Human Rights Watch (HRW) expressed dissatisfaction on this year’s Agricola Medal award that has been given to Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed.
It was on January 28 that the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) awarded Abiy the Agricola Medal for his “contribution to rural and economic development in Ethiopia.”
For Human Rights Watch’s Horn of Africa Director Laetitia Bader, “the award may come as a surprise given Ethiopia’s dire humanitarian crisis and reports of widespread food insecurity.”
Abiy receiving FAO's Agricola Medal
In her article published on the HRW’s website on January 30, 2024, Bader cited Ethiopia’s disaster risk management commission and the national food cluster that estimated four million people need urgent food and nutrition assistance in Tigray, Afar, and Amhara, regions that have suffered from a devastating two-year-long armed conflict, as well as in parts of Oromia and the country’s southern regions.
In Tigray, the risk was not a byproduct of war, but rather the consequences of deliberate tactics adopted by Ethiopian government forces under Abiy, she stressed.
According to the Director, the government and allied forces pillaged and attacked food systems, and in June 2021 authorities imposed an effective siege of Tigray.
In September 2022, a report by an independent UN inquiry found that Ethiopian government tactics to “deprive the population of Tigray of material services indispensable to its survival” amounted to the use of starvation as a weapon of war and crimes against humanity, she states.
Throughout the conflict, Bader mentions that world leaders, the UN and other international bodies did little to condemn these policies or take concrete measures to stop them.
Even after the government’s siege eased with the November 2022 ceasefire agreement, she remarked that reports emerged that authorities were diverting food aid meant for the hungry.
Following these reports, according to the Director, the World Food Programme (WFP) and the US Agency for International Development announced in June 2023 that they would suspend food aid throughout the country.
Bader notes in her article that food insecurity continues in Tigray, Afar, as well as in Amhara, where ongoing fighting between Ethiopian government forces and armed groups is exacerbating needs.
She calls on world leaders to recognize the reality of Ethiopia’s humanitarian catastrophe and the deliberate government actions that contribute to that suffering.
Sheger Hours recently reported that a humanitarian crisis would happen in Tigray unless immediate and drastic measures are taken.
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