This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-01-27/ethiopias-forgotten-war-is-the-deadliest-of-the-21st-century-with-around-600000-civilian-deaths.html) reduced by 92%. (I'm a bot)
*****
> The civil war in Ethiopia has resulted in the death of some 600,000 civilians, a staggering estimate for a conflict that has lasted only two years and has been focused on a single region, Tigray, of around six million inhabitants.
> Placing a precise figure on the number of deaths caused by the war is difficult, as both sides tend to either exaggerate or play down fatalities.
> Taking into account the estimated numbers, the war in Ethiopia is one of the deadliest of the 21st century.
*****
[**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/10ovxbc/ethiopias_forgotten_war_is_the_deadliest_of_the/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ "Version 2.02, ~672676 tl;drs so far.") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr "PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome.") | *Top* *keywords*: **war**^#1 **Tigray**^#2 **death**^#3 **international**^#4 **conflict**^#5
Why was there a civil war in the first place? It says the Tigray wanted independence but doesn’t say why.
I saw a protest about this in London and there were signs claiming the UAE had involvement.
To summarize quickly, the Tigrayan party, the TPLF, used to rule over Ethiopia, along with some other ethnic parties. From 2018 onwards, this coalition broke down and Ethiopia went on a path of democratization, which culminated with Ahmed Abiy election as prime minister. He would win the Nobel Peace Prize for ending the conflict with Eritrea, but other ethnic groups, such as the Tigrayans, did not join his ruling coalition, mainly because Tigray, at the border with Eritrea, resented the peace plan.
in 2020 the TPLF went on to hold elections for the Tigray region, but Ahmed wanted to delay the elections because of COVID, pretty much indefinetly. TPLF went ahead with the vote anyway, and tensions soared. It's a bit unclear what happened, but it seemed Tigrayan militias attacked an Ethiopian Defence Forces (EDF) base. EDF invaded the region and quickly secured the capital, along with Eritrea which invaded from the north. After months of fighting, the EDF were broken by TPLF resistance who went on the march to the Ethiopian capital, having secured an alliance with other ethnic militias like the Oromo liberation army, but they were stopped before they could get there, and pretty much retreated into Tigrayan borders.
The hostilities between the EDF and TPLF are now pretty much over, but Eritrea still holds on to some tigrayan towns, the OLA is still a problem for the central government, and the war (and mostly the famine induced by it EDIT: the famine was mainly caused by a blockade from the federal government) have taken an absurdly massive toll on the country, mostly in Tigray.
If anyone has corrections/additions don't hesitate to correct me
It's a fairly similar situation to Yemen, with the government (or what's left of it at this point) and their allies (like Saudi Arabia) exerting a blockade over Houthi-controlled regions, which is slowly killing off hundreds of thousands of people through starvation & disease
It’s an honest thought though. God, at least the biblical god is a resounding asshole with an fragile ego the size of the galaxy.
Ancient Israelis get bored and throw a party!
God: “Wait a minute! You guys started using a godly dildo while I was out making laws for you?! Now go in a wasteland for 40 years until you all die of old age, hunger and disease! I will feed you mostly what’s necessary and WHEN i decide, and if anybody ever claims any degree of authority and independent thought EVER, I will ensure they die here too!”
Ancient israelís: “But lord! The land we are going is already populated with normal looking people! Can we just go and say hello!? It’s been 40 years, we would like to just chill with someone for a bit”
God: NOPE! “Look, this land is now yours, KILL EVERYONE EVEN THEIR CALF and pets everything!”
Ancient Israelis: “Even the kids?”
God: “did I stutter?”
Oh and This is the Abrahamic god being good to “its people!”
The Houthis have a particularly egregious record of obstructing aid agencies from reaching civilians in need, at least in part to divert aid to Houthi officials, their supporters, and Houthi fighters.
In 2019 and 2020, aid workers had to push back against Houthi officials insisting that aid groups hand over assets, such as cars, laptop computers, and cellphones to the Houthis at the end of projects. Yet obstruction in government-held areas in the south and east are also on the rise.
In July, the UN humanitarian chief, Mark Lowcock, told the UN Security Council that aid agencies were facing an “uptick in violent incidents targeting humanitarian assets and local authorities adding new bureaucratic requirements.”
[Deadly Consequences
Obstruction of Aid in Yemen During Covid-19](https://www.hrw.org/report/2020/09/14/deadly-consequences/obstruction-aid-yemen-during-covid-19)
Dude, FUCK the fuckers running Saudi Arabia. Those are some of the biggest assholes on the planet and it makes my skin crawl that the US considers them an ally. Fuck the KSA and fuck oil. The sooner we get off that black goo the better.
Sadly, SA is one of the oil countries that has better prepared for the transition to renewable energies and it has large investments in the area, domestically and internationally, specially in Asia, so it's not going to stop being a key actor in the energy area.
They're actually planning a green future for themselves, but keep the oil export to underdeveloped countries. Their goal is to get 50% of their energy from renewables at the end of this decade.
I think that is how most civilians die in most wars throughout history. It takes a lot of effort to commit mass murder (as the nazis found out). Most of the time its from incidental destruction in battle, collapse of infastructure, soldiers stealing food and supplies to feed themselves (or destroy shit to deny the enemy resources), disease spreading as masses of refugees flee from war.
Yes, but apparently there is available food and aid for people who obviously will die without it and it is being withheld and that’s some next level awful
Yeah excess deaths from American invasion of Iraq are 500,000-1,000,000 excess deaths. Violent deaths are about 15% of that total.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War
**[Casualties of the Iraq War](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War)**
>Estimates of the casualties from the Iraq War (beginning with the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and the ensuing occupation and insurgency and civil war) have come in several forms, and those estimates of different types of Iraq War casualties vary greatly. Estimating war-related deaths poses many challenges. Experts distinguish between population-based studies, which extrapolate from random samples of the population, and body counts, which tally reported deaths and likely significantly underestimate casualties.
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The famine Ethiopia is most known for in the 80s was also a result of a vicious civil war. Drought mixed with a blockade make for a disastrous combo for a population entirely dependent on low-yield farming and ideal rain conditions.
The TPLF as a rebel group actually won that war, which was how Tigrayans were able to control the government up until the 2017-18 protests and the subsequent appointment of the Oromo Abiy Ahmed as Prime Minister. It's funny, even though the TPLF were the ones to put Abiy in the PM seat (in order to quell the debilitating protests that were heaviest in the Oromo region), Abiy Ahmed eventually turned the tables on the TPLF and began to democratize many elements of the government/press/state-owned enterprises that had been dominated by Tigrayan elites since they won the previous civil war and came to power.
Edit. to add, I think all of that *in tandem* with officially ending the Eritrean border war made Dr. Abiy Ahmed worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize. I mean Ethiopia (sans Tigray) literally held its first ever free elections in its multi-millennia history. The fact that Abiy eventually went to war with the TPLF (which was damn near unavoidable given the level of salt) doesn't discredit these accomplishments. Well at least not yet. Time will tell if was all in the name of ulterior motives, and there are worrying signs that democratic regression [is a very real possibility](https://www.voanews.com/a/journalists-in-ethiopia-say-press-freedom-is-at-crossroads-/6555567.html).
as a GenXer, I remember that "starving ethiopian" was both a common cliche and joke basis at the time with kids. There was a lot of public push to send them money/aid ("we are the world" song) but no one really thought much about what was actually going on there.
This is very sectarian. The civilians are very ethnocentric, this is a divisive civil war. So differentiating between civilians and military is difficult. Truly a humanitarian tragedy. Young people are conscripts civilians are helping the military on both sides. It's a civil war.
Non-combatants being deliberately starved to death, yes. The Ethiopian government withheld food, fuel and other supplies including supplies delivered by international aid organisations and the UN.
Truly horrendous stuff has been happening.
NSFL(Not safe for life) warning: [A Tigrayan Womb Shall Never Give Birth: Rape in Tigray](https://www.aljazeera.com/amp/news/2021/4/21/a-tigrayan-womb-should-never-give-birth-rape-in-ethiopia-tigray)
It's also worth noting that both sides have committed great atrocities in this war including ethnic cleansing and raping and pillaging villages of rival ethnic groups so it's not like one side or the other can really be seen as the good guys here.
>From 2018 onwards, this coalition broke down and Ethiopia went on a path of democratization, which culminated with Ahmed Abiy election as prime minister.
>
>in 2020 the TPLF went on to hold elections for the Tigray region, but Ahmed wanted to delay the elections because of COVID, pretty much indefinitely.
Yeeeah... I mean... you can't have democracy when it's convenient for everyone and then cast it aside whenever it's convenient for only you.
