The head of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) said on Wednesday during a visit to Ethiopia that she had raised her concerns about “dehumanising rhetoric” with authorities, amid war in the country’s northern Tigray region.
Samantha Power’s visit to the country, and to neighbouring Sudan, this week follows warnings from U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration of punitive measures against the Ethiopian government if aid is unable to reach the Tigray region.
the EU’s top diplomat, Josep Borrell, said in a statement that the 27-nation bloc would also not monitor preparations for the June 5 election including voter registration.
Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and his Prosperity Party face challenges from increasingly strident ethnically-based parties seeking more power for their regions.
As they have done for hundreds of years on the Orthodox Easter weekend, priests wrapped in traditional white robes read the Bible by candlelight on Saturday evening in the rock-hewn churches of Lalibela in northern Ethiopia.
Gunmen killed at least 20 people last week in western Ethiopia, a regional government official said on Thursday, in what he and two residents described as an attack on civilians from the Amhara ethnic group.
WASHINGTON, April 21 (Reuters) – The U.S. government has seen no evidence of a withdrawal of Eritrean troops from Ethiopia’s Tigray region despite Eritrea’s assurances that they would pull out, the U.S. State Department said on Wednesday.
U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price reiterated Washington’s call for the immediate departure of Eritrean forces from Tigray.
“The members of the Security Council expressed their deep concern about allegations of human rights violations and abuses, including reports of sexual violence against women and girls in the Tigray region, and called for investigations to find those responsible and bring them to justice,”
Eritrea told the Security Council on Friday that it has agreed to start withdrawing its troops from Tigray, acknowledging publicly for the first time its involvement in the conflict.
The members of the Security Council expressed their deep concern about allegations of human rights violations and abuses, including reports of sexual violence against women and girls in the Tigray region and called for Benishangul-Gumuz has seen a surge of ethnic violence in recent months, including an attack in December that killed more than 200 civilians. The region is home to many ethnic groups, including the Gumuz, Agaws and Shinasas and the Amhara, and has seen increasingly bloody attacks on civilians.
Bachelet “responded positively” to a request from the state-run Ethiopian Human Rights Commission (EHRC) for joint investigations in Tigray, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights spokesman Jonathan Fowler said on Wednesday.
“The U.N. Human Rights Office and the EHRC are now developing an investigation plan, which includes resources needed and practical modalities, in order to launch the missions as soon as possible,” Fowler said.
United Nations human rights chief Michelle Bachelet has agreed to an Ethiopian request for a joint investigation in the country’s northern Tigray region, where Bachelet says possible war crimes may have been committed.
The State Department on Friday said Washington has decided not to lift the pause in assistance to Ethiopia for most programs in the security sector, days after U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken described acts in Tigray as ethnic cleansing.
