Despite Egypt’s fears of ‘hydro hegemony’ and concerns it will worsen water shortages in Sudan, Ethiopia’s controversial dam project is close to fruition
From his office in central Khartoum, Ahmed al-Mufti prepares every day for what he believes is the water war to come.
This conviction led Mufti, a prominent human rights lawyer and water expert, to quit the Sudanese delegation that is negotiating Nile water issues with Egypt and Ethiopia.
Continue reading...Ethiopian paper bag firm employs 18 deaf workers who use sign language to persuade clients to choose greener alternative
What do you say to a business owner who has heard it all before? Answer: Don’t speak, use sign language.
At least that’s the novel approach taken by Teki Paper bags, an Ethiopian enterprise developed by deaf women.
Continue reading...Violent unrest at Ethiopia’s universities has been quelled by police, but the root causes will prove harder to tackle
On a December morning last year, students at Ambo University in Ethiopia’s Oromia region awoke to find threatening notices pinned to the walls of their dormitories. The message was simple: boycott classes. Anyone failing to do so would face punishment.
Written by Oromo student activists calling themselves the Qeerroo, the notices demanded solidarity with fellow Oromos at universities in the neighbouring region of Amhara, after a spate of deadly ethnic clashes there. Similar boycotts had been called in universities across Oromia, the country’s largest region.
Continue reading...Bodies found in cargo container alongside 14 survivors
Sixty-four people from Ethiopia have been found dead crammed inside a freight container in north-west Mozambique, a senior hospital official has said.
The victims were discovered on Tuesday in a blue cargo container loaded on to a truck in the province of Tete. They were surrounded by survivors. Daily temperature highs in Tete are currently about 34C (93F).
Continue reading...Canadian Humanitarian members deny distributing expired medication or acting without approval
Authorities in Ethiopia have detained 13 Canadian healthcare workers and volunteers, alleging the group were improperly practising medicine in the country.
Canadian Humanitarian, a non-profit organisation based in the province of Alberta, confirmed the detentions but denied allegations it had distributed expired medication or was offering medical services without prior approval.
Continue reading...As villagers in Somali region fall ill in unexplained circumstances, some locals fear gas exploration has tainted the local water supply
At first, 23-year-old Khadar Abdi Abdullahi’s eyes began turning yellow. Then the palms of his hands did the same. Soon he was bleeding from his nose, and from his mouth, and his body was swelling all over. Eventually he collapsed with fever. He later died.
A deadly sickness is spreading through villages near a Chinese natural gas project in Ethiopia’s Somali region, according to locals and officials who spoke to the Guardian. Many of Khadar’s neighbours have suffered the same symptoms. Like him, some died.
Continue reading...The destructive migratory pest threatens catastrophe as it swarms through countries already plagued by food insecurity
A colleague at the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) tells a terrifying story about the desert locust.
In 2005 she visited farmers in Niger as they prepared to harvest their crops. Just hours later, a swarm of locusts swept through the area and destroyed everything. One month later, truckloads of families were forced to leave their homes because they had nothing to eat.
Continue reading...Huge locust swarms in east Africa are the result of extreme weather swings and could prove catastrophic for a region still reeling from drought and deadly floods. Dense clouds of the ravenous insects have spread from Ethiopia and Somalia into Kenya, in the region’s worse infestation in decades
Continue reading...From Somalia to South Sudan, torrential rains have devastated crops and made roads impassable, sending the cost of food soaring
Before the floods hit her village, crumpling buildings, ripping out pathways and submerging swathes of land, Nurto Mohamed Hassan could buy a kilogram of rice for the equivalent of about 70p.
Now the cost is more than £1. This may not seem a lot in isolation but, for people with little money and families to feed, it is a significant rise.
Continue reading...Politicians in their 30s and 40s face huge hurdles in sweeping away decades-old regimes
After several years during which younger leaders have come to power across Africa, 2020 could hold challenges that may force many of the newcomers to take a step back.
Not all the young politicians are progressive, or even pro-democracy. But they are all representative of sweeping changes across the continent that have destabilised long-standing regimes and forced out some veteran leaders.
Continue reading...Officials say winner’s refusal to face public questioning is ‘highly problematic’
Abiy Ahmed, the prime minister of Ethiopia, has come under pressure to appear before the media in Oslo this week when he collects the Nobel peace prize on Tuesday.
Senior officials of the Norwegian Nobel Institute have said the 2019 winner’s refusal to attend any event where he could be asked questions publicly is “highly problematic”.
Continue reading...Nile basin countries fear for their future water supplies as the Grand Renaissance hydroelectric project reaches completion
A new round of high-level talks has started in Cairo between three Nile basin countries aimed at resolving disputes over Ethiopia’s controversial Grand Renaissance dam, which is set to become Africa’s biggest hydroelectric power plant.
