The first direct talks between the central power in Addis Ababa and the authorities of the Tigray province finally began on Tuesday (October 25th) in Pretoria, South Africa. The delegations are trying to find a way out of the crisis in a conflict that has been going on for almost two years and has caused thousands of deaths.
Nothing has filtered, for the moment, from the debates in Pretoria. But these unprecedented negotiations are closely supervised by the international community. The former presidents of Nigeria and Kenya, Olusegun Obasanjo and Uhuru Kenyatta, as well as the former South African vice-president, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, are the mediators. The United Nations (UN), the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) and the United States are observers.
Washington pushed hard for this meeting. The American special envoy to the region, Mike Hammer, even flew to Tigray to bring the Tigrayan delegation. On Monday night, the White House called on both sides to engage seriously in negotiations for a quick ceasefire, unhindered humanitarian access and a withdrawal of Eritrean soldiers from Tigray. Finally, a bipartisan group of about ten senators even wrote to the Ethiopian Prime Minister, Abiy Ahmed. ” We urge you to facilitate this crucial step towards peace, by ceasing hostilities immediately the senators said.
Meanwhile, in Tigray, the security and humanitarian situations are dire. The Ethiopian federal army continues to advance. A sign of an increasingly dramatic health situation, the large Ayder hospital in Mekelle announced on Tuesday the closure of its dialysis service, due to a lack of equipment and medicines. ” Sending kidney failure patients home to die is torture for our teams “, indicated the establishment.