Exclusive: Witnesses say federal forces have been looting villages and shooting farmers in their hunt for defiant Fano militiamen
Ethiopian soldiers killed more than 70 civilians and looted properties in a town in Amhara, multiple witnesses have claimed.
The killings took place in Majete, a rural town in north-eastern Ethiopia, after two weeks of heavy fighting between federal soldiers and the Fano, an Amhara militia.
Continue reading...Oil-producing African nations argue they should be able to use fossil fuel resources for economic growth
African leaders and campaigners are at odds over the way forward for the continent as a critical climate summit begins in Nairobi.
Some countries, such as Ethiopia, Kenya, Egypt and South Africa, have been expanding their renewable energy access and leading transition efforts on the continent, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency.
Continue reading...Medical records from across the region show sexual violence continues to be used ‘to intimidate and terrorise communities’
Eritrean and Ethiopian soldiers continue a widespread and systematic campaign of rape in Tigray despite the peace agreement signed in November last year, a new report reveals.
In the first report to document sexual violence – using hundreds of medical records from the start of the conflict in November 2020 through to June 2023 – healthcare professionals recount cases of gang-rape, sexual slavery and murder, including the killing of children.
Continue reading...Major expansion as economic bloc that includes Russia and China attempts to provide counterweight to the US and western allies
The Brics group of big emerging economies has announced the admission of six new members, in an attempt to reshape the global world order and provide a counterweight to the US and its allies.
From the beginning of next year, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Argentina, the UAE and Ethiopia will join the current five members – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – it was announced at a summit in Johannesburg on Thursday.
Continue reading...Report by Human Rights Watch details alleged attacks using explosive weapons and small arms on Saudi Arabia-Yemen border
Saudi border guards have been accused of killing hundreds of Ethiopians using small arms and explosive weapons in a targeted campaign that rights advocates suggest may amount to a crime against humanity.
The shocking claims are made in a detailed investigation by Human Rights Watch, which interviewed dozens of Ethiopian people who said they were attacked by border guards while they tried to cross into Saudi Arabia from Yemen.
Continue reading...Residents say attack on town square in Finote Selam targeted ethnic Fano militia but civilians were also hit
An airstrike on a busy town square in Ethiopia’s Amhara region has killed at least 26 people, in the latest instance of violence in Ethiopia’s second-biggest state, where militia have been fighting the army.
The attack occurred in the early hours of Sunday morning in Finote Selam, a town in Amhara’s West Gojjam zone, a local doctor told the Guardian.
Continue reading...Clashes between the army and a regional militia threaten public security and are causing ‘serious economic and humanitarian damage’, said officials
Ethiopia’s council of ministers has declared a state of emergency in the Amhara region after its leader said he was no longer able to contain a surge in violence between a local ethnic militia and the army.
The office of the prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, announced the emergency on Friday, saying attacks by “armed extremist groups” posed an increasing threat to public security and were causing significant economic damage.
Continue reading...UN and US halt food assistance in the country, where 20 million people rely on aid, in order to investigate ‘diversion’ of supplies
Food aid to Ethiopia has been suspended after the discovery that humanitarian supplies meant for people in need were being stolen.
The UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) said on Friday that it is halting food assistance while it rolled out “enhanced safeguards and controls that will ensure humanitarian food assistance reaches targeted, vulnerable people”. It comes a day after the US Agency for International Development (USAid) said it was doing the same, after a “countrywide review” uncovered “a widespread and coordinated campaign” that was diverting food assistance from Ethiopian people.
Continue reading...Passengers accuse airline of refusing to sell tickets to people from the ethnic minority to fly from northern region to Addis Ababa
A civil society organisation has launched a lawsuit against Ethiopian Airlines, accusing the state-owned carrier of discriminating against ethnic Tigrayans.
The suit brought by Human Rights First, a local NGO, claims the airline is preventing “Tigrayans aged 15 to 60” from buying tickets for flights from the northern Tigray region to Addis Ababa, the federal capital. It also claims the company has increased ticket prices for the route as a form of “collective sanction” against the people of Tigray.
Continue reading...Prince Alemayehu, who was taken to England after his father’s citadel was looted, was buried at Windsor Castle in 19th century
Buckingham Palace has reportedly declined a request to return the remains of an Ethiopian prince who came to be buried at Windsor Castle in the 19th century.
