Khartoum visit by Eritrean president comes amid strained relations between government of Ethiopia, a close ally, and Sudan.
Isaia’s visit also comes as he faces growing pressure from the international community to withdraw Eritrean troops from Tigray. Soldiers from Eritrea, long an enemy of Tigray’s now-fugitive leaders, have also been blamed for some of the worst human rights abuses in the Tigray conflict, including massacres of civilians and systematic rape.
While calls for the Government of Eritrea to pull out of the conflict in Ethiopia increases, the international community must also consider the repercussions of Eritrean intervention in the Tigray war if a lasting solution is to be developed.
“Refugees International is concerned about reports that Ethiopian government forces and Eritrean soldiers have forced Eritrean refugees to return to Eritrea or other locations where they may be in danger. For example, Eritrean refugees who fled to Addis Ababa to avoid the fighting in Tigray have been rounded up and returned to camps in Tigray. This is unacceptable, as camps in Tigray are in the middle of an active conflict zone and have little access to food or medical supplies.”
“The reason I did this was to get evidence that the regime is oppressing the youth and the people and to show that the Eritrean people suffer a lot of abuses,”
“There are people who have been jailed for 20 years just for speaking out. So, me, I could have been executed.”
“Engagement with Eritrea should not endanger the rights of the country’s population.”
The letter noted that Eritrean troops’ involvement in the Tigray conflict in northern Ethiopia had “further compounded” the situation. Discussing Tigray on Monday, Borrell said that “Eritrean troops are not withdrawing, and human rights violations continue.”
Over the past three decades, the Horn of Africa has acquired a bad reputation as a notoriously unstable subregion with a highly volatile socio-political framework.
This region can only be described as one at war with itself, owing to a number of issues from tribal and clan dynamics to historical injustices. Therefore, the solution for instability should be sourced from within – as only the insiders can truly understand and contextualise the full extent of their problems.
In a video televised by Tigray TV, which is currently under the control of the federal government appointed interim administration in Tigray, Ataklit responds to questions from community members participating in a meeting. According to Ataklit, the question of the presence of Eritrean forces in Tigray was “a daily question of the interim administration,” and that “relevant military leaders have been asked to give explanations.”
Forces from neighboring Eritrea have joined the war in northern Ethiopia, and have rampaged through refugee camps committing human rights violations, officials and witnesses say.
The deployment of Eritreans to Tigray is the newest element in a melee that has greatly tarnished Mr. Abiy’s once-glowing reputation. Only last year he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for making peace with Mr. Isaias. Now it looks like the much-lauded peace deal between the former enemies in fact laid the groundwork for them to make war against Tigray, their mutual adversary.
“Abiy has invited a foreign country to fight against his own people,” said Awol Allo, a former Abiy supporter turned outspoken critic who lectures in law at Keele University in Britain. “The implications are huge.”
Read the full story…Forces from neighboring Eritrea have joined the war in northern Ethiopia, and have rampaged through refugee camps committing human rights violations, officials and witnesses say.
Forces from neighboring Eritrea have joined the war in northern Ethiopia, and have rampaged through refugee camps committing human rights violations, officials and witnesses say.
The 54-year-old carpenter came bearing news of some 250 young men abducted to an unknown fate from a single village, Adi Aser, into neighboring Eritrea by Eritrean forces, whose involvement Ethiopia denies. Then in late November, Guesh said he saw dogs feeding on the bodies of civilians near his hometown of Rawyan, where he said Ethiopian soldiers beat him and took him to the border town of Humera.
In fact, according to interviews with two dozen aid workers, refugees, United Nations officials and diplomats — including a senior American official — Eritrean soldiers are fighting in Tigray, apparently in coordination with Mr. Abiy’s forces, and face credible accusations of atrocities against civilians. Among their targets were refugees who had fled Eritrea and its harsh leader, President Isaias Afwerki.
Read the full story…
