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Category: Humanitarian Crisis

Ethiopia: Tigray, Sudan, Amhara… The multiple crises of Abiy Ahmed

Posted on by Tech Support

The dire humanitarian situation continues to escalate in Tigray, putting 4.5m people on the brink of starvation. In order to tackle the enormous humanitarian needs, the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken demanded a cessation of hostilities and the immediate withdrawal of both Eritrean Defence Forces (EDF) and Amhara regional forces from Tigray.

Increasing the pressure on Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, President Biden subsequently dispatched Senator Coons to Ethiopia to express deepening concern about ethnic cleansing and human rights violations in Tigray.

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Tigray crisis: The Weeknd donates $1m to Ethiopians in conflict

Posted on by Tech Support

R&B singer The Weeknd has promised to donate $1m (£700,000) to Ethiopians caught up in the conflict in Tigray.

The star, born Abel Tesfaye in Canada, is the son of Ethiopian immigrants.

“My heart breaks for my people of Ethiopia as innocent civilians ranging from small children to the elderly are being senselessly murdered,” he said.

Fighting between the Ethiopian army and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) began in November and has left millions of people homeless.

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Ethiopia: 1,900 people killed in massacres in Tigray identified

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List compiled by researchers of victims of mass killings includes infants and people in their 90s

Almost 2,000 people killed in more than 150 massacres by soldiers, paramilitaries and insurgents in Tigray have been identified by researchers studying the conflict. The oldest victims were in their 90s and the youngest were infants.

The identifications are based on reports from a network of informants in the northern Ethiopian province run by a team at the University of Ghent in Belgium. The team, which has been studying the conflict in Tigray since it broke out last year, has crosschecked reports with testimony from family members and friends, media reports and other sources.

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Sky News: Ethiopia’s Tigray conflict: A human tide of refugees – with little to keep them alive

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A human tide of 300,000 Tigrayans are now camping in this beleaguered city at six schools, a local college and any number of half constructed buildings which dot the city.

A senior UN official told Sky News that 50,000-60,000 arrivals have turned up in the past few weeks alone.

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BBC: Ethiopia’s Tigray crisis: A rare view inside the conflict zone

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Shire has seen a huge influx of people over the past four months, and it was ill prepared.

Its schools and a university campus have become theatres of suffering.

Aid agencies estimate some 200,000 people are currently living in the city’s makeshift camps. Many of them are women and children.

The first arrivals came back in November when fighting broke out. They mostly came from the southern and south-western lowlands of Tigray that were hotbeds of the fighting in the early days.

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Just Security: Ethiopia, Take a Lesson from Sudan and Stop the War in Tigray

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In the intervening years, President Omar al-Bashir’s decision to prosecute that war cost the country and its people dearly. Six U.S. special envoys to Sudan, an engaged U.S. Congress, and a robust activist community all helped to put in place one of the most biting and comprehensive sanctions regimes in the world whose effects sadly reverberated beyond Khartoum’s Presidential Palace to the markets, schools, and hospitals serving average Sudanese citizens across every corner of the country.

At the time, the largest ever United Nations peacekeeping force was also deployed, robbing many Sudanese of a sense of sovereignty, a feeling that lingers today. Choked off from the international financial system and denied basic access to the global community, Sudan became an international pariah whose growth was stunted and whose population’s prospects were put on hold.

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The New York Times: Fear and Hostility Simmer as Ethiopia’s Military Keeps Hold on Tigray

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Of the hospital that begins its days with an influx of bodies bearing gunshot or knife wounds — people killed, relatives and Red Cross workers say, for breaching the nightly curfew.

Of the young man who made the mistake of getting into a heated argument with a government soldier in a bar. Hours later, friends said, four soldiers followed him home and beat him to death with beer bottles.

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LA Times: In an out-of-sight war, a massacre comes to light

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What followed was an hours-long killing rampage, according to accounts from 10 survivors, including Tesfay, as well as from victims’ relatives and friends and activist groups. Soldiers went house to house in Bora, a town in northern Ethiopia’s Tigray region, and executed more than 160 people.

Done killing, the soldiers stopped families from taking their dead. Only on Sunday — two days after the slaughter — were gravediggers allowed to set about their grim task; one of them buried 26 corpses in the graveyard of the Abune Aregawi Church, survivors said.

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NRC: Ethiopia: Hunger and disease rife among displaced as aid workers gain access to new parts of Tigray

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“The situation in Sheraro is beyond dire. Despite families arriving every day, no aid has been delivered for weeks. Food, water and medicine are running out fast. People could die unless they get humanitarian aid now,” warned Jan Egeland, Secretary General of the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC).

“People have told us that they fled sexual violence, killings and widespread violence in Tigray, only to arrive in Sheraro and find a desperately helpless situation. We also heard accounts of refugees hiding in remote villages scared to be identified, which puts them at the risk of being cut off from any assistance. Lactating mothers also told us that they have been unable to produce milk for their babies,” he added.

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