THE REAL SUFFERERS

Recently, the controversial WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus tried to draw global attention to the worsening humanitarian situation in Ethiopia's rebellious Tigray region, where a civil war has been raging for more than two years. Calling Tigray the "worst disaster on Earth,” he made a comparison with the generous response of the western world to the displaced people of Ukraine. He wondered if the differential treatment was due to “the colour of the skin of the people in Tigray.”

Mr Tedro's interest in the region was understandable as he hails from the Tigray region. He claimed that even he could not send any money or aid to the region as it had been totally cut off by the Ethiopian armed forces. “Can the world come back to its senses and uphold humanity?”, he made a desperate appeal.

Sadly, Ethiopia is not the only case study in Africa. In a report published by the International Committee of the Red Cross (IRC) this April, conflict, climate change and rising prices in food and fuel due to the Ukraine war are pushing a quarter of all Africans towards hunger and worse. Calling it the worst crisis since 2017, the IRC puts the figure at about 350 million Africans who face "severe food insecurity." Of course, Tigray heads the list with millions on the brink of starvation and is closely followed by insurgency-torn Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, South Sudan and Somalia (90 per cent is facing drought).

Background

The conflicts raging in these humanitarian hot spots are largely driven by ethnic and tribal differences that go far back into their histories. Sudan is a typical example; a country blessed with oil, natural resources and a minuscule population has never settled down to enjoy peace or its wealth. Earlier, the conflict between Arab dominated North and the tribal black led to over three decades of a bloody civil war, which resulted in a division of the country and the formation of a black-dominated South Sudan. Now, in the North, the fighting is between the common people and a clique of Army officers, in Darfur between Arabs of the North and the Arab tribes of Darfur, while in South Sudan, Nubian and Dinka tribes are at each other’s throats. This tableau of tragedy sees itself repeating in almost all African countries which refuse to give up their age-old tribal hatreds.

According to the World Food Program this week, Tigray is still on the cusp of a full-blown famine, with nearly half of its six million residents in "severe" need of food assistance and the majority of the remaining population needing “significant” food assistance.

Analysis

Weaponising food to draw submission from the rebels and extract concessions from the international community, the Addis Ababa regime has been allowing just a trickle of aid to flow into Tigray but not enough to meet or satisfy the demand.

But who are the victims? The price of this warfare for ethnic primacy is ultimately paid by innocent citizens, especially minorities. The poor, old and destitute are the worst sufferers in these conflicts. However, their cries seem to go unnoticed. And if they happen to be from an ethnic or religious minority, then the impact will be even more severe. Women are the worst sufferers, as has been seen in conflict zones down the ages. No degree of modernity has civilised mankind to exempt the innocent bystanders from the suffering of war, and single women, become the primary victims. As we saw in Northern Iraq, when the ISIL swarmed over the region in triumph, more than 7000 Yazidis, mostly women and children, were enslaved and distributed as chattel to fighters from as far as eastern Syria and western Iraq.

Controlling the activities of international humanitarian agencies like the ICRC, the World Food Programme etc., in rebel-controlled areas has been a well-thought-out strategy of authoritarian regimes, even if it leads to the death of thousands.

A grim example is Syria, where President Assad’s Shia-dominated military and Shia fighters from Lebanon and Iran have isolated pockets of Sunni rebels in vast tracts of urban areas in North and Central Syria. Observes Mr Andrew Morley, President & CEO of World Vision International, "The world has stood by and let this battle drag on for ten years, robbing children of their basic rights and preventing an entire generation of girls and boys from fulfilling their God-given potential."

Teju Cole, while writing about the suffering of Palestinian refugees, wrote in an essay for the Guardian in 2015, “Not all violence is hot. There's cold violence, too, which takes its time and finally gets its way." It is the violence of neglect and indignity that allows whole communities to fade away from public memory. The Nazi regime in Germany tried it with the Jew minority in the 1940s and almost got away with it. “It’s there in the way humans dismiss other humans as less worthy of protection or care. When cold violence and hot violence merge, we get mass killings inflicted on the most vulnerable,” concludes Teju Cole.

The International Rescue Committee's president, David Miliband, has emphasised how inadequate the legal, political, diplomatic, and humanitarian systems are for safeguarding civilians. Hence it is time that the international arena and regional corporations come forward with unique ways to help uphold human rights, especially in times of atrocities.