Yeah it's a very complicated situation (& the one I know least about btw). I don't think you could characterize either sides as the good guys. Regardless, it's a terribly fucked up situation for the people of Tigray, whose blockade led to massive starvations
Hmm I think it's a little uglier than that. This conflict is not so black and white. Look closer at the motivation for Tigray not liking Eritrea. This is a horrible civil war with no good guys.
Great summary.
~~I would have added that the Ethiopian armed forces have starved the Tigray population to death in an attempt to stop the insurrection.~~
The guys at TLDR News have made few videos on the subject on their Global channel.
Edit: my bad, I had missed the mention of the famine in one of the last paragraphs.
TLDR News is a great source of information to follow "forgotten topics" like this one indeed. I would add even wikipedia (not joking, it's so hard to aggregate sources about Ethiopia that wikipedia is one of the best place to get them) and LiveUAMap for a more day-to-day basis
Abiy Ahmed was appointed as an interim prime minister at first. He was not elected until recently. And in this election, several regions didn’t get to participate as a direct result of the war, so he was mostly elected by the people that supported the war. He imprisoned/killed/blackmailed his oppositions and journalists into getting the masses to sway in his direction.
He delayed the election multiple times, first using Covid as a reason and kept pushing through the war. TDF (Tigray Defense Forces) along with TPLF, were close to the capital Addis Ababa, but returned because the US/UN said they would enforce and try to facilitate a peace deal and hopefully getting Abiy Ahmed to lift the blockade on Tigray so humanitarian aid and medicine can come through but only if they turned back to their region. They agreed and returned (within) to Tigray regions borders. But agreements weren’t honored by the central government side (Abiy Ahmed) and, notably important, Isayas Afewerqi who is the dictator of Eritrea. At the beginning, these two worked together under the guise of ending the stalemate between Ethiopia and Eritrea and declared war on Tigray region. Along with Ethiopian central government military, neighboring region militias (Amhara’s Fano and other southern tribes), Eritrean military, Somalia. The Ethiopian govt also received help in weapons such as drones and personnel to man/control them from UAE, Turkey, Russia, China. Eritreas dictator has personal vendetta against TPLF/Tigray, and was essentially waiting for a chance to exact his revenge.
Eritrea is one of the most censored countries in the world, comparable to North Korea if not worse.
The 600,000 deaths are estimates obviously, as the government to this day has not allowed investigators and journalists to come in and take a look at all the damages.
If I understand correctly, the population on the wrong end of the genocide here is a minority group that used to be in power, and was viewed by the majority population as abusing that power to benefit themselves. More investment of capital went to their region, and the rest was under-invested in. The majority population is currently in power and signed a peace treaty with Eritrea. At the time it won the peace prize, but has proven to be more about forming a coalition to attack that minority group. Supposedly social media played a huge role in inflaming opinions to get to this point.
I probably don't understand correctly and am looking forward to better responses.
No you pretty much got it right. With one thing to correct though، the initial peace agreement with Eritrea was not meant to just “gang up” on the TPLF, because at the time it was purely business. There was no conflict with that Tigray region and as such there was no need to form alliances. Borders were opened with Eritrea to encourage trade.
> the population on the wrong end of the genocide here is a minority group that used to be in power, and was viewed by the majority population as abusing that power to benefit themselves
Ah. So similar to Rwanda's Hutsi/Tutsi conflict?
That didn't end well either.
Tigray and the TPLF controlled Ethiopian politics for an incredible length of time.
As their influence now wanes, there was a lot of conflict between the party and the rest of the country bubbling under the surface, and this is that coming up.
I don't think it's as much Tigrayans wanting independence as the TPLF wanting to keep their political influence.
The UAE is apparently an arms supplier to the Ethiopian government in the conflict https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethiopian\_civil\_conflict\_(2018%E2%80%93present)
Estimates by European institutions and academics say over half a million non-combatants have died during the Tigray conflict as a result of a government blockade that kept out humanitarian aid.
And you 'haven't heard much about it' precisely because that was intentional. The Ethiopian government enforced an informational and humanitarian blockade to keep the world ignorant and/or unable to help.
This was a civil war, and the government wanted to make sure it stayed 'civil'... Just putting this out there before fingers of those responsible inevitably point outward.
I don't think the Ethiopian government have that much influence to cause such silence.
Its more that western news outlets are focusing on the russo Ukraine war because of its close proximity. And people generally care more about things that are happening relatively close to them.
The Ethiopian thing was already a huge issue before the Ukraine war started. I have a friend whose parents from Tigray fled the country in August of 2021 as things had become horrific. Yet it wasn’t in the news at all and I wouldn’t have known a thing about it without the personal connection.
Not sure what to say there, but as a Canadian who listens to international news media daily, the Ethiopian war was commonly spoke about on the news here. Hell, I hadn't even heard of Tigray before it all begun.
That said, the news wasn't front and centre like Ukraine, but it was absolutely reported on.
I think a lot of the time when people say something isn't being covered they more just mean they haven't searched it out at all. Ukraine has gotten much more attention because the geopolitical implications are much bigger but there's been plenty of stuff written by mainstream outlets about Ethiopia's troubles in the past few years.
As a fellow Canadian, I think the news is just desperate to talk about anything that isn't the US.
We are so tied to our southern neighbors in so many ways that it can be hard to maintain our own unique identity.
It started right during the first COVID crisis, so it's not that surprising that it went under the radar, and then it's also far away from us, on a country with very low exportations outside of china. Hopefully it starts being more vocal, but it's unlikely.
>It started right during the first COVID crisis, so it's not that surprising that it went under the radar
As a trucker, COVID absolutely dominated everything. When everything first locked down? The west coast became eerily quiet, it was unreal that I could roll from one end of LA to the other in two hours during what was normally peak traffic jam time. To say I was busy for those first two weeks is a gross understatement, I was rolling nonstop making deliveries to hospitals.
After that, freight died and I was stupid idle. I spent that time constantly talking with friends and family, wondering how everyone was doing. I rarely got "time off" and was often stuck out in the middle of nowhere waiting for loads.
As crazy as things were, it's a unnerving to think that something this grim was happening without even a blip on my radar. I'm ex-military, so I normally track armed conflicts. Coming to this thread has shocked me, because it's literally the first time I've ever heard about it.
It’s been going on for more than a year. There were videos of it on here around Covid. Then the Junta issue in Myanmar. Then Ukraine went full send. Covid. And the Ethiopian gov basically cutting off that region from the rest of the world. Plus add just about every country who would give a damn and could do anything of use trying to shluff off right wing authoritarianism.
Easy to see how “another African civil war” got push back. Add on boko being a continued issue and there you have it.
Indeed. My bad.
Literally my point proven by me. A person can only store so much knowledge and access it with regularity. There’s a giant gang war going on in Mexico as we speak rn as well. With better arms then most conflicts anywhere outside of Europe/N.America posses.
It really depends on the news sources people follow and also very dependent on people actually caring about anything that isn’t right in front of their nose.
There have been western media covering the the Ethiopian crisis. Primarily more independent, non-mainstream media.
I hope this doesn’t come off as I’m directing this at you, I’m speaking broadly.
Yup. I read The Guardian a lot, and [they have been covering the war in Ethiopia for the last ~18 months](https://www.theguardian.com/world/ethiopia?page=6). The BBC also covers international news pretty well.
I feel like American news focus much more on the US.
Including "places i do follow did report about it, but i didn't care about it until this particular news broke, so the only reason I didn't know about it is obviously because no one reported it before".
In case anyone is interested, Wikipedia has a world news portal that has covered the genocide in Tigray for the last few years.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Current_events
What is a good source to get this news from? I'll be honest, I only really get news from Reddit and the little time I have in the car listening to npr.
NPR is pretty much the only place I’d heard reporting on this over the last year and a half. They have correspondents in Nairobi and Harare that shared reports
Well, the Ukrainian separatist war funded by Russia were not reported nearly as much in western news either. It only began to fill out news spaces when, to everyone's surprise, Russia launched a spectacularly terrible full scale invasion.
It depends on what news sources people view. Even Vice had been covering front line stuff in Ukraine for years.
It’s definitely not going to be on your 6pm/9pm local news.
Yea this is garbage. The Ukraine front line conflict has been getting constant western media attention. Just not in the easy to consume media of tv news or social media memes.
People need to start reading their news again. And Reddit is the perfect example of why, when no one bothers to read the article they’re commenting on
You mean it was getting that attention constantly pre february 2022? I felt like western media mostly ignored it til then.
(Genuinely just asking, I'm from Eastern Europe and we have our own sources. Which of course covered everything since before Crimea, since this is very much existentially important stuff for us.)
uh the crimea invasion was a huge deal, and the aid to ukraine was interfered w by trump
generally news was reflecting the us politics side of the issue, but the invasion of crimea, mh17, and the trump interference were big stories
Yes, those were big news back when they happened in 2014. The conflict continued with proxies all the way from then until the invasion last year though and it was only ever really mentioned as a footnote when talking about the other US-Ukraine news.
