Ethiopia lifted a five-month suspension of Norwegian Refugee Council aid work after it cleared the organisation of allegations of misinformation. The government ordered the NRC, along with M decins Sans Fronti res MSF to stop working for three months in July, including operations in the Tigray conflict zone. Both organisations were ordered to stop their humanitarian work in July, but the suspension of MSF was lifted in October and the NRCs were extended.
In a statement, Jan Egeland, NRC secretary general, said it was heartbreaking that we were unable to reach our goal of serving more than half a million in Ethiopia in 2021.
It will take time to reach as many people as we did before the suspension, as we have to restart. We lost many of our staff. We need permits for our international staff to return, and we need to be able to pay our suppliers. NRC was given a warning from the government over future advocacy on humanitarian needs.
Who is fighting the war in Ethiopia? Ethiopia's national military has an estimated 140,000 troops and is one of the largest standing armed forces in Africa. Its air force has fighter jets and armed drones. The ENDF has had a lot of experience fighting wars with Eritrea, quelling rebellions and confronting Islamist militants in Somalia. The TPLF dominated the political alliance that ruled Ethiopia for nearly 30 years until anti-government protests swept Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed to power in 2018. At the beginning of the fighting, the TPLF had a large force and well-trained local militia, possibly numbering 250,000 men in total. They were battle-hardened, having led the struggle that toppled Ethiopia's autocratic regime in 1991 and fighting a brutal border war with Eritrea. The Oromo Liberation Army, an insurgent group bent on overthrowing Abiy, has linked up with the TPLF on the battlefield. In May Ethiopia declared the TPLF and OLA terrorist organisations, helping to nudge the historic foes towards an unlikely military pact against their common enemy. The OLA broke out of the Oromo Liberation Front, an opposition party that spent years in exile but was allowed to return to Ethiopia after Abiy took office. It is believed to have a population in the low thousands, fighting for self-determination for the Oromo, Ethiopia's largest ethnic group. Abiy's government has accused the OLA of massacres, because of the longstanding grievances with ethnic Amharas. Since the war began, regular and irregular combatants from Amhara have been a major ally of government forces. These militias occupied areas of southern Tigray and seized the fertile west of the region, which ethnic Amharas consider part of their homeland. Over the last year, ethnic Amharas have returned to western Tigray and occupied abandoned homes and farmland in a state-backed campaign the United States has described as ethnic cleansing Amharas claim western Tigray was stolen from them decades ago when the TPLF ruled the country. Their involvement in the conflict has spawned ethnic hostilities. As the TPLF has advanced further into the region, Amhara leaders have warned that their very existence is at stake and urged locals to join the fight. Tigray borders Eritrea, whose leader Isaias Afwerki is close to Abiy and a sworn enemy of the TPLF, which ruled Ethiopia when both countries fought their border war. For months, Addis Ababa and Asmara denied the presence of Eritrean troops in Tigray despite persistent eyewitness testimony to the contrary. Abiy finally acknowledged their presence in March and said their departure was imminent. They are still in Tigray and it is not clear whether Abiy can make them leave or afford to let them go. The NRC had been providing food, clean water, shelter, education and legal help to 25,000 people when it was ordered to suspend its operations.
At the time, the UN said that the bans were dangerous and Ethiopia needed evidence to back up its claims that the aid groups were spreading misinformation.
MSF was banned in the Tigray, Gambella, Amhara and Somali regions. The organisation was accused of bringing in satellite communication equipment without authorisation and not getting the correct permits for employees, along with spreading misinformation.
In September, the organisation said the suspension had forced it to discharge patients from clinics at short notice, and meant it couldn't help people affected by the Tigray conflict, refugees from South Sudan and people suffering from neglected tropical diseases.
The three-month suspension was lifted in late October but it was difficult to restart operations, according to MSF.
The spokesperson said that although we are permitted to resume our work, it has not been possible to restart medical programmes due to the current security situation and administrative obstacles.
In November, MSF was forced to suspend work in some parts of the country for safety reasons.
MSF considers it difficult to restart and expand its response to address the needs faced by the Ethiopian people in many areas of the country despite the large scale of humanitarian needs. MSF said it was talking with government and other parties to find ways to continue providing medical services.