In 2019, after ending Ethiopia’s decades-long warfare with its neighbor, Eritrea, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. It appeared like a brand new starting for Ethiopia. After a long time of dictatorships and oppressive regimes, he appeared to lastly be setting the nation on a brand new path.
However lower than a yr later, Abiy launched a army assault — on Tigray, a regional state in his personal nation. When he turned prime minister in 2018, he had largely supplanted Tigray’s principal political get together, the TPLF, because the nation’s middle of energy. Since then, tensions between Abiy and the TPLF have escalated rapidly. The political rivalry led to a dispute over an election, which led to an alleged assault on a army base — and eventually to Abiy’s deployment of the army.
Abiy promised to deliver peace to Ethiopia; now he’s presiding over a warfare that escalated from a dispute to devastation in a matter of weeks and has no apparent finish in sight. A lot of Tigray’s territory has been captured by native armies and militias. Hundreds have died or fled their properties. Many Ethiopians are left questioning how Abiy, a pacesetter who promised a break with the previous, introduced them right here as a substitute.
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