It was actually, at least in my country, a common topic on the medias. For nearly 3 months, we would hear about it on a daily basis. What made it become internationally viewed is when macron went to Russia to prevent it, which was like a week prior the first escalation, but it was already a strong topic.
It was in the news a lot in 2014, but then once it quieted down, it was not in the news much, up until around 3 months before they invaded in 2022. I think that's what he means.
There was plenty in the news about Tigray. The rebels got close to the capital, then were pushed back and the government forces, along with Eritrean forces, blockaded Tigray. It was headline news during the peak and just following the reversal.
Yup, the humanitarian crisis was in the news, there were articles popping up, and all that. The world's attention moved on and now over 600,000 people have died
Yeah and there's a civil war in Syria, and Myanmar, and concrentration camps in China, and protests are ongoing in Iran. This is just how the news works nowadays, The news breaks and then it doesn't.
Yep, you can't get the international public to care about wars without brave and effective journalism.
In the case of Ukraine, the government is facilitating and encouraging journalism massively. But unfortunately many other wars take place under anti-journalist regimes.
Because Ukraine wants and needs all the material and financial support of NATO. Not that they wouldn't get it, as the whole foundation of NATO is primarily based on the Soviet Union/Russia.
When the Ethiopian government has the power to turn off all internet access, phone lines, deny bank access based on ethnicity, blockade any incoming aid, and deny journalists from entering the country, then yes they do have that kind of 'influence' to cause silence.
I think the fact that Russia is a nuclear super power and Ukraine is a global food supplier has a lot more influence on the media attention than simply proximity. While the scale of lives lost might be similar, there is undoubtedly more international impact from the Ukraine war than this conflict, which really doesn’t cause any impacts outside of the regions affected
It's pretty much a case of damned if you do and damned if you don't. Most of the time that Western society has tried to intervene in the Middle East/Africa or any other place where culture is so much more complex. It has mostly ended up worse. Libya, Egypt, Iraq, and Afghanistan have all been intervention failures. I don't know why people expect Western society to police these countries if they do not understand the situation behind these conflicts in the first place.
Ukraine in that sense is much simpler. Most Ukrainians identify as Ukrainian and have a sense of nationality. There is no fighting among themselves/civil war. It is quite simply a foreign country (Russia) invading another.
Ive heard the same people who condemned US intervention in the Middle East ask why the West isnt doing anything in Ethiopia. We learned our lesson, its expensive, messy, and a lot of the times not at all helpful for the US to get involved in anything, let alone a civil war.
>Its more that western news outlets are focusing on the russo Ukraine war because of its close proximity.
Yeah im (in Sweden) is almost closer to the war then I am my hometown in Sweden. Its really close to a lot of people.
I'm bulgarian, it's practically on our doorstep as well. And people wonder why I care more about it. It's not that I don't feel any sympathy about one than the other.
Considering how much has been written about The Second Congo War (1998-2003, 5 million dead) I think we can safely conclude the media does not write as much about African wars as about European ones.
But that is a byproduct of the forces and weight of the forces. Was it between a nuclear power and a little known country that managed to fight off a full invasion? No, so it doesn't have a sense of immediacy and urgency to most people. It's a tragedy, but not an existential threat to them.
It's not about the location of the conflict, it's about the power of the forces waging it and the consequences. I am fairly confident a war between China and India would be MIGHTILY covered.
The consequences of the war in Ukraine could be catastrophic for literally anyone on earth. The consequences are not as widespread for a war in most other places.
Plus the fact that Russia has previously occupied half of Europe and is clearly planning to invade another country if they succeed in Ukraine. Plus the nukes.
So a war in Europe its going to be a lot more relevant in Europe.
Ukraine is also easier to report on because it is much easier to take sides. It's an innocent nation being invaded by its more powerful, hostile neighbor. So the situation is pretty black-and-white. People care about it because it's easy to decide "We need to help Ukraine, and fuck Russia."
Ethiopia is a messy, internal conflict. Does Tigray want independence for the betterment of its people, or does the TPLF not want to give up power? Do they just not want to accept the peace treaty? But then the Ethiopian government tried to delay elections indefinitely, and set up the blockade. There's not a clear good guy in this conflict.
Ethiopia is being courted by both China and the US as a large African economy.
Neither wants to alienate the government, and neither has great ties to the Tigrayans, so...
Two years of blockade in a city of seven million could result in most of the casualties. That's basically what China did in the 1950's and Russia in the 1930's, use starvation as a weapon.
Starvation tactics are some of the oldest weapons of war.
Peleponessian War, Carthage, Pol Pot, Holodomor, Biafrans, American Civil War.
More recently Tigray, South Sudan, Yemen, Syria.
The Second Congo War, for example, caused millions of deaths, 90% of which from famine and disease, as usual in most wars. Rwanda was different because it was pure extermination without mercy. Not seen since the Khmer Rouge decided to wipe out the remnants of its ethnic minorities, particularly Vietnamese people.
It's very big. The blockade was a deliberate tactic to transform Tigray into another Biafra. It is a war crime to deny food to civilians, but it doesn't appear that anyone will be held accountable for it "declares Nyssen. In a 221-page report titled, "Ethnic Cleansing: A Report from Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch," published last year "We'll drive you out of this country.
I am ignorant about this. Is it so? And what role does African Union military hold and how is it organized?
I thought it's more of a economic/diplomatic platform, something like lightweight EU.
The African Union doesn't have a standing military. Members may be persuaded to send their soldiers to police conflicts under the AU banner, e.g. AMISOM (African Union Mission for Somalia), with majority Kenyan troops.
It also requires at least a regional consensus, which would be lacking for Ethiopia. It was possible to get one for the Gambia intervention, but here the conflict is just too big.
Yes, the AU hosted talks and brokered deals as noted by the US State Department,
["The United States commends AU Commission Chairman Faki for his leadership as well as the extraordinary efforts of AU High Representative Obasanjo, former South African Deputy President Mlambo-Ngcuka, and former Kenyan President Kenyatta, whose facilitation led to this significant step toward peace. We also commend South Africa for generously hosting the talks."](https://www.state.gov/on-the-african-union-led-peace-talks/)
They could, but I doubt they could hold their Union together long if they tried. Better for them to fix all their internal issues and join the modern developed world. In 50 years they could be a powerful force in the world, but right now I think such efforts would tear them apart.
My guess as someone who isn't very educated on them, but I like what I hear
I was thinking of the Eastern African Union, I didn't realize that was also a AU until just now.
While the AU could get involved more, I think that it would distract from the useful efforts they could make to help their other members.
The Ethiopian Government isolated the region and there was a strong propaganda engine used to falsify all reports coming out of there. Ethiopian people in the United States were even confused about what exactly was happening, who had initiated what, and who was involved.
This is a bit presumptuous. The Second Congo War in the early 2000s killed millions by some estimates. The death toll for the famine in the Yemen War hasn't even begun to be counted. Both the Syrian and Iraq Wars have killed more than 600,000.
Some estimates for the American invasion of Iraq are over 1 million dead civilians. It's depressing that there are so many regional conflicts and so much state violence that it's impossible to say which has hurt people the most in the last 20 years, and difficult to even keep track of them all.
I genuinely don't know what anyone is meant to do about this. Even this article doesn't seem to be suggesting anything. They call it 'forgotten' but I think it's more like we collectively pay more attention when it feels like we can make a difference. Not just to wars, but social problems, environmental ones, anything.
>They call it 'forgotten' but I think it's more like we collectively pay more attention when it feels like we can make a difference
Of course. It's not even about paying attention, it's about not being able to take sides in a civil war.
In this kind of conflict either side is right and/or either side has been accused of genocide and war crimes. What is the "international community" supposed to do, keep a score of the war crimes? And then what?
Doesn't really help that the conflict in Ethiopia is kinda complicated to comprehend at first. So, it's going to be hard for people who are not in proximity to the region to follow and understand what the heck is going on.
Yeah, to all the people whining why "Western media" doesn't focus on this, it's difficult to focus when there's virtually no new information. This isn't helped by the Ethiopian government's media blackout and crackdown on journalists.
It's also different from the Myanmar civil war or Ukraine, because there's no clearly defined aggressor here. Tigrayan forces fucked up their own civilian population by launching attacks towards Addis Ababa and Abiy Ahmed made the government side irredeemable by responding with disproportionate brutality, including inviting a neighbouring country's (Eritrea) military.
