It has been over 48 hours since Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed announced a “unilateral indefinite humanitarian truce” to relieve civilian suffering of famine and lack of medical supplies to Tigray. Many including this writer were suspicious of the veracity of this announcement. The complete lack of any arrival of relief has caused 2000 people to die and 1000 more will die everyday this promise is not keep. Instead over 230 buses loaded with armed soldiers have departed from the Wollo region in Ahmara and are scheduled to disembark at Kobo on Amhara Tigray border.
This new negative and nefarious development is reminiscent of the fake projection of famine relief portrayed by the Derg Regime tyrant, Mengistu Haile Mariam, during the Ethiopian famine from 1983 to 1985. He initially claimed to put together groups of scientists and others to study the problem and reason a solution. Instead what they came up with was a devious punishment of forced displacement, murder, and mayhem that resulted in deaths of at least one million over the two year period. The most affected areas were Tigray, Wollo, and Eritrea.
As a result of the delayed response to that famine international relief organizations and United Nations members were supposed to create better famine prevention and response mechanisms. Millions contributed to fund drives and some foreign militaries airdropped food. But today the UN and western democracies are exhibiting too much patience that may once again kill a million or more people with a leader of Ethiopia whose record of treachery seems intent to exceed the evil done by his idol Mengistu Haile Mariam with the use of starvation as a weapon of war.