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By CARA ANNA Associated Press NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Ethiopia's government says its security forces shot at and detained United Nations staffers as they tried to reach part of the embattled Tigray region. Senior official Redwan Hussein told reporters that the U.N. staffers were to blame because they 'broke' two checkpoints to go to areas where 'they were not supposed to go.' He said the staffers have since been released. The shooting occurred amid soaring frustration among humanitarians as aid is still not freely reaching the Tigray region more than a week after the U.N. and Ethiopia's government signed a […]
The post Ethiopia's forces shoot at, detain UN staffers in Tigray appeared first on Black News Channel.
He replaces Debretsion Gebremichael, whose immunity from prosecution was removed Thursday.
Meanwhile, Amnesty International said Thursday that scores of civilians were killed in a \"massacre\" in the Tigray region, that witnesses blamed on forces backing the local ruling party.
The \"massacre\" is the first reported incident of large-scale civilian fatalities in a week-old conflict between the regional ruling party, the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), and the government of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, winner of last year's Nobel Peace Prize.
\"Amnesty International can today confirm... that scores, and likely hundreds, of people were stabbed or hacked to death in Mai-Kadra (May Cadera) town in the southwest of Ethiopia's Tigray Region on the night of 9 November,\" the rights group said in a report.
Amnesty said it had \"digitally verified gruesome photographs and videos of bodies strewn across the town or being carried away on stretchers.\"
The dead \"had gaping wounds that appear to have been inflicted by sharp weapons such as knives and machetes,\" Amnesty said, citing witness accounts.
Witnesses said the attack was carried out by TPLF-aligned forces after a defeat at the hands of the Ethiopian military, though Amnesty said it \"has not been able to confirm who was responsible for the killings\".
It nonetheless called on TPLF commanders and officials to \"make clear to their forces and their supporters that deliberate attacks on civilians are absolutely prohibited and constitute war crimes\".
Abiy ordered military operations in Tigray on November 4, saying they were prompted by a TPLF attack on federal military camps -- a claim the party denies.
The region has been under a communications blackout ever since, making it difficult to verify competing claims on the ground.
Abiy said Thursday his army had made major gains in western Tigray.
Thousands of Ethiopians have fled across the border into neighboring Sudan, and the UN is sounding the alarm about a humanitarian crisis in Tigray.
Gabre-Medhin Tsegaye , also called Tsegaye Gabre-Medhin (born August 17, 1936, Boda, near Ambo, Ethiopia—died February 25, 2006, New York, New York, U.S.), Ethiopian playwright and poet, who wrote in Amharic and English.
Tsegaye earned a degree (1959) from the Blackstone School of Law in Chicago. His interests soon turned to drama, however, and he studied stagecraft at the Royal Court Theatre in London and at the Comédie-Française in Paris. After returning to Ethiopia, he served as director of the Haile Selassie I Theatre (now the National Theatre) from 1961 to 1971. He later founded Addis Ababa University’s theatre department.
Tsegaye wrote more than 30 plays, most of them in Amharic, and translated a number of plays of William Shakespeare and Molière into that language as well. His Amharic plays deal primarily with contemporary Ethiopia, especially with the plight of youth in urban settings and the need to respect traditional morality, as in Crown of Thorns (1959). Oda Oak Oracle (1965) is Tsegaye’s best-known verse play written in English. Like his other English plays, it is based on Ethiopian history and focuses on religious conflict. Collision of Altars (1977) is an experimental play that includes mime, incantation, dance, and the use of masks.
Tsegaye was considered Ethiopia’s leading poet. His English poetry appeared in Ethiopian journals and was included in several anthologies of African poetry, including New Sum of Poetry from the Negro World (1966). A prolific poet, he wrote about a wide variety of subjects, including Ethiopian history. Tsegaye was also a noted human rights activist, and he traveled widely to promote Ethiopian culture.
Delayed elections and ethnic tensions are undermining Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed's reform agenda.
Rather, it was because before they were connected, they heard the voice of none other than Ethiopia's Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed promoting the country's plan to plant 20 billion seedlings by 2024 -- an ambitious reforestation project that again highlights Ethiopia's reputation as Africa's poster child.
Or Ethiopia's reconciliation project that launched with Abiy's appointment as a young reformist prime minister in 2018 but is now threatening to crash land.
Before the announcement of the election delay, Ethiopia already faced growing interethnic violence and more than a dozen small ethnic groups were calling for greater regional autonomy.
Poll postponement an opportunity
But the election delay and the extension of the government's mandate should also be seen as an opportunity for reconciliation -- perhaps the government's last chance if the time gained up to 2021 could be used for a genuine National Dialogue that involves the entire region, including neighboring Eritrea.
In April 2015, members of the Islamic State killed about 20 migrant workers in Libya. The victims, believed to be Ethiopian Christians, were either shot or beheaded.
Preliminary results of May 2015 elections, gave the Ruling Ethiopian Peoples Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) a landslide victory. The opposition accused the EPRDF of voter intimidation. Voter turnout was high, about 90%.
See also Encyclopedia: Ethiopia .
The Ethiopian government says operations by its defence forces are underway in Tigray its northern region
The move comes after the government of prime minister Abiy Ahmed declared an “unexpected war” on it’s northern state, threatening the stability of one of the world’s most strategic regions, the Horn of Africa.
