The French and German foreign ministers visited Addis Ababa on Thursday on a mission to uphold a peace deal struck last year with rebels in the Tigray region to end the war. A peace deal signed Nov. 2 between the federal government and the rebels.
The two ministers met for two days, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, ministers and officials from the African Union and human rights activists. They also visited an aid distribution center affiliated with the World Food Program. The convoy said: The purpose of the visit is to “support the peace process, fight against impunity and rebuild.”
A diplomatic source indicated that the two ministers conveyed a message from the European Union saying the bloc was ready to resume hostilities in Ethiopia, provided it adheres to the ceasefire and establishes a transitional justice mechanism.
Fighting broke out in Tigray in November 2020 when Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed sent the federal army to arrest district officials who had been challenging his authority for months and accused them of attacks on federal military bases.
The outcome of this atrocity-filled conflict is unknown, but the International Crisis Group and Amnesty International consider it “one of the deadliest in the world.” federal authorities to Tigray, as well as the reunification of the territory abroad after the isolation that lasted from mid-2021.
After the signing of the agreement, the delivery of aid to Tigray resumed on a limited basis, and the region suffered from acute shortages of food, fuel, liquidity and medical supplies for a long time.
And essential services such as communications, banks and electricity have begun to slowly return to the affected region, which is home to about six million people.
More than two million Ethiopians have been displaced by the conflict, with hundreds of thousands on the brink of starvation, according to the UN.
