Donate

Category: Resource

Al Jazeera: 7,000 seek Sudan asylum after fleeing western Ethiopia violence

Posted on by Tech Support

At least 7,000 people who fled escalating ethnic violence in western Ethiopia have sought asylum in neighbouring Sudan, the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) has said, amid heightened tensions between the two neighbouring countries.

Violence in the Metekel Zone of the Benishangul-Gumuz region is separate from the deadly conflict in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region, which has sent more than 61,000 Ethiopians into Sudan’s provinces of al-Qadarif and Kassala since fighting erupted in November.

Read the full story…

Devex: EU envoy says Ethiopia in ‘denial’ over Tigray

Posted on by Tech Support

When it comes to the conflict in northern Ethiopia, the federal government in Addis Ababa has no common understanding of events and is in “denial” over the scale of the problem, said Pekka Haavisto, European Union envoy, on Tuesday.

With negligible humanitarian access to the Tigray region since fighting broke out in November, Haavisto, Finland’s foreign minister, traveled to the region recently to assess the situation on behalf of the EU. He met with Ethiopian government ministers and Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, and he visited the Um Rakuba refugee camp in Sudan.

Read the full story…

Barron’s: EU Envoy Warns Ethiopia Tigray Crisis ‘Out Of Control’

Posted on by Tech Support

Finland’s Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto warned Tuesday that the crisis in Ethiopia’s conflict-hit Tigray region appears “out of control”, after visiting the country on behalf of the EU.

“You have come to the situation which is militarily and human rights-wise, humanitarian-wise very out of control,” Haavisto told journalists in Brussels.

Tigray has been the theatre of fighting since early November 2020, when Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed announced military operations against the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), accusing them of attacking federal army camps.

Read the full story…

EUobserver: EU urges Ethiopia to lift Tigray ‘blackout’

Posted on by Tech Support

The EU has urged Ethiopia to let the international community see what it is doing in its Tigray region after four months of civil war and reports of atrocities. “Some 80 percent of Tigray’s population is unreachable … it’s a complete blackout,” EU top diplomat Josep Borrell said in Brussels Monday, following a fact-finding mission to the conflict zone by Finland. There must be “full and immediate access”, Borrell said.

Read the full story…

DW: German-Ethiopian relations suffer over Tigray

Posted on by Tech Support

A call from German Chancellor Angela Merkel is bound to be about something important. When she called Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed in early February this year, for example, she stressed how vital it was to find a peaceful resolution to the Tigray conflict, according to her spokesman, Steffen Seibert. The German leader also said civilians caught up in the fighting must receive humanitarian assistance.

Read the full story…

15 UN peacekeepers from Tigray refuse to return to Ethiopia

Posted on by Tech Support

Fifteen members of a contingent of Ethiopian peacekeepers in South Sudan, originally from the Tigray region, have refused to return to Ethiopia, the UN said, citing their right to seek asylum if they fear for their lives.

Tigray has been the theater of fighting since early November 2020, when Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed announced military operations against the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), accusing them of attacking federal army camps.

He declared victory after pro-government troops took regional capital Mekele in late November, though the TPLF vowed to fight on and clashes have persisted in the region, hampering efforts to deliver sorely-needed humanitarian assistance.

Read the full story…

BBC: Tigray crisis – ‘Overwhelming’ humanitarian needs in Ethiopia’s region

Posted on by Sami Mulaw

The United States says it has decided to “de-link” its suspension of millions of dollars of aid to Ethiopia from that country’s dispute with Egypt over a massive hydroelectric dam project.

But the State Department early Friday said that does not mean all the roughly $272 million in security and development assistance will immediately start to flow, and it depends on more recent “developments” — an apparent reference to the deadly conflict in Ethiopia’s Tigray region.

The State Department said humanitarian assistance remains exempt from the aid suspension. It said it has informed Ethiopia’s government. A spokeswoman for Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Read the full story…

Brown County Democrat: UN says malnutrition ‘very critical’ in Ethiopia’s Tigray

Posted on by Tech Support

The United Nations says Ethiopia’s embattled Tigray region faces a “very critical malnutrition situation” as vast rural areas where many people fled during three months of fighting remain out of reach of aid.

The U.N. humanitarian agency also said in a new report that Ethiopian defense forces continue to occupy a hospital in the town of Abi Adi, “preventing up to 500,000 people from accessing health services” in a region where the health system has largely collapsed under looting and artillery fire.

Alarm is growing over the fate of the Tigray region’s some 6 million people as fighting is reportedly as fierce as ever between Ethiopian and allied forces and those supporting the now-fugitive Tigray leaders who once dominated Ethiopia’s government.

Read the full story…

aljazeera: UN – Tigray malnutrition ‘very critical’, response woefully poor

Posted on by Sami Mulaw

A new United Nations report has sounded the alarm over a “very critical malnutrition situation” unfolding in Ethiopia’s embattled Tigray region, citing continuing insecurity, bureaucracy and the presence of “various armed actors” as major obstructions to the efforts to deliver life-saving aid to rural areas still out of reach for humanitarian workers more than 100 days into the conflict.

“Despite some progress, the humanitarian response remains drastically inadequate compared to the sheer magnitude of needs across the region,” the report by the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OHCA) said on Saturday.

Read the full story…