Mekete Tigray UK
- We, members of the Tigrayan Diaspora of Tigrayan Ethiopian origin organised independently under the Mekete Tigray UK, Tigray Youth Network and Tigray Women UK, are yet again writing to the UK
Government calling to stop Ethiopian and Eritrean Armies provocations to escalate a second round of genocidal war on the people of Tigray. As reported widely by local and global media, the Ethiopian, Eritrean and Amhara Regional occupying forces in Western Tigray have begun bombarding the Tigrayan Defense Forces on several fronts in Western Tigray including the Dedebit area on 15th August 2022 with the intention to expand their war of aggression to the rest of liberated Tigray. This is happening during the farming season with the intention to prevent Tigrayans farmers from engaging in activities that are essential to their livelihood. This is but the de facto violation of the Humanitarian Truce that allowed a trickledown of international humanitarian assistance to reach Tigray. The UK and the world must not allow a second round of genocidal war on Tigray. - In spite of the Humanitarian Truce that began in March 2022, the occupying forces have escalated their “Anaconda” strategy of strangulating Tigray through prolonged economic blockade and military siege with the intent to starve Tigrayans into submission. This is following the killings of 500,000 Tigrayans civilians, the over 120,000 sexual violence against Tigrayan women and girls and the near total destruction of Tigray’s economy and civilian infrastructure including health and educational facilities. This was confirmed by the former EU Special Envoy to Ethiopia, the Finnish Foreign Minister, Pekka Haavisto, who reported back to the EU that the Ethiopian Leadership had told him that they were determined to “wipe out and exterminate Tigrayans, degrading them to socio-economic conditions that existed 100 years ago”, as reported by Cara Anna for the ABC News on 18 June 2021. Both the UK Minister for Africa, Vicky Ford, and the Chief Administrator of USAid, Samantha Power, have described the humanitarian assistance reaching Tigray as “A Trickle” but utterly failed to condemn it or to suggest other policy measures or come up to the conclusion on its genocidal implications. This is in fact the horror of the history of Tigray for the last 21 months, only and mainly platitudes of concern and worries by governments and institutions but not decisive, bold or concrete actions to materially alter the fact on the ground, which is genocide in slow-motion. Professor Mukesh Kapila, an international health humanitarian who worked at a senior level for the UN and witnessed many genocides including, in Rwanda, Darfur and Bosnia, aptly described the use of hunger and starvation in Tigray as a weapon of modern genocide more than a year earlier: “Modern genocides aren’t done Nazis style. Cheap, stealthy, smart way to do it is by starving, pillaging, raping, displacing. World then automatically demands humanitarian aid which will come but always little & late – allowing ethnic cleansers to finish job first #Ethiopia #Tigray” (Professor Mukesh Kapila; @mukeshkapila; 23rd March 2021)