BY YESUF ENDRIS
ADDIS ABABA- BreakThrough media (BT) journalists who visited Ethiopia recently have exposed TPLF-destruction in Amhara and Afar states. They also urged world media to focus on the reality than fabricated stories .
BT Journalist Rania Khalek has stated that the destruction in Amhara and Afar states were quite systematic and deserves media coverage. Comparing the destruction with other countries, she said such destruction was never committed by ISIS or other terrorist groups in the world.
“Whether it was ISIS, or Jaysh al-Islam or others, they did attempt to govern, like they took over the towns in an attempt to take over the country. So they did Institute laws, they did try to govern. But TPLF did not seem like what they were trying to govern. They were just using the town to sustain themselves by taking the food, the fuel and, using strategic areas as places to set up bases just to go further towards the capital,” she said.
“I’ll speak a little bit to the devastation that we saw… groups like ISIS or the various like Jihadist groups that went through into it were kicked out of various towns in Syria and Iraq. It [TPLF] reminded me a bit of that,” she pointed out the atrocities of TPLF.
In terms of the level of violence, particularly sexual violence against women, she said that it was quite systematic. To her, the violence was pretty shocking. Briefing the violence, she narrated that they [journalists] talked to women who were essentially gang-raped by TPLF fighters who had taken over towns in the state of Amhara.
“It seemed pretty clear that this was not just like random acts of sexual violence. It was widespread and perhaps the fighters have been encouraged to do it or at the very least were incited by bigotry,” she said. While quoting her interviewees, she confirmed it was being used against the ethnic Amharas and Afars.
The other really shocking aspect to her was just to see the level of the destruction. This was different than what she saw in Syria and Iraq, because there was a lot of destruction and looting, she stated.
BT Journalist Eugene Puryear on his part has also voiced that his visit to Ethiopia was historic. It was a kind of destruction that he saw for the first time. Moreover, he has remarked that the situation of malnutrition [in Afar and Amhara] for children is worse, which is getting absolutely no focus in the world media.
“The only thing you hear is there’s no air getting into Tigray. There is a so-called genocide. You never really hear much of anything about what going on in the Afar state . And I am horrible at the exact numbers that are being used in quoted by the world media to address the humanitarian situation in Tigray which is undoubtedly poor.”
He also remembered that TPLF launches a whole new offensive into other parts of Amhara and Afar, so, the humanitarian situation cannot get in. Now, there is essentially a unilateral ceasefire by the Ethiopian government saying “we’re not going to any further, It is to Tigray for a range of different reasons ,” he said.
But, the TPLF forces have started waging a war yet again into Afar with a main road that comes into describe with aid is coming from and thus making it significantly more difficult for humanitarian aid. So TPLF is really using humanitarian Aid as weapon and using the suffering of the people they claim to represent, he claimed.
The February 8/2022
