Ethiopia’s Largest Bank Resumes Service in Tigray Region

On 2 November, a ceasefire deal was reached between Ethiopia’s federal government and the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), putting an end to nearly two years of fighting in the region of Tigray in the north of the country, where an unidentified number of people were killed and more than two million were displaced.

The Commercial Bank of Ethiopia (CBE) has resumed operations in the Tigray region more than two years since the shutdown of the bank’s branches in the war-torn region, Ethiopia’s largest bank announced on Monday.

“Following the peace agreement reached recently, the [CBE] branches we have in the cities of Shire, Alamata and Korem have started receiving money sent from abroad and locally as well as depositing money,” the bank said. “Our bank was forced to suspend banking services because of the instability in the northern part of the country.”

The CBE pledged to continue efforts to reopen all of its branches in the Tigray region as soon as conditions permitted it to enable local residents to access their funds after the bank’s long closure.

The CBE’s resumption of services in Tigray came seven weeks after a peace agreement was signed between the Ethiopian federal government and the Tigray People's Liberation Front in South Africa on 2 November, ending a two-year conflict.

During the conflict the region was deprived of many services, including banking, communications, electricity and fuel.

Earlier in December, Ethiopia’s electricity operator finished reconnecting the northern region to the country’s national power grid, after a suspension of services lasting more than a year.

The peace agreement also eased the way for humanitarian aid, the access to which was previously restricted. According to the United Nations, humanitarian aid remains insufficient for the needs of the Tigray population, as more than 90 percent of the population of six million now depends on humanitarian aid.