NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — For a year and a half, phone calls to people trying to survive one of the world’s worst wars went unfinished. Now as phone lines start to be restored in parts of Tigray in Ethiopia region after a fragile peace agreementsome Tigrayans feel relieved while others grieve.
“I was afraid of receiving phone calls,” said a Tigrayan living in Norway, who like others spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals against their relatives. “You want to talk to your family, but you don’t know what kind of stories you’re going to hear, in terms of who’s still alive.”
The conflict between Ethiopian and allied forces against the Tigray side is estimated to have killed hundreds of thousands of people since late 2020, according to the United Nations and the United States, citing academic research. The UN Secretary General has said that more people have died in this conflict than in Ukraine.
Only now are many Tigrayans beginning to learn the fate of their loved ones, as phone lines are reconnected in some areas that have returned to the control of the Ethiopian federal government.
On December 10, Tigrayan in Norway spoke to his father and brothers in the central city of Adwa for the first time since June 2021.
“I didn’t know if they were still alive, so it was a shock to hear their voices,” he said. “I didn’t know where to start. I had to hang up and call them later. … It was really special.”
But the call also brought painful news: Her family told her that seven villagers in her home village, 30 kilometers (18 miles) south of Adwa, had been killed after Ethiopian and allied forces from neighboring Eritrea seized the control of the area in October, a few days before the peace agreement was signed.
In recent days, social media has been inundated with posts from Tigrayans claiming to have learned of the death of their loved ones. The most prominent was the director general of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
“I was informed that my uncle was killed by the Eritrean army,” he told reporters last week. “I spoke to my mother and she was really devastated because he was the youngest in her family and almost the same age as me, a young uncle.”
Tigray’s banking, telephone and internet services were first cut off for the region of more than 5 million people when the conflict began. They were restored in some areas in early 2021 as the federal government tried to assert control, but were cut off again when Tigray forces retook most of the region in June 2021.
The communication blackout it is “the longest continuous shutdown in the world,” according to Internet rights group Access Now. The Ethiopian government, which has banned journalists from traveling to Tigray, says the closure is necessary for security reasons.
Human rights experts have said the blackout has helped fuel abuses by troops who trust their crimes will not reach the outside world. All parties have been accused of atrocities, in particular the Eritrean forces, which carried out a campaign of murder, gang rape and forced starvation and continue in parts of Tigray. Eritrea was not part of the peace agreement and remains a great challenge for its implementation.
The terms of the agreement signed in South Africa on November 2 commit the Ethiopian government to restoring basic services in Tigray. Humanitarian aid is arriving again after months of restrictions and several places have been reconnected to the national electricity grid. Limited banking services returned in some places this week.
But areas under the control of Tigray forces, such as the regional capital of Mekele, are still cut off by phone from the outside world. And even in areas where phone lines have been restored, the connection is unstable and calls often don’t go through.
A Tigrayan who lives in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa said he spoke with his father in the Shire city of Tigray last Friday. It was the first time they had spoken since May 2021.
“We were very worried about our families, so talking to him was very good,” he said. “At the same time, we are very saddened to learn that some of our family members died in the war. It is not full happiness. I found out that two people had died from my father. One could not find medicine, the other did not tell me. It was very difficult to ask him that.”
Meanwhile, Tigrayans with relatives in areas still under the control of Tigray forces are still waiting for news from their relatives, with anticipation mixed with fear.
“Peace is good, but I still haven’t been able to talk to my parents,” said a Tigrayan official in Addis Ababa. “They live around Adigrat and Zalambessa. There were a lot of Eritrean troops there, so I fear what happened to them during the recent fighting.”
