Ethiopian government officials Wednesday accused the rebellious Tigray minority of murdering 120 civilians at a village in the neighboring Amhara region, the first report of a large-scale atrocity since the Tigrayans invaded Amhara.
Meanwhile, Sudan summoned its Ethiopian ambassador to complain about the large number of Tigrayan corpses floating across the border on the Setit River.
These latest milestones in the persistent and brutal Tigray conflict came as the United Nations warned of a massive humanitarian crisis building in Ethiopia. According to the World Food Program (WFP), up to seven million Ethiopians are short on food and facing an imminent hunger crisis, including 5.2 million Tigrayans. By way of comparison, the WFP classifies about 14 million people as “food insecure” in Taliban-ravaged Afghanistan.
The long-simmering Tigray conflict erupted into violence last November, when Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed accused the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) — a regional militia with Marxist roots — of seizing a military compound and plotting separatist activities. The Tigray were once the most influential of Ethiopia’s many ethnicities, but their power was diminished after Abiy, who hails from a different tribe, came to office with a reformist agenda.
For their part, the Tigray complained of discrimination and mistreatment by Abiy’s government, and were particularly incensed when troops from Eritrea intervened to suppress their insurrection. Abiy won a Nobel Prize for his…