Analysts fear that Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia could be drawn into conflict if the dispute is not resolved before the $5bn dam begins operating next year.
Continue reading...Hundreds of thousands of people in need of aid as heavy rain lashes east Africa
Dozens of people have died in flooding in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) when the Congo river and its tributaries burst their banks, a charity and media reports said on Saturday, as heavy rains also lashed east Africa.
Twenty-five people were reported to have been killed in the northwestern province of Équateur bordering Congo-Brazzaville, Congolese media reports said.
Continue reading...Violent clashes leave at least 67 dead as activist compares Abiy Ahmed to a dictator
Violence in Ethiopia that began with protests against the prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, and quickly morphed into ethnic clashes has left 67 people dead in Oromia state, a police official said on Friday.
“The total number dead in Oromia is 67,” said Kefyalew Tefera, the regional police chief, adding that five of the dead were police officers.
Continue reading...Global acclaim for the peace he forged with Eritrea should buoy a leader facing the persecution of ethnic minorities at home
The Nobel prize awarded last week to Ethiopia’s prime minister, Dr Abiy Ahmed, honoured his achievements as a peacemaker. Most widely recognised was his success in thawing relations with Eritrea, the breakaway republic with which Ethiopia had remained on a war footing since the country gained independence in 1993.
No less significant, however, was his management of the internal conflict between the Ethiopian government and protesters in Oromia, the region surrounding Addis Ababa, the capital. Rather than attempting to shut down the protests by force, Abiy acknowledged their grievances, and opened up political space. He freed political prisoners jailed by previous administrations, and restored the legitimacy of parties formerly branded as terrorist organisations.
Continue reading...Subpoenas to Southwest Airlines and American Airlines seek information about flight crew training and 737 Max software MCAS
Lawyers representing families of passengers killed in a Boeing 737 Max crash in Ethiopia in March are set to issue subpoenas to Southwest Airlines and American Airlines, the two biggest US operators of the jet, according to documents seen by Reuters.
The subpoenas will be issued over the next couple of days, the lawyers separately told Reuters.
Continue reading...Under charismatic prime minister Abiy Ahmed, Ethiopia’s capital is undergoing its most radical facelift in a generation
“Here there used to be a lot of shops, you know, women selling bread and tea,” says Woinshet Fanta, shuffling past the rusted railway track in a long floral skirt. On the other side of the road is a field littered with assorted machinery.
“There used to be an oil depot there, but now it’s closed,” she says. “They say it’s going to become a museum and a park.” The mother of four circles back towards the empty plot behind the station: “And this one is Dubai now.”
Continue reading...The decision to honour the Ethiopian prime minister recognises the astonishing changes he has pushed through. But the country’s progress remains precarious
The list of Nobel peace prize winners encompasses the good and great, but also a few more curious nominees. Some were controversial from the first. Barack Obama was honoured before he had a chance to do anything significant with his office. Henry Kissinger was given the prize when he had already done far too much; the award, said one observer, made political satire obsolete. In other cases, history has proved unkind. Aung San Suu Kyi was recognised in 1991, as a dissident who had long campaigned for democracy and freedom. But she became head of Myanmar’s government and, though she has no power over the military, her silence as it carried out mass killings of Rohingya Muslims led many to call – unsuccessfully – for her prize to be revoked.
So handing this year’s prize to a leader who has been in power for just 18 months, and was little known before that, is a bold move. Yet the Ethiopian prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, has an astonishing amount to show for his time in office. The award is primarily to recognise his work to secure peace and international cooperation, and in particular the deal he signed with Eritrea last summer, which ended a nearly 20-year military stalemate following a long border war. The domestic changes he has effected in a highly repressive country are equally impressive. Half his cabinet is female, as is his chief justice – and the head of the election board, a former exiled dissident. Bans on opposition parties have been lifted, thousands of political prisoners have been freed, and senior officials have been arrested for corruption and human rights abuses. It is all the more astonishing given that he was appointed by the instinctively autocratic Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front. His remarkable record, however brief, has turned scepticism about his promises into “Abiymania”.
Continue reading...Wildfires and an encroaching population are threatening grasslands that host some of the world’s rarest species
Conservationist Getachew Assefa points across the valley. “It started close to the mist over there, by the most spectacular viewpoint,” he says. “Almost all the grassland was burnt. All of that plateau and the steep cliff over there.”
Six months after wildfires torched this part of Ethiopia’s Simien Mountains, the scars are healing: heather and grass have returned to carpet the hilltop, brightened by the yellow daisies which bloom after the long rains. On the near side of the valley lie barley fields, rippling in the wind.
Continue reading...Escaping poverty and drought, Ethiopians are making the dangerous sea crossing from Djibouti to Yemen and then on foot to the Saudi border. Many only realise they are crossing a conflict zone when they are picked up by gangs or militias
Photographs by Susan Schulman
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