The war in Tigray is taking a frightful human toll

“LIKE FLOURTPLFTPLFTPLF scattered in the wind” is how Abiy Ahmed, Ethiopia’s prime minister, describes the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (), the ethnically based party that called the shots in Ethiopia for almost three decades. By this he means it is crushed, never to revive. There is no denying that its power has waned. In 2018 the lost control of the federal government, making way for the ascent of Abiy. Then last November his forces kicked the out of its seat in the regional government of Tigray, a northern state, killing or capturing some of its leaders and sending the rest into hiding.But Abiy’s description is apt in another way too. His forces are now battling invisible guerrillas whom they are unable completely to subdue. Last year, soon after federal troops entered Mekelle, the Tigrayan capital, Abiy declared victory. Now he admits that defeating “an enemy which is in hiding” will be “very difficult”.