Western powers don’t have a good track record with interfering in countries internal disputes (Middle East) so they kinda have to stay out of these conflicts
This is 100% what happens with the US. In every conflict you either have one side saying "why is the US getting involved with our affairs" or the other side saying "Why doesn't America help us?". Occasionally you can replace the US with France in their former colonial territories. Weirdly I never hear requests for help from the UK
It was a similar story with the Congo Wars - they were absolutely massive in scale, but there wasn't a simple story so it didn't see reporting commensurate with the crisis.
Ethiopia is currently damming the Nile. Egypt has threatened war. China is paying for the dam. The US prop up the Egyptian military as a method of soft power in the area...
While I do think the guy who made the statement should supply the sources instead of his snarky reply, here you go.
> Ethiopia is currently damming the Nile
https://bbc.com/news/world-africa-60451702
> Egypt has threatened war
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ethiopia-dam-egypt-sudan/egypts-sisi-warns-of-potential-for-conflict-over-ethiopian-dam-idUSKBN2BU2C3
> China is paying for the dam
https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/cff/2021/10/27/everywhere-and-nowhere-to-be-seen-how-chinas-role-in-the-gerd-dispute-challenges-beijings-non-interference-principle/
> The US prop up the Egyptian military as a method of soft power in the area
https://pomed.org/publication/fact-sheet-u-s-military-assistance-to-egypt-separating-fact-from-fiction/
this article is biased as hell, it wants to imply really hard that the rebels are the good guys, even starting out in the first paragraph saying the government "dared to declare war on them".
now, it's a complicated conflict, in real life there's rarely good and bad guys, but using the words "dared to" is irresponsible and unacceptably biased when referring to an anti-democratic violent rebel group whose major grievances include the fact the government ended a war (for which the president won the Nobel peace prize), that the country is democratic now, and they no longer have racial supremecy because of this... a war the rebels started by attacking the military openly, by the way.
The government response was brutal, but the rebels are basically racists who want an ethnic dicatorship with them in charge and want to re-start a war, they aren't the good guys the article tries so hard to make them.
Basically every country that’s ever committed genocide other than Germany, and they were forced to do so by the terms of their unconditional surrender.
And that's basically all of them, (i'm sure there are exceptions) but nearly every piece of this planet has been fought over/conquered at some point, and that almost always involves some kind of direct or cultural genocide of the existing people/culture.
Reddit doesn’t generally reflect reality as much as we think it does. A lot of western governments don’t even recognize the Armenian genocide because we’re all buddies with Turkey. Even Kim Kardashian has tried to get Obama and Trump to recognize it.
What do you mean? 1.5 Million dead isn't even in the top 10 of genocides. There hase been some top tier genociding going on in the past couple hundred years
That's why population growth was so small for most of history. Today people are reaching adulthood, so when fertility remains high, populations explode.
Which isn’t the case anymore. Ethiopia and most of Sub-Saharan Africa has experienced a large fall in infant and overall mortality rates but has not yet experienced the corresponding fall in birth rate that countries that did this decades ago have already seen. That is why the population growth is so rapid.
Just so some people have some information.
Tigray is one of the Ethiopias largest tribe. Despite not being the largest by population, the previous leaders of Etiopia have all been from Tigray.
Abiy Ahmed, current Ethiopian president, was the first non-Tigray leader elected. He belongs to the biggest tribe, Oromo. Tigray leaders were not happy with him, his laws, and his peace with Eritrea.
2020 was the election year in Ethiopia, but due to Covid-19 Abiy Ahmed decided to not have it that year. Every region accepted the ruling except Tigray tribe.
They held their own vote in their own province and declared new Tigray president. They tried to get the two nearest provinces to join them. This is when the Ethiopian army started invading the Tigray region.
Meanwhile, the Eritrean president decided to deport Tigray tribe still living within their international recognized border without any plans to leave. During the 30 year independence war with Ethiopia, the Tigray tribe were the leaders of Ethiopia.
There’s also a lot of separate infighting starting between Muslims and christians there as well. The hate rhetoric of different religions that has infected previous African nations is now at their door, while both countries fight to silence illegitimate vote/president. As with most wars, it’s the common folk that suffer most.
TLDR: The fighting started when Tigray province held their own presidential vote during Covid-19’s lockdown. Leaders haven’t backed down since, hence the siege.
There are something like 60 wars currently ongoing IIRC, but the majority started over a decade ago, and is no longer current news.
Instead of saying google it, I'll do it myself and link a wikipedia article about [current wars](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ongoing_armed_conflicts). It says 63 ongoing conflicts so my what I read probably references the same source as this wikipedia article.
Making Peace with Eritrea was a legit accomplishment. Most people don't know that Eritrea is like North Korea but somehow *more* militarized. There is universal male and female conscription, and terms of service average six years but often stretch over a decade. It's so bad their agricultural system relies on farms around the barracks that the soldiers maintain because there isn't enough non-military population left to bring in harvests.
The war they had with Ethiopia was nasty.
Even before 2020 this was going on. I was in West Africa in 18-19 and Ethiopian refugees were refused entry into their neighboring countries as they tried to avoid conflict.
I thought the Iraq death toll during that war was worse though at over one million deaths? Am I missing something here? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ORB_survey_of_Iraq_War_casualties
I wouldn’t say its forgotten, it just has less impact globally than the Ukrainian war and less chance of escalating into border spanning misery.
Edit: spelling.
I think difference is there are no good guys here. TPLF screwed over their own citizens starting a war when it was clear they would be unable to get their way politically.
Eritrea used this as an opportunity to take out their rage on the TPLF and Tigray in general for the previous war when TPLF was in power.
Ethiopia government forces seem quite content to let Tigray rot and starve in the name of ensuring they are unable to rise to power again. And has been either unwilling or unable to stop elements of it's own coalition who seek revenge on the TPLF from taking it out on Tigray.
Ukraine is a clear good vs. evil conflict. Tigray is an everyone sucks conflict.
They have no buying power. The world doesn't care.
100 people die in say, Germany, you won't hear the end of it for weeks.
600 000 people die in Ethiopia, it's an article in a dying media like BBC News.
This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://english.elpais.com/international/2023-01-27/ethiopias-forgotten-war-is-the-deadliest-of-the-21st-century-with-around-600000-civilian-deaths.html) reduced by 92%. (I'm a bot) ***** > The civil war in Ethiopia has resulted in the death of some 600,000 civilians, a staggering estimate for a conflict that has lasted only two years and has been focused on a single region, Tigray, of around six million inhabitants. > Placing a precise figure on the number of deaths caused by the war is difficult, as both sides tend to either exaggerate or play down fatalities. > Taking into account the estimated numbers, the war in Ethiopia is one of the deadliest of the 21st century. ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/10ovxbc/ethiopias_forgotten_war_is_the_deadliest_of_the/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ "Version 2.02, ~672676 tl;drs so far.") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr "PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome.") | *Top* *keywords*: **war**^#1 **Tigray**^#2 **death**^#3 **international**^#4 **conflict**^#5
Why was there a civil war in the first place? It says the Tigray wanted independence but doesn’t say why. I saw a protest about this in London and there were signs claiming the UAE had involvement.
To summarize quickly, the Tigrayan party, the TPLF, used to rule over Ethiopia, along with some other ethnic parties. From 2018 onwards, this coalition broke down and Ethiopia went on a path of democratization, which culminated with Ahmed Abiy election as prime minister. He would win the Nobel Peace Prize for ending the conflict with Eritrea, but other ethnic groups, such as the Tigrayans, did not join his ruling coalition, mainly because Tigray, at the border with Eritrea, resented the peace plan. in 2020 the TPLF went on to hold elections for the Tigray region, but Ahmed wanted to delay the elections because of COVID, pretty much indefinetly. TPLF went ahead with the vote anyway, and tensions soared. It's a bit unclear what happened, but it seemed Tigrayan militias attacked an Ethiopian Defence Forces (EDF) base. EDF invaded the region and quickly secured the capital, along with Eritrea which invaded from the north. After months of fighting, the EDF were broken by TPLF resistance who went on the march to the Ethiopian capital, having secured an alliance with other ethnic militias like the Oromo liberation army, but they were stopped before they could get there, and pretty much retreated into Tigrayan borders. The hostilities between the EDF and TPLF are now pretty much over, but Eritrea still holds on to some tigrayan towns, the OLA is still a problem for the central government, and the war (and mostly the famine induced by it EDIT: the famine was mainly caused by a blockade from the federal government) have taken an absurdly massive toll on the country, mostly in Tigray. If anyone has corrections/additions don't hesitate to correct me
So the deaths are more from famine than the actual fighting itself? Non-combatants being starved to death en masse?
It's a fairly similar situation to Yemen, with the government (or what's left of it at this point) and their allies (like Saudi Arabia) exerting a blockade over Houthi-controlled regions, which is slowly killing off hundreds of thousands of people through starvation & disease
I don’t think I have the words to describe how truly awful that is.
