Tigray’s Complex Emergency, Expulsions and the Aspirations of the Responsibility to Protect

This article observes that with the intensification of humanitarian crisis in Tigray and the Horn of Africa region, an important question re-emerges: how could the international community, in cooperation with national and local actors, provide protection to vulnerable civilian populations against state repression? How could this be even possible when international practitioners face the threat of expulsions and the local human rights groups face possible retaliation. The violent civil war raging in Tigray once again reveals that the responsibility to protect (R2P) norm often encounters a paradox – state sovereignty vs international community’s responsibility.