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Over 400 000 people have "crossed the threshold into famine" in Ethiopia's war-torn Tigray region, a senior UN official said on Friday, appealing for urgent humanitarian action to help the millions affected by the brutal eight-month long conflict.
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.
[VOA] Mekelle, Edaga Hamus, Ethiopia -- Fifteen-year-old Beriha lost one eye in the war and was permanently blinded in the other.
[Nation] Ethiopia on Monday said that it will reconsider its relationship with the US if America continues to interfere in its internal affairs.
Top officials of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) have been killed in an operation by Ethiopian forces.
[VOA] Geneva -- The U.N. Children's Fund warns at least 33,000 severely malnourished children in northern Ethiopia's Tigray region face imminent death if they do not receive immediate help to treat their condition.
[Monitor] By Agencies
[Addis Standard] Addis Abeba -- Some 2.1 million people across 74 Woredas in Somali Region require humanitarian assistance as a result of drought, according to the Regional Disaster Risk Management Bureau (DRMB), the UNOCHA said.
Ethiopia has said that forces loyal to the ruling party in the Tigray region had fired into neighbouring Amhara region.
The Conflict Gets Worse
The Tigrayan regional government has fired rockets at two airports in the neighbouring Amhara region in Ethiopia with spokesman Reda asserting that further retaliation could continue and even Asmara in Eritrea could be targeted. The Ethiopian federal government confirmed that Gondar and Bahir Dar airports were damaged in the strikes late Friday — as the deadly conflict threatens to spread to not only other parts of Africa's second-most populous country but more areas in the horn of Africa.
Since the conflict began Nov 4th, reports from the Tigray region — still under a national state of emergency, see hundreds of people on both sides losing their lives and over 21,000 Ethiopians fleeing to neighbouring Eastern Sudan.
Many authorities in the international community who caution against inter-ethnic genocide fear a possible all-out civil war — compounded by the already chaélengiong Covid-19 pandemic.
Côte dIvoire (also known as the Ivory Coast), in western Africa on the Gulf of Guinea, is a little larger than New Mexico. Its neighbors are Liberia, Guinea, Mali, Burkina Faso, and Ghana. The country consists of a coastal strip in the south, dense forests in the interior, and savannas in the north.
Republic.
Côte dIvoire was originally made up of numerous isolated settlements; today it represents more than sixty distinct tribes, including the Baoule, Bete, Senoufou, Agni, Malinke, Dan, and Lobi. Côte dIvoire attracted both French and Portuguese merchants in the 15th century who were in search of ivory and slaves. French traders set up establishments early in the 19th century, and in 1842, the French obtained territorial concessions from local tribes, gradually extending their influence along the coast and inland. The area was organized as a territory in 1893, became an autonomous republic in the French Union after World War II, and achieved independence on Aug. 7, 1960. Côte dIvoire formed a customs union in 1959 with Dahomey (Benin), Niger, and Burkina Faso. The nations economy is one of the most developed in sub-Saharan Africa. It is the worlds largest exporter of cocoa and one of the largest exporters of coffee.
From independence until his death in 1993, Felix Houphouët-Boigny served as president. Massive protests by students, farmers, and professionals forced the president to legalize opposition parties and hold the first contested presidential election in Oct. 1990, which Houphouët-Boigny won with 81% of the vote.
Beginning in Sept. 1998, thousands of demonstrators protested a constitutional revision that granted President Henri Konan Bédié greatly enhanced powers. Bédié also promoted the concept of ivoirité, which, roughly translated, means “pure Ivoirian pride.” Although its defenders describe ivoirité as a term of positive national pride, it has led to dangerous xenophobia, with numerous ethnic Malians and Burkinans driven out of the country in 1999.
President Bédié was overthrown in the
[Shabelle] The UN Security Council will meet to discuss Somalia's political crisis, diplomatic sources said Monday, after opposition leaders in the East African country declared the president illegitimate.
Aid agencies fear the fighting - which has reportedly killed thousands and displaced many thousands more - could tip the Tigray region into catastrophe.
By Rodney Muhumuza The Associated Press Thousands of Ethiopians gathered in the nation's capital May 30 to protest outside pressure on the government over its brutal war in Tigray. Protesters at the rally in Addis Ababa carried banners that criticized the United States and others in the international community who are voicing concern over atrocities […]
The post Ethiopians protest US sanctions over brutal Tigray war appeared first on Afro.