Birhanu Jula Gelalcha, Deputy Chief of the Ethiopian Army described the war a shameful one. \"O ur country has entered into a war that it did not want. This war is a shameful war. It does not have a point. The people of Tigray and its youth and its security forces should not die for this pointless war. Ethiopia is their country.\" the army chief explained.
The Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) are accused of an unprovoked attack on the Ethiopian army’s northern command, and of trying to loot its weapons.
Tensions between the government and TPLF, which used to be part of the governing coalition before falling out with Mr Abiy, have escalated in recent months.
The TPLF has accused Abiy’s administration of trying to destroy Tigray’s right to self-determination and conspiring with Ethiopia’s northern neighbour Eritrea to stage a military attack.
(Tigrinya) Debretsion Gebremichael, President of the Tigray Regional State. berated the government's move.
\"In the regions around Tigray there is a massing of military forces. Consequently I have announced at a news conference to say that they are surrounding us with their forces. I stated that they have decided to go to war and we should all prepare to foil it. This is our proclamation, so let it be clear\". Gebremicheal said.
He stressed there was no reason for this because the people of Tigray held an election. \"There was nothing new that happened. This is the action of a self-loving government that is trying to resolve, albeit though not possible, political differences through force, weapons, and war. That is why they have declared war on the people of Tigray.\"
On Tuesday, the federal parliament proposed that the TPLF be designated as a \"terrorist organisation.\"
Ethiopia, one of the only two independent African nations at the time, was invaded on October 3,1935 by Facist Italy under Benito Mussolini. The Italians, seeking revenge for their prior
humiliating loss to Ethiopia over 40 years earlier, committed countless atrocities on the independent African state. Poisonous gas, aerial bomabrdment, flame throwers and
concentration camps were all employed against the ill equipped Ethiopian people.
Black outrage throughout the world was unified. The League of Nations,
forerunner to the UN, was criticized sharply for supplying weapons to Italy and
not to Ethiopia. Such actions confirmed Black suspicion that the war was of racial
motivation and sought to extinguish the last light of African power in the world.
From Kingston to Johannesburg, from Detroit to Ghana, form Port-of-Spain to
Paris, Black men and women offered to go fight in defense of Ethiopia. And as
battles raged between Ethiopians and Italians in Africa, battles raged between
Blacks and Italians in the streets of New York. In South Africa, Black workers
began a lengthy march up the continent to assist their African brothers in Ethiopia.
Elsewhere, ex-service men discarded their European and American citizenships to
bring their military expertise to the defense of Ethiopia. The exiled Ethiopian
Emperor Haile Selassie became a near legendary figure to many. Not before or
ever since was such a strong sense of Pan-Africanism seen throughout the world.
And though Italy succeeded in defeating the African nation, Blacks everywhere
would continue the struggle until Ethiopia was free.
On 9 June, Ethiopia, Egypt and Sudan resumed talks on the filling and operation of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), raising hopes that they can strike a deal before Addis Ababa makes good on its intention to begin impounding water in the dam’s reservoir, with or without an agreement.
Addis Ababa argued that the deal would commit it to drain the dam’s reservoir to unacceptably low levels in the event of prolonged drought and that it was designed to perpetuate Egypt’s unfair claimed quota of the Nile waters.
While such an agreement could be a way to reduce tensions and build trust while working toward a comprehensive deal – as Crisis Group argued in March – Cairo rejected it, saying a piecemeal approach would allow Ethiopia to avoid committing to an all-encompassing agreement on GERD’s filling and operating rules, and would therefore leave Egypt exposed to water shortages over the long term.
While Ethiopia is prepared to agree to release predetermined amounts – which would vary depending on the starting volume of the GERD reservoir and projected annual Blue Nile flow – in any hydrological year when drought reduces water flow below a certain threshold, Egypt has also pressed it to make additional commitments for situations when there is a multi-year drought.
Ethiopia objected to these proposals in the draft agreement, expressing particular concern about formulas that would place it in the situation of “owing water” to Sudan and Egypt if river flows to the latter fall short of certain levels over a period of years.
The two-year, comprehensive feasibility study will assess the proposed project's technical, economic, environmental and social viability
The African Development Bank's Board of Directors has approved a $1.2 million grant to Ethiopia's government to finance a feasibility study for construction of a standard-gauge railway (SGR) link between Ethiopia and neighboring Sudan, the Bank said in a statement sent to Addis Standard.
The grant, from the African Development Fund, the Bank Group's concessional-rate lending arm, would cover 35% of the total estimated $3.4 million cost of the study.
According to the document presented to directors of the African Development Fund, the absence of a regional arterial route linking Ethiopia, Sudan and other countries in the Horn of Africa is a brake on trade, development and regional integration.
The feasibility study's findings will be keenly awaited because its implementation would benefit a large proportion of Ethiopia's 110 million people and 43 million inhabitants of Sudan, as well as populations in the wider region.
The proposed project is aligned with the Bank's Country Strategy Paper 2016-2020 for Ethiopia.
narvikk/iStockBy MORGAN WINSOR, EMILY SHAPIRO and IVAN PEREIRA, ABC News (NEW YORK) - A pandemic of the novel coronavirus has now killed more than 1.2 million people worldwide. Over 51.5…
