GRC is proud to present our latest investigative report on starvation crimes in Tigray, Ethiopia.
In November 2020 armed conflict erupted in Tigray, a region in north-west Ethiopia, between the federal military (the Ethiopian National Defense Force) and the regional authorities (the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front). The Eritrean military (the Eritrean Defense Force) have also been reported as acting alongside the Ethiopian forces. On 24 August 2022 armed clashes broke out once again, ending a 5-month long humanitarian truce between parties to the conflict.
The use of starvation tactics has been a hallmark of the conflict. Parties to the conflict have been implicated in the use of scorched earth tactics as well as vicious attacks on objects indispensable to the survival of civilians (OIS), such as farms and other agricultural resources, water supplies, irrigation facilities, grain storages, agricultural processing and food production assets, shelter and homes, including refugee camps, and markets, amongst others. Humanitarian aid and access to the Tigray region have also been targeted and restricted, critical infrastructure necessary to transport supplies, including bridges were destroyed, supply trucks blockaded, and aid workers have been attacked, harassed, detained and killed.
The attacks on OIS and humanitarian access constraints have severely undermined the food security situation of the civilian population in Tigray. Even now, the situation is dire. The June 2022 FEWSNET Food Security Outlook notes that Tigray continues to be among the areas of highest concern. While households are able to engage in some agricultural activity, seasonal labour migration, which is a critical source of income, is severely curtailed due to insecurity. Concurrently, food prices are exceptionally high, and reports suggest that civilians have resorted to severe coping mechanisms to survive. Moreover, humanitarian aid distributions are not sufficient to meet needs. Emergency (IPC Phase 4) outcomes are expected to be widespread. In August 2022 the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) sent a white paper to members of the UN Security Council pursuant to UN Security Council Resolution 2417 (UNSC 2417), alerting to the risk of conflict-induced famine and widespread food insecurity in the context of armed conflicts in Ethiopia, amongst others.
Physical access to the Tigray region has been heavily restricted almost since the start of conflict, severely undermining potential investigative efforts. As a result, GRC sought to pursue an innovative OSINT investigation, using online open-source materials and specialist OSINT expertise. In December 2021, Global Rights Compliance (GRC) invited Bellingcat as open-source experts to independently investigate a list of what GRC had previously concluded were potential starvation crimes and humanitarian access violations occurring during the Tigrayan conflict. Bellingcat focused on investigating incidents of apparent egregious starvation and humanitarian access crimes. This report focuses on incidents around the Shimelba and Hitsats refugee camps (November 2020 – January 2021) and an airstrike on a market in Togoga (June 2021).
See the full report here.