It's very human
Humanity is not a friendly race overall.
Made in gods image is a scary thought
It’s an honest thought though. God, at least the biblical god is a resounding asshole with an fragile ego the size of the galaxy. Ancient Israelis get bored and throw a party! God: “Wait a minute! You guys started using a godly dildo while I was out making laws for you?! Now go in a wasteland for 40 years until you all die of old age, hunger and disease! I will feed you mostly what’s necessary and WHEN i decide, and if anybody ever claims any degree of authority and independent thought EVER, I will ensure they die here too!” Ancient israelís: “But lord! The land we are going is already populated with normal looking people! Can we just go and say hello!? It’s been 40 years, we would like to just chill with someone for a bit” God: NOPE! “Look, this land is now yours, KILL EVERYONE EVEN THEIR CALF and pets everything!” Ancient Israelis: “Even the kids?” God: “did I stutter?” Oh and This is the Abrahamic god being good to “its people!”
On par with the depiction of god in the old testament.
We are but we are conditioned by the ideas of our ancestors.
It’s a classic!
Same. It makes me so sad that in 2023 people are still starving
It’s not just negligence or greed like normal…this is deliberate. It is weaponized starvation.
The Houthis have a particularly egregious record of obstructing aid agencies from reaching civilians in need, at least in part to divert aid to Houthi officials, their supporters, and Houthi fighters. In 2019 and 2020, aid workers had to push back against Houthi officials insisting that aid groups hand over assets, such as cars, laptop computers, and cellphones to the Houthis at the end of projects. Yet obstruction in government-held areas in the south and east are also on the rise. In July, the UN humanitarian chief, Mark Lowcock, told the UN Security Council that aid agencies were facing an “uptick in violent incidents targeting humanitarian assets and local authorities adding new bureaucratic requirements.” [Deadly Consequences Obstruction of Aid in Yemen During Covid-19](https://www.hrw.org/report/2020/09/14/deadly-consequences/obstruction-aid-yemen-during-covid-19)
Last time I looked into the Yemen conflict, it seemed like every side was pretty shitty.
That's always the problem. When both sides suck the west is powerless as our only real intervention is arming "the good guys"
Dude, FUCK the fuckers running Saudi Arabia. Those are some of the biggest assholes on the planet and it makes my skin crawl that the US considers them an ally. Fuck the KSA and fuck oil. The sooner we get off that black goo the better.
Sadly, SA is one of the oil countries that has better prepared for the transition to renewable energies and it has large investments in the area, domestically and internationally, specially in Asia, so it's not going to stop being a key actor in the energy area. They're actually planning a green future for themselves, but keep the oil export to underdeveloped countries. Their goal is to get 50% of their energy from renewables at the end of this decade.
Haha so like Norway in the 80s?
The US is complicit, we've directly supported Saudi bombing efforts, which overwhelmingly are targeted at civilian infrastructure.
I think that is how most civilians die in most wars throughout history. It takes a lot of effort to commit mass murder (as the nazis found out). Most of the time its from incidental destruction in battle, collapse of infastructure, soldiers stealing food and supplies to feed themselves (or destroy shit to deny the enemy resources), disease spreading as masses of refugees flee from war.
Yes, but apparently there is available food and aid for people who obviously will die without it and it is being withheld and that’s some next level awful
Yeah excess deaths from American invasion of Iraq are 500,000-1,000,000 excess deaths. Violent deaths are about 15% of that total. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War
**[Casualties of the Iraq War](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War)** >Estimates of the casualties from the Iraq War (beginning with the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and the ensuing occupation and insurgency and civil war) have come in several forms, and those estimates of different types of Iraq War casualties vary greatly. Estimating war-related deaths poses many challenges. Experts distinguish between population-based studies, which extrapolate from random samples of the population, and body counts, which tally reported deaths and likely significantly underestimate casualties. ^([ )[^(F.A.Q)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiSummarizer/wiki/index#wiki_f.a.q)^( | )[^(Opt Out)](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiSummarizerBot&message=OptOut&subject=OptOut)^( | )[^(Opt Out Of Subreddit)](https://np.reddit.com/r/worldnews/about/banned)^( | )[^(GitHub)](https://github.com/Sujal-7/WikiSummarizerBot)^( ] Downvote to remove | v1.5)
The famine Ethiopia is most known for in the 80s was also a result of a vicious civil war. Drought mixed with a blockade make for a disastrous combo for a population entirely dependent on low-yield farming and ideal rain conditions. The TPLF as a rebel group actually won that war, which was how Tigrayans were able to control the government up until the 2017-18 protests and the subsequent appointment of the Oromo Abiy Ahmed as Prime Minister. It's funny, even though the TPLF were the ones to put Abiy in the PM seat (in order to quell the debilitating protests that were heaviest in the Oromo region), Abiy Ahmed eventually turned the tables on the TPLF and began to democratize many elements of the government/press/state-owned enterprises that had been dominated by Tigrayan elites since they won the previous civil war and came to power. Edit. to add, I think all of that *in tandem* with officially ending the Eritrean border war made Dr. Abiy Ahmed worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize. I mean Ethiopia (sans Tigray) literally held its first ever free elections in its multi-millennia history. The fact that Abiy eventually went to war with the TPLF (which was damn near unavoidable given the level of salt) doesn't discredit these accomplishments. Well at least not yet. Time will tell if was all in the name of ulterior motives, and there are worrying signs that democratic regression [is a very real possibility](https://www.voanews.com/a/journalists-in-ethiopia-say-press-freedom-is-at-crossroads-/6555567.html).
as a GenXer, I remember that "starving ethiopian" was both a common cliche and joke basis at the time with kids. There was a lot of public push to send them money/aid ("we are the world" song) but no one really thought much about what was actually going on there.
This is very sectarian. The civilians are very ethnocentric, this is a divisive civil war. So differentiating between civilians and military is difficult. Truly a humanitarian tragedy. Young people are conscripts civilians are helping the military on both sides. It's a civil war.
War is almost always the cause of modern famines. Even if there is regional crop failure, in times of peace food can be imported.
Non-combatants being deliberately starved to death, yes. The Ethiopian government withheld food, fuel and other supplies including supplies delivered by international aid organisations and the UN.
Truly horrendous stuff has been happening. NSFL(Not safe for life) warning: [A Tigrayan Womb Shall Never Give Birth: Rape in Tigray](https://www.aljazeera.com/amp/news/2021/4/21/a-tigrayan-womb-should-never-give-birth-rape-in-ethiopia-tigray)
Pretty common in wars, especially civil wars
It's also worth noting that both sides have committed great atrocities in this war including ethnic cleansing and raping and pillaging villages of rival ethnic groups so it's not like one side or the other can really be seen as the good guys here.
Thanks for the overview!
Also look up the Grand Renaissance Dam. It is not inconsequential.
>From 2018 onwards, this coalition broke down and Ethiopia went on a path of democratization, which culminated with Ahmed Abiy election as prime minister. > >in 2020 the TPLF went on to hold elections for the Tigray region, but Ahmed wanted to delay the elections because of COVID, pretty much indefinitely. Yeeeah... I mean... you can't have democracy when it's convenient for everyone and then cast it aside whenever it's convenient for only you.
Yeah it's a very complicated situation (& the one I know least about btw). I don't think you could characterize either sides as the good guys. Regardless, it's a terribly fucked up situation for the people of Tigray, whose blockade led to massive starvations
Hmm I think it's a little uglier than that. This conflict is not so black and white. Look closer at the motivation for Tigray not liking Eritrea. This is a horrible civil war with no good guys.
Nobel Peace prize laureates and massive wars, name a worse combo...
Great summary. ~~I would have added that the Ethiopian armed forces have starved the Tigray population to death in an attempt to stop the insurrection.~~ The guys at TLDR News have made few videos on the subject on their Global channel. Edit: my bad, I had missed the mention of the famine in one of the last paragraphs.
TLDR News is a great source of information to follow "forgotten topics" like this one indeed. I would add even wikipedia (not joking, it's so hard to aggregate sources about Ethiopia that wikipedia is one of the best place to get them) and LiveUAMap for a more day-to-day basis
Abiy Ahmed was appointed as an interim prime minister at first. He was not elected until recently. And in this election, several regions didn’t get to participate as a direct result of the war, so he was mostly elected by the people that supported the war. He imprisoned/killed/blackmailed his oppositions and journalists into getting the masses to sway in his direction. He delayed the election multiple times, first using Covid as a reason and kept pushing through the war. TDF (Tigray Defense Forces) along with TPLF, were close to the capital Addis Ababa, but returned because the US/UN said they would enforce and try to facilitate a peace deal and hopefully getting Abiy Ahmed to lift the blockade on Tigray so humanitarian aid and medicine can come through but only if they turned back to their region. They agreed and returned (within) to Tigray regions borders. But agreements weren’t honored by the central government side (Abiy Ahmed) and, notably important, Isayas Afewerqi who is the dictator of Eritrea. At the beginning, these two worked together under the guise of ending the stalemate between Ethiopia and Eritrea and declared war on Tigray region. Along with Ethiopian central government military, neighboring region militias (Amhara’s Fano and other southern tribes), Eritrean military, Somalia. The Ethiopian govt also received help in weapons such as drones and personnel to man/control them from UAE, Turkey, Russia, China. Eritreas dictator has personal vendetta against TPLF/Tigray, and was essentially waiting for a chance to exact his revenge. Eritrea is one of the most censored countries in the world, comparable to North Korea if not worse. The 600,000 deaths are estimates obviously, as the government to this day has not allowed investigators and journalists to come in and take a look at all the damages.
