The world must step in now and call the assaults what they are: a war crime.
In recent weeks, women in Tigray, Ethiopia, have started coming forward with the most painful stories imaginable about how they have been sexually violated and tortured by soldiers of the Ethiopian and Eritrean armies.
Rape and sexual violence are being used to pursue political and military goals in Ethiopia’s crisis-hit Tigray region, UN humanitarian chief Mark Lowcock said Tuesday.
“That is also what we have seen in the last six months in northern Ethiopia. The rapes there have not stopped,”
“The fighting must come to an end. There must be humanitarian access, which has been a problem,” the State Department’s acting Assistant Secretary for African Affairs, Robert Godec, told VOA on Monday during a briefing by phone.
“We need the human rights abuses and atrocities to stop. We need the Eritreans and the Amhara [militia] to leave. And we need, really, an end to this conflict,”
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Monday pressed Ethiopia to address what he called an impending “disaster” in Tigray, including rising fears of famine.
In a phone call with Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, Blinken voiced “grave concern about the deteriorating humanitarian and human rights crisis in the country” and the “growing humanitarian disaster” in conflict-torn Tigray, the State Department said.
The magnitude of the humanitarian crisis in its highest level was first acknowledged by Abraha Desta, Arena Tigray Party Chairperson who served as the Interim Administration’s social Affairs Bureau, mentioning that the scale of the danger could be “unprecedented in the region’s history” and that 4.5 million people were in need of immediate aid.
“IF WE CAN NOT GET A HARVEST THIS YEAR, BY THE NEXT 3 TO FIVE YEARS WE COULD FACE A VERY SERIOUS PROBLEM. AND IT MAY INDUCE FAMINE, IT COULD BE THE WORST HISTORY IN THE COUNTRY.”
All agencies must inform the National Disaster Risk Management Commission (NDRMC) 48 hours before any cargo is transported into the Tigray region. This is only if the cargo is going into locations inside Tigray and not to one of the Logistics Cluster hubs (Gonder, Kombolcha, Semera).
Ethiopia registered 841 new COVID-19 cases in the past 24 hours, taking the nationwide tally to 253,120 as of Monday evening, the country’s Ministry of Health said.
The ministry also reported 19 new deaths from COVID-19 in a day, bringing the national death toll to 3,570.
Jeffrey Feltman, the new American envoy to the Horn of Africa, faces a cascade of overlapping challenges in the region.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Friday formally named Feltman to the post, where he will become Washington’s lead troubleshooter for a deadly conflict in the Tigray region of Ethiopia that has sparked a massive humanitarian crisis and widespread allegations of war crimes.
IOM achieved major milestones in Ethiopia in 2019. To list just a few, over 130,000 returning migrants were aUNICEF has denounced that over one million people have been displaced in Ethiopia’s Tigray region. Fighting is continuing after the Ethiopian government’s military offensive started on November 4, 2020.
“The personal statements I received from children who had been raped or testimonies of women who were victims of sexual violence were harrowing”,
IOM achieved major milestones in Ethiopia in 2019. To list just a few, over 130,000 returning migrants were assisted, 80,000 potential migrants were supported through behaviour change communication to discourage irregular migration, 6,000 returning migrants benefitted from reintegration and protection services, 160,000 medical consultations and health assessments were conducted, 655,000 individuals benefitted from shelter and non-food items, and 630,000 individuals benefitted from water, sanitation, and hygiene services. In its Africa continental initiatives through the African Union (AU), IOM supported the African Union Commission (AUC)’s Youth Division in its target of reaching 1 million youth by 2021 through education, empowerment, employment and engagement.