The United Nations' Security Council has endorsed Guinea's Bintou Keita and South Africa's Nicholas Hayshom as new emissaries.
He said the Green Legacy project which begins Tuesday will continue until September and October. Minister for Agriculture Omar Husen said that over 10 billion trees were planted in the first two years of the ‘’Green Legacy’’ project.
… to welfare-for African Americans. African Americans need jobs that … :
Police brutality – “African Americans account for just 13 … of Americans, and African-American children are almost … public safety justification.”
African Americans “are incarcerated at …
[UN News] Disturbing reports have continued to emerge of widespread abuse of civilians in Ethiopia's Tigray region, nearly six months since conflict erupted, the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) said on Tuesday.
UN says most of the troubled region remains ‘inaccessible’ for aid workers amid growing hunger due to ongoing fighting.
Torrential rains and flooding across South Sudan have created the threat of “catastrophic” levels of hunger and left hundreds of thousands homeless, UN humanitarians said on Tuesday.
The Battle of Adwa and the Victory of Adwa Centenary Medal
The Battle of Adwa, in which Ethiopian forces under Emperor Menelik II united to defeat an invading force of Italian troops, was one of the most significant turning points in the history of modern Africa. It occurred, in 1896, when the “colonial era” was well advanced on the African continent, and it served notice that Africa was not just there “for the taking” by European powers. More than this, it marked the entry of Ethiopia into the modern community of nations: Menelik’s victory over the Italians caused the other major European states, and Italy itself, to recognise Ethiopia as a sovereign, independent state in the context of modern statecraft.
The actual battle which took place on March 1 and 2, 1896, at Adwa, the principal market town of the North of Ethiopia, had been precipitated by the great rush of the European powers to colonise Africa. Italy and Germany had lagged behind other European powers — most notably France and Britain — in seizing large parcels of the Continent to colonise. Thus, the Conference of Berlin was convened in 1884-85 to “divide up” the remainder of Africa among the other European powers, anxious to obtain their own African colonies to satisfy the urge for imperial expansion and economic gain. Italy was “awarded” Ethiopia; all that remained was for Italian troops to take possession.
Significantly, until this time, Ethiopia had been left alone by the European powers. Its coastal littoral was well-known to traders, but the heartland in the highlands was peopled by nations notoriously unwilling to accept and embrace external contact and influence. But the Ethiopian nations had been known in the past to be fractious and divided, and from all accounts, Italy’s leaders expected a rapid conquest of the individual national leaders. Britain had, in 1868, waged a successful war against Emperor Téwodros II (Theodore), leading to his death. The Italians, however, failed to recognise that Emperor Menelik II had re-shaped Ethiopia
[Norwegian Refugee Council] Reacting to the ongoing access challenges into Ethiopia's Tigray region, Norwegian Refugee Council's Secretary General, Jan Egeland, said:
Kofi Atta Annan, born on 8 April 1938 in Kumasi, Ghana, served as the seventh Secretary-General of the United Nations (UN) between 1997 and 2007. As a young man, Annan finished his undergraduate studies in economics at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota in 1961. He then completed his graduate level work, also in economics, at the Institut universitaire des hautes études internationales in Geneva, Switzerland from 1961 to 1962. Annan returned to the United States, and earned a Master of Science degree in management in 1972 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Annan fluently speaks French, English, and a number of African languages.
Kofi Annan joined the United Nations in 1962 when he went to work for the World Health Organization. Since then he has been involved with the United Nations in a number of different branches, including the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and the UN Emergency Force in Ismailia. Annan was assigned to UN Headquarters in New York where he worked with issues ranging from human resources management to peacekeeping.
On January 1, 1997, Kofi Annan became the Secretary-General of the United Nations. He served a second five year term beginning in 2002. Annan is the first Secretary-General to have been appointed from a UN staff position. In 2005, he helped establish two new bodies within the UN; the Peacebuilding Commission and the Human Rights Council. His involvement with peacekeeping is vast, as he has played key roles in a number of international negotiations. In 1996, he facilitated negotiations with Baghdad, Iraq in regards to their oil sales as funding humanitarian relief. In 1999, he played an important role in helping ease tensions between Libya and the UN Security Council, During the same period he also persuaded the international community to focus on the violence that was occurring in East Timor. Two years later, in 2000, he helped facilitate Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon.
Annans years at the UN have focused on creating relationships