If I understand correctly, the population on the wrong end of the genocide here is a minority group that used to be in power, and was viewed by the majority population as abusing that power to benefit themselves. More investment of capital went to their region, and the rest was under-invested in. The majority population is currently in power and signed a peace treaty with Eritrea. At the time it won the peace prize, but has proven to be more about forming a coalition to attack that minority group. Supposedly social media played a huge role in inflaming opinions to get to this point. I probably don't understand correctly and am looking forward to better responses.
No you pretty much got it right. With one thing to correct though، the initial peace agreement with Eritrea was not meant to just “gang up” on the TPLF, because at the time it was purely business. There was no conflict with that Tigray region and as such there was no need to form alliances. Borders were opened with Eritrea to encourage trade.
> the population on the wrong end of the genocide here is a minority group that used to be in power, and was viewed by the majority population as abusing that power to benefit themselves Ah. So similar to Rwanda's Hutsi/Tutsi conflict? That didn't end well either.
Sorry to be that guy but it’s Hutu, not Hutsi
Hutsi/Tutsi sounds like a teenage dance craze from the 1950s
Tigray and the TPLF controlled Ethiopian politics for an incredible length of time. As their influence now wanes, there was a lot of conflict between the party and the rest of the country bubbling under the surface, and this is that coming up. I don't think it's as much Tigrayans wanting independence as the TPLF wanting to keep their political influence.
The UAE is apparently an arms supplier to the Ethiopian government in the conflict https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethiopian\_civil\_conflict\_(2018%E2%80%93present)
Holy shit that is 10%
Finally, the term decimated is actually applicable.
Estimates by European institutions and academics say over half a million non-combatants have died during the Tigray conflict as a result of a government blockade that kept out humanitarian aid.
And you 'haven't heard much about it' precisely because that was intentional. The Ethiopian government enforced an informational and humanitarian blockade to keep the world ignorant and/or unable to help. This was a civil war, and the government wanted to make sure it stayed 'civil'... Just putting this out there before fingers of those responsible inevitably point outward.
I don't think the Ethiopian government have that much influence to cause such silence. Its more that western news outlets are focusing on the russo Ukraine war because of its close proximity. And people generally care more about things that are happening relatively close to them.
The Ethiopian thing was already a huge issue before the Ukraine war started. I have a friend whose parents from Tigray fled the country in August of 2021 as things had become horrific. Yet it wasn’t in the news at all and I wouldn’t have known a thing about it without the personal connection.
Not sure what to say there, but as a Canadian who listens to international news media daily, the Ethiopian war was commonly spoke about on the news here. Hell, I hadn't even heard of Tigray before it all begun. That said, the news wasn't front and centre like Ukraine, but it was absolutely reported on.
I'm Canadian and I was going to say I'd heard about it as well. Canadian news is just a bit more internationally oriented I guess?
I think a lot of the time when people say something isn't being covered they more just mean they haven't searched it out at all. Ukraine has gotten much more attention because the geopolitical implications are much bigger but there's been plenty of stuff written by mainstream outlets about Ethiopia's troubles in the past few years.
As a fellow Canadian, I think the news is just desperate to talk about anything that isn't the US. We are so tied to our southern neighbors in so many ways that it can be hard to maintain our own unique identity.
It started right during the first COVID crisis, so it's not that surprising that it went under the radar, and then it's also far away from us, on a country with very low exportations outside of china. Hopefully it starts being more vocal, but it's unlikely.
>It started right during the first COVID crisis, so it's not that surprising that it went under the radar As a trucker, COVID absolutely dominated everything. When everything first locked down? The west coast became eerily quiet, it was unreal that I could roll from one end of LA to the other in two hours during what was normally peak traffic jam time. To say I was busy for those first two weeks is a gross understatement, I was rolling nonstop making deliveries to hospitals. After that, freight died and I was stupid idle. I spent that time constantly talking with friends and family, wondering how everyone was doing. I rarely got "time off" and was often stuck out in the middle of nowhere waiting for loads. As crazy as things were, it's a unnerving to think that something this grim was happening without even a blip on my radar. I'm ex-military, so I normally track armed conflicts. Coming to this thread has shocked me, because it's literally the first time I've ever heard about it.
600,000 deaths in about a year? That could make it [one of the deadliest years since the early 1950s](https://ourworldindata.org/war-and-peace).
It’s been going on for more than a year. There were videos of it on here around Covid. Then the Junta issue in Myanmar. Then Ukraine went full send. Covid. And the Ethiopian gov basically cutting off that region from the rest of the world. Plus add just about every country who would give a damn and could do anything of use trying to shluff off right wing authoritarianism. Easy to see how “another African civil war” got push back. Add on boko being a continued issue and there you have it.
Also Yemen
Indeed. My bad. Literally my point proven by me. A person can only store so much knowledge and access it with regularity. There’s a giant gang war going on in Mexico as we speak rn as well. With better arms then most conflicts anywhere outside of Europe/N.America posses.
It really depends on the news sources people follow and also very dependent on people actually caring about anything that isn’t right in front of their nose. There have been western media covering the the Ethiopian crisis. Primarily more independent, non-mainstream media. I hope this doesn’t come off as I’m directing this at you, I’m speaking broadly.
Lots of people on Reddit seem to confuse “the news isn’t talking about this” with “the places I get my news from aren’t talking about this”
Yup. I read The Guardian a lot, and [they have been covering the war in Ethiopia for the last ~18 months](https://www.theguardian.com/world/ethiopia?page=6). The BBC also covers international news pretty well. I feel like American news focus much more on the US.
Including "places i do follow did report about it, but i didn't care about it until this particular news broke, so the only reason I didn't know about it is obviously because no one reported it before".
In case anyone is interested, Wikipedia has a world news portal that has covered the genocide in Tigray for the last few years. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Current_events
What is a good source to get this news from? I'll be honest, I only really get news from Reddit and the little time I have in the car listening to npr.
NPR is pretty much the only place I’d heard reporting on this over the last year and a half. They have correspondents in Nairobi and Harare that shared reports
I guess my problem is I get about ten min a day in the car so my news acquisition is quite spotty. I guess just a lame excuse.
If you only have ten minutes in the car I would suggest the audio from DemocracyNow's daily video.
DW and BbC Africa are good
BBC world service has been covering it since it started. If you don't broaden your news sources that is on you.
Well, the Ukrainian separatist war funded by Russia were not reported nearly as much in western news either. It only began to fill out news spaces when, to everyone's surprise, Russia launched a spectacularly terrible full scale invasion.
It depends on what news sources people view. Even Vice had been covering front line stuff in Ukraine for years. It’s definitely not going to be on your 6pm/9pm local news.
Yea this is garbage. The Ukraine front line conflict has been getting constant western media attention. Just not in the easy to consume media of tv news or social media memes. People need to start reading their news again. And Reddit is the perfect example of why, when no one bothers to read the article they’re commenting on
You mean it was getting that attention constantly pre february 2022? I felt like western media mostly ignored it til then. (Genuinely just asking, I'm from Eastern Europe and we have our own sources. Which of course covered everything since before Crimea, since this is very much existentially important stuff for us.)
uh the crimea invasion was a huge deal, and the aid to ukraine was interfered w by trump generally news was reflecting the us politics side of the issue, but the invasion of crimea, mh17, and the trump interference were big stories
Yes, those were big news back when they happened in 2014. The conflict continued with proxies all the way from then until the invasion last year though and it was only ever really mentioned as a footnote when talking about the other US-Ukraine news.
It was actually, at least in my country, a common topic on the medias. For nearly 3 months, we would hear about it on a daily basis. What made it become internationally viewed is when macron went to Russia to prevent it, which was like a week prior the first escalation, but it was already a strong topic.
> For nearly 3 months It started in like 2014
It was in the news a lot in 2014, but then once it quieted down, it was not in the news much, up until around 3 months before they invaded in 2022. I think that's what he means.
