‘Weight of responsibility’: Promise and perils of covering Ethiopia’s war

Al Jazeera correspondent shares his experience of covering the latest fighting between government forces and Tigray rebels. Save Share Addis Ababa, Ethiopia –On September 23, fighting erupted in Ethiopia’s northern region of Tigray, shattering the peace agreement between the Ethiopian government and Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) signed nearly four years ago. The latest fighting between the federal government-backed Tigray Peace Force (TPF) and TPLF started in the Erbeti area of Ethiopia’s Afar region after the 2022 peace deal unravelled over disarmament and territorial claims. For me, the latest war is more than a story unfolding on television. It brought back painful memories of what I had experienced during my reporting in November 2021. The previous episode of fighting killed more than half a million people and displaced about 2 million others by the time the rival sides signed a deal to end the war in 2022. After I was assigned to cover the fighting, I was once again faced with the challenge any war correspondent faces: how to stand in the midst of active fighting as a witness to the truth. Soon, our team set off from the capital, Addis Ababa, to the Afar region and then to Mekelle, the capital of the Tigray region, covering the journey by road. When I reached Erbeti, about 900km (560 miles) northeast of Addis Ababa, I hoped to catch my breath for a few hours and organise our coverage. Instead, events overtook us immediately. Residents were leaving the town, which, until the previous day, had seemed safe. Small trucks and cars were piled with belongings. Men hurried to load whatever they could carry as families tried to get away before the fighting drew closer. As we were still figuring out what to do next, loud sounds of shelling shook us. We decided to leave Erbeti only hours after arriving as staying would put the team’s lives at risk. That had not been the plan. But war pays little attention to a correspondent’s plans. We withdrew towards Afdera, about 100km (60 miles) to the east via unpaved roads. Afdera is a small town that serves as the administrative centre for the district of the same name in the Afar region, known for its salt mining. We spent the night inside our car in the middle of the desert with the temperature hovering above 35 degrees Celsius (95 degrees Fahrenheit). The next day, we started early to review information, make calls, prepare footage for reports and coordinate with the newsroom in Doha, Qatar....