Revisiting The Tigray War Using Geospatial Technology.
It is sad that i have to revisit this topic again, if you are aware, i wrote about it a month ago hoping things would have improved in the near future. Unfortunately, things have gone from bad to worse, with signs of imminent danger ahead. That is, the worst is yet to come.
I am talking about the Tigray War which seems to be getting worse. According to the New York Times, the latest development is that fighters from Ethiopia’s northern region of Tigray and their allies are pressing south toward the capital, Addis Ababa, after driving government troops from Tigray in June.
Led by the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, rebel fighters captured two key towns on the main highway leading to Addis in late October. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed appealed to citizens to take up arms to block the fighters’ advance, which he said was “pushing the country to its demise”.
According to the BBC, at least 400,000 people are facing famine-like conditions in the north, 80% of essential medication is not available and more than two million people have been forced from their homes.The federal government has been accused of deliberately preventing aid from reaching Tigray, which it denies.
US and UK citizens have been told to leave Ethiopia “while commercial flights are readily available”, in the words of a British minister, the BBC reports.
The situation in Tigray is getting desperate by the minutes as the two maps illustrate. Are we going to see another Afghanistan situation where the world watched the Taliban take over the country? If so, then this will be a huge shame to the International community.
Geospatial technology has been the go to tool for monitoring the tigray rebel forces and the ground they are cover in their conquest to take over the capital city.
Almost all International Media houses and International Non governmental Organisations have used some sort of remote sensing/geospatial software to report on the humanitarian situation on the ground.
Lets hope i do not have to write about this issue again, or if i do, it will be all in the past and things on the ground would have been better because ideally a solution would have presented itself where both warring parties give peace a chance.
