The impact of the Tigray war can be felt thousands of miles across the Atlantic as it has caused social tensions amongst the Ethiopian-American immigrant community, ripping old ties and friendships apart.
Shawel Betru knows the heavy toll war takes on ordinary civilians. Because he has seen it all. He has even survived one back home in Ethiopia, lived through hell in a camp for internally displaced people . The Ethiopian-American was displaced from his village and spent some time in a refugee camp after his father — a farmer drawn into the military — and two siblings were killed in the 1977 Ogaden War, or the Ethio-Somali War.
For months they have held protests, both for and against the TPLF. They are divided over Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed's leadership, the role of the UN, the US and its allies, and the Western media."We used to meet after church prayers every week," an Ethiopian taxi driver of Oromo ethnicity, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said of her Tigrayan friend.
"I was in Addis at that time. I stayed there for more , extending my flight back to the US. However, nothing happened. Despite the false propaganda by several western media outlets, Addis was alive and vibrant as always," Yismu, a pharmacist, toldYismu continues holding discussions with her Tigrayan friends in the US regarding the situation back home, "but the current situation definitely [has] created tensions.
She said her husband being an Amhara is pro-PM Abiy and has gone to Ethiopia "citing church services." At the heart of the current escalation is TPLF's landslide election victory in Tigray region in September 2018 – a vote that was branded illegal by the federal authorities. TPLF pressed on with the vote in a direct challenge to Addis Ababa which had postponed all regional and national elections because of the coronavirus pandemic.
While it's too soon to predict a permanent truce, the Ethiopian diaspora remains divided over media coverage and Western governments' role in the ongoing war.