https://www.ft.com/content/4a093481-...8-c93a0264184a



David Pilling JULY 2 2021


Few leaders have seen their reputation fall so far and so fast as Abiy Ahmed. Two years ago, Ethiopia’s prime minister was being feted as a peacemaker and reformer. At the age of 43, he won the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize for emptying his country’s jails of political prisoners, making peace with opposition groups and ending a state of war with neighbouring Eritrea.

That was then. Now Abiy stands accused of pursuing a conflict in Ethiopia’s northern region of Tigray that has unleashed a horror of rape, massacres and ethnic cleansing. After months of fighting, the spectre of famine hangs over Tigray in a country where two decades of impressive economic development had appeared to banish the threat of starvation.