'It was hell' Grief and joy as Tigray reconnects to the world

When Lemlem read that phone lines had been restored to parts of Ethiopia's war-torn Tigray region last month, she attempted to call her elderly mother, who lives in the Tigrayan town of Adwa.

- Fred Harter

"I tried 20 or 30 times but the call wouldn't go through," Lemlem said from her home in Maryland in the US. "When I finally heard her voice, it was so emotional. We were crying together and I was just so happy. For two years, I didn't know if she was alive."

Tigray's 6 million people were plunged into darkness when war erupted between Ethiopia's federal government and the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) in November 2020, their phone lines, internet, roads and air links severed.

The fighting that followed killed 500,000 people from all causes, including starvation and disease, according to the UN, whose human rights investigators have unearthed evidence of widespread killings and rape. UN and US officials say restrictions on aid have pushed hundreds of thousands of people in Tigray to the edge of famine. All sides stand accused of abuses.

Now Tigrayans are reconnecting after Ethiopia's government restored phone and mobile internet services to parts of the region in late December, implementing a key part of a ceasefire deal signed on 2 November.