Peace negotiations around Tigray continue to hunt Attila Hildmann – this photo revealed the conspiracy theorist

A “peaceful and lasting solution” to the Tigray War has been discussed for the third day today. The war has plunged northern Ethiopia into a serious humanitarian crisis since November 2020 (we reported).

The two main parties in the talks are the Ethiopian government and representatives of the Ethiopian local party TPLF. Talks started on Tuesday in Pretoria, South Africa, and are expected to last until Sunday, according to the South African presidency. The meeting in Pretoria is the first public dialogue between the two sides.

While South Africa hosts the peace talks, they are mainly conducted by representatives of the African Union (AU). The AU delegation is led by former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo and also includes former Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta and former South African Vice President Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka. Washington said a US envoy, Mike Hammer, is also participating in the negotiations.

The content of the conversations has not been disclosed and the media are kept at a distance.

Fighting flared up again in August after a five-month truce. Ethiopian and Eritrean forces recently announced that they have taken several towns, including Shire, one of the key towns in the Tigray region.

The humanitarian disaster in Tigray is dramatic because of the war. The United Nations is concerned about the renewed violence hampering aid delivery to this region of six million people.

But the press has no access to northern Ethiopia and communication there is chaotic, making independent verification of information very difficult. US Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield on Friday estimated that “up to half a million people have died” in the past two years. The war has also displaced and nearly starved more than two million Ethiopians, according to the United Nations.

(yum)