Tigray witness: Food prices drop as ceasefire takes hold

Following last week’s signing of a truce to end fighting in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray, things feel different in the regional capital, Mekelle.

Drones are no longer flying over the city, people are starting to go out without fear, and a relatively normal life is returning to the city.

People are desperate for humanitarian aid. They also want the main roads to open so that they can travel again.

Spiralling food prices have started to stabilise, and even fall. For instance the price of teff, the grain used to make the staple injera, a pancake-like fermented bread, is down by around 40%.

The price of a bag of wheat has fallen from 9,000 Ethiopian birr ($168; £145) to 3,000 Ethiopian birr ($56).

The prices of oil, sugar and pepper are also decreasing as supplies slowly trickle through.

On the street, everyone talks about the peace agreement signed by the Ethiopian government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) in South Africa, and are following its developments.

News is not easy to get here, people crowd around radios on the street.

There is very little power.

Rahel Abay, a mother of two, is optimistic: “At least, we have started to move around without constant fear of drone attacks.”

Many people in the city expressed similar feelings.

“We, the Tigrayan people, as any people in Ethiopia want to live peacefully. We know how much war costs us. But we want the parties in the peace agreement to implement the truce,” Belay Takelle, 32, said.

Like many others, he has reservations about the presence of Eritrean troops in Tigray.

“I want to listen to the news about the withdrawal of the ‘Sha’ebiya’ [Eritrean army] from my land,” he said.

Eritrean forces were deployed into Tigray at the start of the war in November 2020 to support the Ethiopian army in its conflict with Tigrayan forces.

One of the crucial issues under discussion is the disarmament of the Tigrayan army. People I spoke to agreed that the Ethiopian constitution has to be respected. This means not having this regional army co-existing with the Ethiopian army so it must disband.

However, they do not trust the Ethiopian army, which they accuse of committing many atrocities against civilians over the last two years.

Politics here is not easy.

The TPLF has promised to implement the peace agreement, but the day the deal was signed, three opposition parties rejected it, saying it was damaging to the interests of Tigrayans.

BBC Africa