US warns sanctions on those preventing ceasefire as violence intensifies in Tigray

Slamming the escalating violence in Africa’s second-most populous country, Ethiopia after Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed ordered the launch of an offensive against Tigrayan rebel forces in the northern Tigray region, US State Department spokesperson Ned Price on Friday, Oct. 22, threatened sanctions on “persons preventing a ceasefire in Ethiopia's Tigray.”

During a White House briefing on Friday, Price stressed that the US remains “gravely concerned by the escalating violence, by the expansion of fighting in northern Ethiopia and in regions throughout the country.” Further, in a telephonic statement, separately, he warned that the United States was “absolutely prepared to take action under this EO [Executive Order] to impose targeted sanctions against those responsible for the ongoing crisis.” 

Outlining the growing risk to the unity and the integrity of the Ethiopian state, US State Department spokesperson Ned Price said at the briefing that the escalating conflict in the Tigray region, which PM Ahmed had said would be over in mere weeks in November, is now undermining the efforts that are “critical to keep civilians safe and to deliver humanitarian relief to those Ethiopians in dire need.” 

[Smoke from fires billows at the scene of an airstrike in Mekele, the capital of the Tigray region of northern Ethiopia. Credit: AP]

“We [US] have urged all parties to end hostilities immediately, and for the Ethiopian Government and the TPLF to enter into negotiations without preconditions toward a sustainable ceasefire,” Price stressed.

He emphasized that a ceasefire would be necessary to establish conditions for an inclusive and credible dialogue between the warring sides, and to find a political settlement to longstanding grievances that pushed the country into full blown conflict. 

Since the past 8 months, the Ethiopian-Tigrayan conflict has displaced close to 1.7 million, led to the deaths of thousands, and the region, as per the UN, has headed for a famine worse than one that claimed 250,000 lives in 2011 in Somalia. Earlier yesterday, the Ethiopian government launched an airstrike on a military base in the capital of the northern Tigray region, Mekelle, which it said was used by the TPLF. A UN plane was reportedly forced to abort a scheduled landing in Mekelle.

Fighting also escalated in Amhara, a neighbouring region seized by TPLF where at least 500,000 have been displaced, sending the residents in Dessie into a panic. The area was reported to have run out of food stock three days ago. The widespread humanitarian crisis precipitated by the violent conflict in northern Ethiopia has rendered millions in need of humanitarian assistance helpless, and on the brink of famine.

[AP Photo]

US Prez issued an executive order on sanction last month

On September 17, last month, US President Joe Biden had issued an executive order sanctioning Ethiopian officials and organizations involved in widespread violence, ethnic-based violence, rape and other forms of gender-based violence, and obstruction of humanitarian operations atrocities, and serious human rights abuse in the African country. Biden argued that the Ethiopian conflict constitutes an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to the national security and foreign policy of the United States, thereby declaring a national emergency to deal with that threat. The sanctions, although, were put on hold to see if the warring sides were willing to resolve the dispute. Fighting in northern Tigray, Ethiopia erupted in November 2020 after the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) launched an offensive on an Ethiopian military base, prompting a counter-attack from Ethiopia.