This is one more step towards a possible peace between the federal government and the Tigrayan rebels of the TPLF. While the conflict has lasted for a year and a half, the Ethiopian government has declared a humanitarian truce, supposed to allow humanitarian aid to enter Tigray. Food and medicine shortages in the province of 6 million people are worrying the international community.
With our correspondent in Addis Ababa, Noé Hochet-Bodin
Is this finally the omen of a cessation of hostilities in Ethiopia or yet another announcement effect? In the opinion of several observers of the Ethiopian conflict, the humanitarian truce announced by Addis Ababa is in any case a positive signal sent by the authorities.
The government of Prime Minister Abiya Ahmed decreed this truce, which in theory would allow humanitarian aid to pass through to the province of Tigray, under blockade since last December.
Corridor blocked
The problem is that in practice this aid has already been promised but has not been able to reach Tigray since December because the only corridor is blocked. Fighting continues and humanitarian convoys are sometimes attacked. Attacks that paralyze, for example, the operations of the World Food Programme.
According to Addis Ababa, the ball is now in the court of the Tigrayan rebels of the TPLF. If they want humanitarian aid, they must withdraw their troops from the neighboring Afar region, assures the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The TPLF has not reacted for the time being, but according to several diplomats, the Tigrayan party is asking for the exact opposite: first of all to obtain the humanitarian convoys as a condition for a cessation of hostilities.