With so many people at risk of starvation in the Tigray region (northern Ethiopia), the announcement of a humanitarian truce in the region is a "poor sign of progress," the Guardian newspaper said.
The newspaper stated - in its editorial - that no matter how weak the hope was, the glimmer of hope for peace was limited;
A cessation of hostilities - even for a short period - remains welcome in a brutal war that has claimed the lives of many civilians, witnessed atrocities on all sides, and caused the displacement of two million people from their homes.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said this month that "nowhere on earth" - not even in Ukraine - people are more at risk than in the Tigray region, where the conflict is taking place "out of sight and out of mind".
According to the newspaper, it is estimated that up to half a million people have died in the province as a result of famine and the ongoing war there since late 2020 between government forces and Tigray Liberation Front fighters.
The United Nations has also warned that more than 90% of the region's population is in dire need of assistance, and that food stocks left from last season - which is only half of the usual crop - will soon run out in light of what it describes as a "virtual government siege" that halted land shipments, leaving the population to depend On the rarest and most expensive air shipments, which prevented the delivery of aid to only 7,000 people out of the 870,000 that the organization tried to help each week.
Last week, the federal government announced an immediate humanitarian truce to allow aid deliveries, while Tigray officials said they were monitoring its implementation as long as sufficient aid arrived within "reasonable" deadlines.
The first trucks in more than 100 days arrived in the region on Friday, but there are still doubts that Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed may seek to allay international donors' concerns by allowing symbolic shipments to pass through instead of the estimated 100 trucks a day that is necessary.
But the Tigray region - as the newspaper adds - does not only need food and medicine, but also seeds for the agricultural season, which begins within weeks, as well as restoring banking services, trade, communications and refueling.
The Tigray Liberation Front accuses the federal government and officials in the neighboring Afar region of stopping the trucks, while Addis Ababa says that it was Tigray fighters who blocked the roads as part of efforts to escalate the fighting between the Front and Afar forces.
The Guardian stresses that this temporary cessation of hostilities in Tigray appears somewhat promising, but it is unclear if the Ethiopian government has a plan to launch a meaningful peace process, let alone whether either side of the conflict is willing to make the concessions necessary to reach an agreement.