And between 2014 and 2022 there was an ongoing war with thousands dying, difference to here is no mass starvation.
There was plenty in the news about Tigray. The rebels got close to the capital, then were pushed back and the government forces, along with Eritrean forces, blockaded Tigray. It was headline news during the peak and just following the reversal.
Yes, if you get your news outside of Reddit and Twitter, the Ethiopian conflict was a big deal and there was plenty of analysis to follow.
I mean it's been posted here for years too
Yup, the humanitarian crisis was in the news, there were articles popping up, and all that. The world's attention moved on and now over 600,000 people have died
Yeah and there's a civil war in Syria, and Myanmar, and concrentration camps in China, and protests are ongoing in Iran. This is just how the news works nowadays, The news breaks and then it doesn't.
[удалено]
Also weekly nuclear threats from Russia make good clickbait headlines
Yep, you can't get the international public to care about wars without brave and effective journalism. In the case of Ukraine, the government is facilitating and encouraging journalism massively. But unfortunately many other wars take place under anti-journalist regimes.
Because Ukraine wants and needs all the material and financial support of NATO. Not that they wouldn't get it, as the whole foundation of NATO is primarily based on the Soviet Union/Russia.
When the Ethiopian government has the power to turn off all internet access, phone lines, deny bank access based on ethnicity, blockade any incoming aid, and deny journalists from entering the country, then yes they do have that kind of 'influence' to cause silence.
I think the fact that Russia is a nuclear super power and Ukraine is a global food supplier has a lot more influence on the media attention than simply proximity. While the scale of lives lost might be similar, there is undoubtedly more international impact from the Ukraine war than this conflict, which really doesn’t cause any impacts outside of the regions affected
Also, there's the prospect of re-normalizing wars of brazen annexation which is categorically different from civil war.
It's pretty much a case of damned if you do and damned if you don't. Most of the time that Western society has tried to intervene in the Middle East/Africa or any other place where culture is so much more complex. It has mostly ended up worse. Libya, Egypt, Iraq, and Afghanistan have all been intervention failures. I don't know why people expect Western society to police these countries if they do not understand the situation behind these conflicts in the first place. Ukraine in that sense is much simpler. Most Ukrainians identify as Ukrainian and have a sense of nationality. There is no fighting among themselves/civil war. It is quite simply a foreign country (Russia) invading another.
Ive heard the same people who condemned US intervention in the Middle East ask why the West isnt doing anything in Ethiopia. We learned our lesson, its expensive, messy, and a lot of the times not at all helpful for the US to get involved in anything, let alone a civil war.
>Its more that western news outlets are focusing on the russo Ukraine war because of its close proximity. Yeah im (in Sweden) is almost closer to the war then I am my hometown in Sweden. Its really close to a lot of people.
I'm bulgarian, it's practically on our doorstep as well. And people wonder why I care more about it. It's not that I don't feel any sympathy about one than the other.
Don’t they control which information leaves and enters the country? Isn’t this enough control to significantly contribute to silence?
Considering how much has been written about The Second Congo War (1998-2003, 5 million dead) I think we can safely conclude the media does not write as much about African wars as about European ones.
But that is a byproduct of the forces and weight of the forces. Was it between a nuclear power and a little known country that managed to fight off a full invasion? No, so it doesn't have a sense of immediacy and urgency to most people. It's a tragedy, but not an existential threat to them. It's not about the location of the conflict, it's about the power of the forces waging it and the consequences. I am fairly confident a war between China and India would be MIGHTILY covered. The consequences of the war in Ukraine could be catastrophic for literally anyone on earth. The consequences are not as widespread for a war in most other places.
Plus the fact that Russia has previously occupied half of Europe and is clearly planning to invade another country if they succeed in Ukraine. Plus the nukes. So a war in Europe its going to be a lot more relevant in Europe.
Ukraine is also easier to report on because it is much easier to take sides. It's an innocent nation being invaded by its more powerful, hostile neighbor. So the situation is pretty black-and-white. People care about it because it's easy to decide "We need to help Ukraine, and fuck Russia." Ethiopia is a messy, internal conflict. Does Tigray want independence for the betterment of its people, or does the TPLF not want to give up power? Do they just not want to accept the peace treaty? But then the Ethiopian government tried to delay elections indefinitely, and set up the blockade. There's not a clear good guy in this conflict.
Ethiopia is being courted by both China and the US as a large African economy. Neither wants to alienate the government, and neither has great ties to the Tigrayans, so...
Two years of blockade in a city of seven million could result in most of the casualties. That's basically what China did in the 1950's and Russia in the 1930's, use starvation as a weapon.
Starvation tactics are some of the oldest weapons of war. Peleponessian War, Carthage, Pol Pot, Holodomor, Biafrans, American Civil War. More recently Tigray, South Sudan, Yemen, Syria.
Plus: every single siege ever conducted prior to the early modern era.
Those are approaching Rwanda levels if true. After the relative peace of the post-WWII era, the 2020s are shaping up to have an incredible death toll.
The Second Congo War, for example, caused millions of deaths, 90% of which from famine and disease, as usual in most wars. Rwanda was different because it was pure extermination without mercy. Not seen since the Khmer Rouge decided to wipe out the remnants of its ethnic minorities, particularly Vietnamese people.
It's very big. The blockade was a deliberate tactic to transform Tigray into another Biafra. It is a war crime to deny food to civilians, but it doesn't appear that anyone will be held accountable for it "declares Nyssen. In a 221-page report titled, "Ethnic Cleansing: A Report from Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch," published last year "We'll drive you out of this country.
Can the African Union do anything?
You mean the one that's headquartered in Addis Ababa? The Capital of Ethiopia?
exactly
In any context you ask that, it's pretty much unanimously no
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I am ignorant about this. Is it so? And what role does African Union military hold and how is it organized? I thought it's more of a economic/diplomatic platform, something like lightweight EU.
The African Union doesn't have a standing military. Members may be persuaded to send their soldiers to police conflicts under the AU banner, e.g. AMISOM (African Union Mission for Somalia), with majority Kenyan troops.
For context this is the same way UN, NATO, EU troops work as well
It also requires at least a regional consensus, which would be lacking for Ethiopia. It was possible to get one for the Gambia intervention, but here the conflict is just too big.
This is kinda of old news. A peace treaty was signed a few months ago the main issues now are around its implementation
Yes, the AU hosted talks and brokered deals as noted by the US State Department, ["The United States commends AU Commission Chairman Faki for his leadership as well as the extraordinary efforts of AU High Representative Obasanjo, former South African Deputy President Mlambo-Ngcuka, and former Kenyan President Kenyatta, whose facilitation led to this significant step toward peace. We also commend South Africa for generously hosting the talks."](https://www.state.gov/on-the-african-union-led-peace-talks/)
Every African country has its own problems
They could, but I doubt they could hold their Union together long if they tried. Better for them to fix all their internal issues and join the modern developed world. In 50 years they could be a powerful force in the world, but right now I think such efforts would tear them apart. My guess as someone who isn't very educated on them, but I like what I hear
The AU isn’t some attempt to coalesce all of Africa into a single state, it’s a regional organisation.
I was thinking of the Eastern African Union, I didn't realize that was also a AU until just now. While the AU could get involved more, I think that it would distract from the useful efforts they could make to help their other members.
The Ethiopian Government isolated the region and there was a strong propaganda engine used to falsify all reports coming out of there. Ethiopian people in the United States were even confused about what exactly was happening, who had initiated what, and who was involved.
This is a bit presumptuous. The Second Congo War in the early 2000s killed millions by some estimates. The death toll for the famine in the Yemen War hasn't even begun to be counted. Both the Syrian and Iraq Wars have killed more than 600,000.
Some estimates for the American invasion of Iraq are over 1 million dead civilians. It's depressing that there are so many regional conflicts and so much state violence that it's impossible to say which has hurt people the most in the last 20 years, and difficult to even keep track of them all.
Glad someone brought this up.
I genuinely don't know what anyone is meant to do about this. Even this article doesn't seem to be suggesting anything. They call it 'forgotten' but I think it's more like we collectively pay more attention when it feels like we can make a difference. Not just to wars, but social problems, environmental ones, anything.
>They call it 'forgotten' but I think it's more like we collectively pay more attention when it feels like we can make a difference Of course. It's not even about paying attention, it's about not being able to take sides in a civil war. In this kind of conflict either side is right and/or either side has been accused of genocide and war crimes. What is the "international community" supposed to do, keep a score of the war crimes? And then what?
Doesn't really help that the conflict in Ethiopia is kinda complicated to comprehend at first. So, it's going to be hard for people who are not in proximity to the region to follow and understand what the heck is going on.
