \u2018Is he going to completely bomb us?\u2019 There was huge anger, people pushing and saying, \u2018I want to fight.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

When she visited a loved one at a university hospital, \u201ca doctor said they have no medicine, no insulin. At all!\u201d she said. \u201cThey were hoping the (International Committee of the Red Cross) would give them some.\u201d<\/p>\n

Seeking to travel on to Addis Ababa, she found fuel on the black market but was warned her car could be a target. But the U.N. and other aid groups had managed to arrange a convoy to evacuate non-essential staffers to the Ethiopian capital, and she found a space on one of the buses. \u201cI think I was quite lucky,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

But as the buses pulled out of the capital, she was scared.<\/p>\n

The convoy of some 20 vehicles made its way through the night to the capital of the arid Afar region east of Tigray, then through the restive Amhara region, going slowly from checkpoint to checkpoint, not all of the security forces manning them briefed on the evacuation.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt took four days in total,\u201d the woman said of the journey, which would have taken a day by the direct route. \u201cI was really afraid.\u201d Tigray special forces watched over the convoy in the beginning, she said. Near the end, federal police accompanied it. They were \u201cvery disciplined,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Now, after arriving in Addis Ababa earlier this week, she adds her voice to the growing calls for dialogue between the two governments, which now regard each other as illegal after the once-dominant Tigray regional party and its members were marginalized under Abiy\u2019s reformist two-year rule.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think they should negotiate,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd we really need a corridor so food and medicine can go in. What about the people?\u201d<\/p>\n

The prospect of dialogue appears distant. The U.S. Embassy this week told citizens remaining in Tigray to shelter in place if they could not get out safely.<\/p>\n

Like other worried families in Ethiopia and the diaspora, the woman cannot reach her relatives left behind. Many foreigners are still trapped in Tigray too, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo one knows who is alive, who is dead,\u201d she said. \u201cThis is a catastrophe for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Thursday, she said, she managed to speak with a university friend in Mekele. The university had been hit by an airstrike. More than 20 students were wounded.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe was crying,\u201d the evacuee said. \u201cShe\u2019s a strong woman, I know that.\u201d Her voice was shaking.<\/p>\n

AP<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Cara Anna November 21, 2020 NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) \u2014 Shaken by the gunfire erupting around her town in Ethiopia\u2019s northern Tigray region, the woman decided to get out. She joined a long line at the local government office for the paperwork needed to travel. But when she reached the official, he told her she […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1001004,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11179"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1001004"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11179"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11179\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11182,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11179\/revisions\/11182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldcampaign.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}