|
|
As the Western media floods the airwaves and newspapers with Ukraine War coverage and the toll it has taken on civilians, barely a peep from the Presstitutes about the ongoing war in Ethiopia which the Trends Journal has extensively covered since it was launched in November 2020. Here are a few articles: (See: “ANOTHER NOBEL PEACE PRIZE WINNER GOES TO WAR,” “ETHIOPIA’S TIGRAY WAR HORRORS,” “ANOTHER ETHNIC MASSACRE IN ETHIOPIA,” “ETHIOPIA: A WAR OF DISASTER,” “ETHIOPIA WAR=TIGRAY SLAUGHTER” and “HUMANITARIAN CRISIS IN TIGRAY DETERIORATES. ADDIS ABABA: “FU” UN”).
Health officials in Ethiopia’s Tigray region said the population is facing a dire food shortage and at least 1,9000 children under the age of five have died from malnutrition during the past year.
The actual number of starvation deaths is expected to be significantly higher, The Associated Press reported. Most people suffering from acute hunger do not have the means to travel to a hospital and die at home. And even when they arrive at some hospitals, some don’t have food.
“Because we cannot access most areas, we do not know what is happening on the community level,” one doctor told the AP. “These are simply the deaths we have managed to record in health facilities.”
Mekelle’s Ayder Referral Hospital was forced to send 240 patients home and new patients were being turned away after it ran out of food supplies, Reuters reported last week. The report, citing two nurses, said among those sent home was a 14-year-old boy with HIV and babies with meningitis.
Tedros Fissehaye, a pediatrics ward nurse, told Reuters that it was his job to inform some of the patients that the hospital had no more food.
“Nobody cried. We have finished our tears for months now. But every nurse was so sad,” he said. “The families said, pray for us, instead of dying here let’s go home and die there.”
The War
Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s government launched the major offensive in the region because Tigrayans held an election in September 2020 in violation of a countrywide voting ban due to the COVID-19 outbreak.
Abiy, the 2019 recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, blamed Tigray leadership for violating “the constitution and endangering the constitutional system.”
The war has continued and has led to one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
In March, a UN report said there are about 14 sites for internally displaced people, “which remain inaccessible due to the active conflict, depriving civilians from receiving or accessing humanitarian assistance and livelihoods sources.”
The AP reported that phone lines and banking services have been down in Tigray since federal forces exited the region in June and the UN says there is a “de facto blockade” leading into the region.
About 454,000 children are estimated to be malnourished in Tigray, including more than 115,000 children severely malnourished. About 120,000 pregnant and lactating women are also estimated to be malnourished, the UN said.
TREND FORECAST: The Tigray war, launched by the Ethiopian government, has been essentially blacked out from the rest of the world. There are no news reporters in the Tigray region providing firsthand information, thus the true extent of the war, how many have been killed, and the damage done are only estimates.
About 20 million people in the Horn of Africa face a food crisis. Besides the food crisis, Tigrayans have been chased by ethnic Amhara militias in what the U.S. has called an ethnic cleansing campaign, according to The New York Times.
The violence and food crisis that these Tigrayans face will never get the attention it deserves on corporate news outlets that will run story after story about the plight of Ukrainian refugees fleeing from their homeland. So the conflict will continue and thousands more will starve to death.
TREND FORECAST: This Ethiopian civil war will continue to rage. The longer it lasts, more people will be escaping in efforts to find safe-haven nations.
As economic conditions deteriorate across the continent, there will be strong anti-immigration populist movements in Europe to stop the flow of African nationals who will risk their lives to leave nations wracked by civil unrest, poverty, crime, government corruption and violence.