Houston activists rally for U.S. aid in Ethiopia conflict
Members of Houston’s Tigray community on Monday called for U.S. leaders to step in against the Ethiopian government, which has captured large swaths of the dissident northern region after earlier this month launching a military offensive.
At a protest outside the United Arab Emirates’ Houston consulate, board members of the nonprofit group Tigray Community Houston and activist Quanell X denounced Ethiopia Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed over allegations that he had secured the help of UAE drones against Tigray.
The protesters said the drones came from the U.S., which recently announced plans to sell as much as $2.9 billion worth of MQ-9 Reaper drones to the UAE. Three U.S. senators said lastweek they would attempt to halt the sale, which has not yet been carried out. An advisor to the leader of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front alleged on Twitter earlier
this month that Abiy “is now enlisting the support of #UAE drones based in Assab,” a port city in neighboring Eritrea.
Abiy announced Nov. 6 that his government had conducted air
strikes against forces in Tigray, but Ethiopia’s use of UAE drones has not been confirmed.
The conflict began days earlier — following months of tension —
when Abiy accused Tigray leaders of attacking an Ethiopian Army base. Tigrayan officials say the conflict has displaced 100,000 people, while the United Nations has said another 1.1 million people may need aid, though there is no official tally of the number of fatalities, Bloomberg reported Sunday.
“This is all happening under the watch of the United States and the entire international community,” said Yosef Kidane, a Tigray Community Houston board member.
At the protest on Post Oak Boulevard, which began with about 75 attendees, Kidane called on elected officials from Texas, including Sens. John Cornyn and Ted Cruz and local congress members, to pass a resolution demanding an
end to the conflict.
Quanell X, a community activist, said Black people in America should care about the conflict in Tigray
because residents of the north Ethiopian region “are our brothers and sisters.”
“We as Black people
have to understand that we’re not just Black in America, but we are Black all around the world,” Quanell X said. “And the suffering of our people in Tigray is our suffering also. We must make that connection.”
At various points, protesters broke out in chants of “stop killing the people of Tigray” and “stop genocide in Tigray.”
Tibor Nagy, the assistant secretary for the U.S. State Department;’s Bureau of African Affairs, said in a Nov. 15 tweet that the U.S. “strongly condemns the TPLF’s unjustifiable attacks against Eritrea on November 14 and its efforts to internationalize the conflict in Tigray,” a reference to a rocket attack on Eritrea’s capital.
Nagy said U.S. officials “continue to urge immediate action to protect civilians, deescalate tensions, and restore peace.”
Abiy on Sunday issued a 72-hour ultimatum for TPLF leaders to surrender.