Umamah Bakharia 

The Ethiopian government has called for a formal Tigray ceasefire agreement to be reached as soon as possible that will help to enable the resumption of essential services to the war-stricken northern region.

In June, a committee was established to enter talks with Tigrayan rebels to draw up a “peaceful proposal” to end the war that erupted in November 2002.  The announcement came on the same day that the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) described the situation in Tigray as the “worst humanitarian crisis in the world”.

Speaking to Radio Islam International on this week’s ‘Media Lens’, analyst Ebrahim Deen says there is hope negotiations will happen between the two bodies.

“We see the government and the TPLF at the moment stating their positions; it does seem as though negotiation will happen whether or not these are successful or not because there are very serious issues that need to be discussed,” says Deen.

He adds that the media’s response to the Tigray region has been “shockingly untextualised and sometimes inaccurate.” Adding that “there is no independent reporting on the Ethiopian issue.”

In Ethiopia, the government has banned media from entering the Tigray region and reporting.

However, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) has dismissed the committee’s call as “obfuscation”, adding that the government of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed had shown no sincere appetite for dialogue.