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Senate Democrats led by Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., are pressing Secretary of State Marco Rubio to intervene as renewed fighting in the Tigray region of Ethiopia raises fears of a return to the 2020-2022 civil war. In a statement shared first with Semafor, the senators warn that the African Union-brokered deal ending that war, an agreement Washington backed, is “unraveling.” The group of senators — which includes all Democratic members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s Africa panel — criticized both sides of the conflict. They condemned a drone strike on a truck carrying US-funded food aid for displaced people in northwestern Tigray in which the Ethiopian military is suspected, and accused the Tigrayan forces of undermining the region’s interim government, refusing to disarm, and forcibly conscripting civilians. They also faulted the Trump administration for letting sanctions on regional actors lapse days before hostilities resumed.
— Adrian Elimian
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Tensions in Tigray have escalated for months with clashes and airstrikes. Last week, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front declared a “defensive war” before its forces seized key locations and pushed into neighboring Afar and Amhara regions. Just days before, the TPLF publicly allied with other Ethiopian armed groups aiming to overthrow the federal government.
The renewed conflict has heightened fears of further destabilization in a volatile region beset by other conflicts in Sudan, Somalia, and Yemen. The 2020-2022 Tigray war killed more than 100,000 people and contributed to famine in the region.
Washington’s approach has been mixed. The administration imposed sanctions in June on unnamed TPLF officials it said were undermining peace, but let the 2021 executive order behind the broader Ethiopia sanctions program expire this month. The State Department condemned the aid convoy strike without naming who was responsible.