Addis Ababa, September 12, 2022 (FBC) – Professor Ann-Fitz-Gerald is the first scholar to methodically investigate what is really happening in the northern Ethiopia after the conflict had begun.
Ann Fitz-Gerald who a Professor of International Security and Director of the Balsillie School of International Affairs shed light on how the TPLF was recruiting child soldiers and mobilizing them to war through her detailed study she conducted half a year ago by physically contacting the victims.
In an exclusive interview with Fana Broadcasting Corporate (FBC), Professor Ann Fitz-Gerald recalled that the children she interviewed for the study had been forcibly recruited to fight and they surrendered to the federal authorities or to local communities who sheltered them.
She said that the rebels, by undermining the peace efforts by the government, have continued recruiting and using child soldiers and diverting humanitarian aid.
The Professor noted that similar researches must be conducted on the conflict in the northern Ethiopia to help the international community clearly understand what is really happening in Ethiopia.
“I travelled across the conflict affected areas of Afar and Amhara regions including North and South Wollo Zones. It is important to recognize that the five districts that were deeply affected by the conflict in Afar. People in Tigray have also been impacted by this conflict as well,” she recalled.
She recounted horrendous crimes committed by TPLF in Amhara and Afar regions. “It was heartbreaking. I passed numerous mass graves. I physically witnessed the destruction of universities, health services and health centers, bridges, and religious institutions.”
“I saw the remnants of Holy Koran, and books had been littered, and books used for ablutions had been left in a very devastating state of disarray. I witnessed children who have died after they had been uprooted from their homes in northern Afar.”
During its second invasion in Amhara and Afar region, the TPLF used heavy artillery and snipers and other sorts of weaponry that had not been used in the first campaign and this had forced most of the population to flee their homes because they were unable to defend themselves.
“And that initiated quite a long walk to what became makeshift refugee camps in the Afdera region and down around the capital of the region, Semera.”
Professor Ann Fitz-Gerald remembered that she saw a women giving birth to children on the side of the road in Afar Region.
“And when I arrived at the refugee camps, there was no water; I saw long lines of empty containers of water. The same was happening in Amhara Region. I witnessed the dire humanitarian situation caused by TPLF in Gashena and other parts of North Wollo Zone in Amhara Region.”
“I think this has been one of the big disappointments of the media coverage on this conflict. So, we can say that the conflict is also an information war on Ethiopia. It is a war of high levels of propaganda, and the truth got obscured due to biased media coverage,” she noted.
What was really happening and the narratives by the international media are very different and the words being used to describe the conflict are not altogether correct and helpful.
Still now the war is taking place in Afar and Amhara Regions. But commentators and organizations have continued to report as the war is being fought in Tigray region.
I think that the global information network that has supported TPLF narrative. And I think messages contorted the realities and they are dominated by people who were nowhere near the conflict.
I didn’t see a normal kind of media coverage of this conflict. And, there was reluctance by other groups to travel into Amara and Afar regions to get a glimpse of what was happening on the ground there, the Professor said.
The media need to play a constructive role by informing the world in a very investigative way on what is happening on the ground, she stressed.
The media is reporting from a distance and relying on telephone calls and satellite media images to create stories, and those stories are being published and then picked up by other media groups that that weren’t based in Ethiopia, according to the Professor.
The families in Tigray Region are still being forced to give their children to the TPLF force as per the conscription program of the rebel group which requires one fighter per family.
“A family would be denied any aid, and family members will be imprisoned if they refuse to offer their children for war,” she explained.
“The silence of the international community on the use of child soldiers by TPLF deeply concerns me. I have seen such issues in countries where I have worked in several years ago. The rights groups were speaking out quite quickly about the issue of child soldiers by the rebels groups in these countries. For instance, the use of child soldier by the Lord’s Resistance Army leaders became a foreign policy priority for the United States and Special Forces were sent on the ground to help bolster the capacity of the Ugandan Defense Force to hunt down the rebels. The international community should give similar attention to the issues in Ethiopia, and force the TPLF to stop using child soldiers and diverting humanitarian aid meant for the people in need,” Professor Ann Fitz-Gerald underscored.