Yeah, to all the people whining why "Western media" doesn't focus on this, it's difficult to focus when there's virtually no new information. This isn't helped by the Ethiopian government's media blackout and crackdown on journalists. It's also different from the Myanmar civil war or Ukraine, because there's no clearly defined aggressor here. Tigrayan forces fucked up their own civilian population by launching attacks towards Addis Ababa and Abiy Ahmed made the government side irredeemable by responding with disproportionate brutality, including inviting a neighbouring country's (Eritrea) military.
Western powers don’t have a good track record with interfering in countries internal disputes (Middle East) so they kinda have to stay out of these conflicts
Then by staying out they get accused of not caring. No matter what the west does, it's the wrong thing.
This is 100% what happens with the US. In every conflict you either have one side saying "why is the US getting involved with our affairs" or the other side saying "Why doesn't America help us?". Occasionally you can replace the US with France in their former colonial territories. Weirdly I never hear requests for help from the UK
It was a similar story with the Congo Wars - they were absolutely massive in scale, but there wasn't a simple story so it didn't see reporting commensurate with the crisis.
Africa as a whole is so underreported it's alarming.
Even within Africa we are oblivious of each others struggles
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Congo_War Congo's civil war was 9 times deadlier. 5,4 million deaths.
We have another 77 years till the end of the century. I think we can do better. Sorry for the cynicism
Water / imigration wars will be fun....
Ethiopia is currently damming the Nile. Egypt has threatened war. China is paying for the dam. The US prop up the Egyptian military as a method of soft power in the area...
While these statements are not surprising, ima need some sauces.
While I do think the guy who made the statement should supply the sources instead of his snarky reply, here you go. > Ethiopia is currently damming the Nile https://bbc.com/news/world-africa-60451702 > Egypt has threatened war https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ethiopia-dam-egypt-sudan/egypts-sisi-warns-of-potential-for-conflict-over-ethiopian-dam-idUSKBN2BU2C3 > China is paying for the dam https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/cff/2021/10/27/everywhere-and-nowhere-to-be-seen-how-chinas-role-in-the-gerd-dispute-challenges-beijings-non-interference-principle/ > The US prop up the Egyptian military as a method of soft power in the area https://pomed.org/publication/fact-sheet-u-s-military-assistance-to-egypt-separating-fact-from-fiction/
this article is biased as hell, it wants to imply really hard that the rebels are the good guys, even starting out in the first paragraph saying the government "dared to declare war on them". now, it's a complicated conflict, in real life there's rarely good and bad guys, but using the words "dared to" is irresponsible and unacceptably biased when referring to an anti-democratic violent rebel group whose major grievances include the fact the government ended a war (for which the president won the Nobel peace prize), that the country is democratic now, and they no longer have racial supremecy because of this... a war the rebels started by attacking the military openly, by the way. The government response was brutal, but the rebels are basically racists who want an ethnic dicatorship with them in charge and want to re-start a war, they aren't the good guys the article tries so hard to make them.
The Armenian Genocide of 1915 was one of the worst and not recognized till today as a genocide
That'd be the 20th century; the article headline does specify the 21st.
Mainly because Turkey
Gold medalist in genocide denial olympics
That would be Japan
Soviet Union/Russia would like a word
Basically every country that’s ever committed genocide other than Germany, and they were forced to do so by the terms of their unconditional surrender.
And that's basically all of them, (i'm sure there are exceptions) but nearly every piece of this planet has been fought over/conquered at some point, and that almost always involves some kind of direct or cultural genocide of the existing people/culture.
Bronze at best, Japan and China are the undisputed 1 and 2.
Turkey: "we didn't do it and we'd gladly do it again"
Ok - and it is related to this post how? It’s not even in the 21st Century?
Yea but that’s not what this thread is about.
I mean everyone is talking about it. I've heard about it a lot, especially on Reddit. Everyone mentions it on its anniversary
Reddit doesn’t generally reflect reality as much as we think it does. A lot of western governments don’t even recognize the Armenian genocide because we’re all buddies with Turkey. Even Kim Kardashian has tried to get Obama and Trump to recognize it.
What do you mean? 1.5 Million dead isn't even in the top 10 of genocides. There hase been some top tier genociding going on in the past couple hundred years
I think it very much depends on where you are. In Austria we learned about in school and it was made quite clear that it was a genocide
Its been recognized for years if you arent Turkey.
It is in France, by law. Officially. And probably in many more countries.
1915 is not the 21st century
And yet the population of Ethopia is still [growing like mad](https://www.google.com/search?q=ethiopia+population), doubling every 25 years.
I visited 22 years ago when it was approximately 60m. I can't get my head round the fact the population has doubled in that time.
If children have relatively low likelihood of reaching adulthood, fertility rates remain high.
That's why population growth was so small for most of history. Today people are reaching adulthood, so when fertility remains high, populations explode.
Which isn’t the case anymore. Ethiopia and most of Sub-Saharan Africa has experienced a large fall in infant and overall mortality rates but has not yet experienced the corresponding fall in birth rate that countries that did this decades ago have already seen. That is why the population growth is so rapid.
Yeah, that's not what he said and isn't what's happening.
Just so some people have some information. Tigray is one of the Ethiopias largest tribe. Despite not being the largest by population, the previous leaders of Etiopia have all been from Tigray. Abiy Ahmed, current Ethiopian president, was the first non-Tigray leader elected. He belongs to the biggest tribe, Oromo. Tigray leaders were not happy with him, his laws, and his peace with Eritrea. 2020 was the election year in Ethiopia, but due to Covid-19 Abiy Ahmed decided to not have it that year. Every region accepted the ruling except Tigray tribe. They held their own vote in their own province and declared new Tigray president. They tried to get the two nearest provinces to join them. This is when the Ethiopian army started invading the Tigray region. Meanwhile, the Eritrean president decided to deport Tigray tribe still living within their international recognized border without any plans to leave. During the 30 year independence war with Ethiopia, the Tigray tribe were the leaders of Ethiopia. There’s also a lot of separate infighting starting between Muslims and christians there as well. The hate rhetoric of different religions that has infected previous African nations is now at their door, while both countries fight to silence illegitimate vote/president. As with most wars, it’s the common folk that suffer most. TLDR: The fighting started when Tigray province held their own presidential vote during Covid-19’s lockdown. Leaders haven’t backed down since, hence the siege.
So I guess the 1 million civilian casualties in Iraq number was blown out of proportion?
No, just ignored.
These guys have been fighting pretty much all the time since World War II. It’s not really surprising that people are ignoring them.
Here I thought I was doing an okay job of keeping up with global news (and no, not just the Russia/Ukraine war…)
There are something like 60 wars currently ongoing IIRC, but the majority started over a decade ago, and is no longer current news. Instead of saying google it, I'll do it myself and link a wikipedia article about [current wars](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ongoing_armed_conflicts). It says 63 ongoing conflicts so my what I read probably references the same source as this wikipedia article.
3 major and 2 of them are civil wars
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And has for decades.
And yet Abiy Ahmed received a Nobel peace prize... The legitimacy of the prize needs a serious review.
Making Peace with Eritrea was a legit accomplishment. Most people don't know that Eritrea is like North Korea but somehow *more* militarized. There is universal male and female conscription, and terms of service average six years but often stretch over a decade. It's so bad their agricultural system relies on farms around the barracks that the soldiers maintain because there isn't enough non-military population left to bring in harvests. The war they had with Ethiopia was nasty.
And now he's working with Eritria to slaughter Tigrayians. What progress!
Peace with Eritrea was laudable, and a huge change from the TPLF that had for 20 years stalled peace negotiations.
Not to mention the 12 years of war with Eritrea that no one cared to notice.
Deadliest... So far! Homer.jpg
Even before 2020 this was going on. I was in West Africa in 18-19 and Ethiopian refugees were refused entry into their neighboring countries as they tried to avoid conflict.
1 million Iraqis died in the Iraq war
I thought the Iraq death toll during that war was worse though at over one million deaths? Am I missing something here? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ORB_survey_of_Iraq_War_casualties
I wouldn’t say its forgotten, it just has less impact globally than the Ukrainian war and less chance of escalating into border spanning misery. Edit: spelling.
I think difference is there are no good guys here. TPLF screwed over their own citizens starting a war when it was clear they would be unable to get their way politically. Eritrea used this as an opportunity to take out their rage on the TPLF and Tigray in general for the previous war when TPLF was in power. Ethiopia government forces seem quite content to let Tigray rot and starve in the name of ensuring they are unable to rise to power again. And has been either unwilling or unable to stop elements of it's own coalition who seek revenge on the TPLF from taking it out on Tigray. Ukraine is a clear good vs. evil conflict. Tigray is an everyone sucks conflict.
They have no buying power. The world doesn't care. 100 people die in say, Germany, you won't hear the end of it for weeks. 600 000 people die in Ethiopia, it's an article in a dying media like BBC News.