The ruling Prosperity Party of Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has secured a resounding victory in national elections, but the celebration is muted by escalating fears of renewed conflict and a looming humanitarian crisis that has UK aid agencies scrambling to prepare for the worst.
Sources close to the National Electoral Board confirm the party captured over 80% of parliamentary seats, a result that critics say was inevitable given the suppression of opposition voices and the ongoing state of emergency in several regions. The opposition, fragmented and largely boycotted the polls, decries the outcome as a rubber stamp for a government already accused of war crimes in Tigray.
Yet the real story lies not in the ballot boxes but on the ground. Uncovered documents from internal government briefings reveal a stark warning: the security situation in the northern Tigray region and the volatile Oromia area is deteriorating by the day. The ceasefire Aden’s government signed last month is barely holding. Armed groups, including the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, have regrouped. Military convoys move under constant ambush. Civilians flee as food and medicine run out.
UK aid agencies, already stretched by the pandemic and cascading global crises, now predict a surge in refugee flows and acute malnutrition. One senior official from a major non-governmental organisation told me off the record: “We’re looking at a perfect storm. The election has handed Abiy a mandate. But it’s a mandate to keep fighting. Aid corridors are blocked. We cannot reach the people who need us most.”
Official figures from the United Nations paint a grim picture. Nearly 400,000 people face famine-like conditions in Tigray alone. Millions more are displaced across the country. The UK Foreign Office, in a quietly circulated memo, acknowledges that “the humanitarian situation is likely to worsen significantly in the coming months.” Yet Whitehall has been slow to commit additional funds. The discrepancy between public reassurances and private panic is a story in itself.
Follow the money. International donors, including the United Kingdom, have poured billions into Ethiopia in recent years, much of it tied to political reforms and economic liberalisation. But those reforms are now a distant memory. The cash is being diverted to military spending. Sources inside the Ethiopian Ministry of Finance confirm that the defence budget has doubled since the war in Tigray began. The question is: whose money is funding these weapons?
Behind the scenes, UK aid agencies are preparing contingency plans for multiple scenarios. One spreadsheet, leaked to this newsroom, details worst-case projections: up to 1.5 million people could cross into Sudan and Kenya by the end of the year. The document is marked “sensitive” and urges “pre-positioning of emergency supplies.” But pre-positioning requires cash. And cash is being withheld.
The corridors of power are conspicuously quiet. The Prime Minister’s office issued a statement vowing “peace and prosperity,” but no one I speak to believes it. A former diplomat who served in Addis Ababa put it bluntly: “This is a regime that has learned nothing. They have won an election. They will lose the country.”
The bodies are piling up. The money is being laundered through arms deals. And the UK government is caught between its humanitarian obligations and its strategic interests. The clock is ticking. Brace for the fallout.