Prince Alemayehu, a claimed descendant of the biblical King Solomon, was taken to England – some say “stolen” – after British soldiers looted his father’s imperial citadel after the Battle of Maqdala in 1868.
Continue reading...Thousands of Sudanese are crossing borders into countries already severely stressed by drought, conflicts and food insecurity, say UN officials
The UN is in a race against time to get food supplies to Sudanese refugees crossing the border into Chad before the rainy season begins, as neighbouring countries struggle to cope with the numbers of people fleeing the civil war.
More than 110,000 people are now estimated to have crossed into other countries as patchy ceasefires fail to stop deadly clashes between Sudanese army troops and a paramilitary rival that have killed hundreds and forced more than 330,000 from their homes.
Continue reading...The country’s second-biggest state has been riven by mass street protests, armed clashes between local police and the federal military as well as the fatal shooting of two aid workers
Gun battles and mass protests have engulfed parts of Amhara, Ethiopia’s second-biggest region, after a move to centralise the regional security forces of the country’s 11 states.
The federal government announced the policy last Thursday, in pursuit of building “a strong centralised army”. People from several towns in Amhara responded with protests, while some units of the region’s security forces refused to disarm and clashed with the federal military.
Continue reading...The musician, who spent nearly the last 40 years of her life living in a monastery in Jerusalem, has died
Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou, an Ethiopian nun, composer and pianist, has died at the age of 99.
According to the country’s state-run news outlet Fana Broadcasting Corporate, she died in Jerusalem. Guèbrou had been living at the Ethiopian Monastery there for almost 40 years.
This article was amended on 27 March 2023 to correct the name of the film The Honky Tonk Nun from The Honky Tonk Man
Continue reading...Move follows peace deal between rebels and federal government that ended two-year conflict
The Ethiopian government has said it has appointed a senior official in the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) as head of the interim Tigray regional administration after a peace deal ended a brutal two-year conflict.
“Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has appointed Getachew Reda as president of the Tigray region’s interim administration,” Abiy’s office said in a statement posted on Twitter on Thursday.
Continue reading...Ethiopian, Eritrean and rebel forces committed offences during two-year conflict, Antony Blinken has said
The United States has concluded that Ethiopian and Eritrean troops as well as rebels committed war crimes during the brutal two-year conflict, secretary of state Antony Blinken has said after visiting Addis Ababa.
Blinken, who had sounded upbeat in Ethiopia about the prospects for peace after a breakthrough 2 November accord, made a forceful call for accountability on his return to Washington.
Continue reading...Surrendering weapons is a central part of the November ceasefire agreement which seeks to end a conflict that has killed thousands
Tigrayan rebels have begun handing in heavy weapons, a key part of an agreement signed more than two months ago to end a deadly conflict in northern Ethiopia, a spokesperson for the rebel authorities said.
The demobilisation of Tigray forces is seen as central to the 2 November ceasefire agreement, alongside the restoration of services, resumption of humanitarian aid and withdrawal of Eritrean troops, who fought alongside Ethiopia’s army but were not party to the truce.
Continue reading...WHO director-general says he is ‘not in good shape’ after learning Eritrean troops killed his uncle in Tigray
The head of the World Health Organization said on Wednesday that Eritrean troops “murdered” his uncle in the Tigray region of Ethiopia.
The WHO director-general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, a former Ethiopian minister who comes from Tigray, has previously been a vocal critic of Ethiopia’s role in the conflict that has killed tens of thousands and displaced millions.
Continue reading...Legal action backed by Amnesty alleges hateful posts inflaming war in northern Ethiopia were allowed to flourish on platform
Meta has been accused in a lawsuit of letting posts that inflamed the war in Tigray flourish on Facebook, after an Observer investigation in February revealed repeated inaction on posts that incited violence.
The lawsuit, filed in the high court of Kenya, where Meta’s sub-Saharan African operations are based, alleges that Facebook’s recommendations systems amplified hateful and violent posts in the context of the war in northern Ethiopia, which raged for two years until a ceasefire was agreed in early November. The lawsuit seeks the creation of a $1.6bn (£1.3bn) fund for victims of hate speech.
Continue reading...‘Famine in all but name’ ravaging Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya, yet British aid is one-fifth of 2017 amount
The UK urgently needs to do more to help more than 28 million people in drought-stricken Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya, two former secretaries of state for international development and the heads of 14 of the UK’s leading aid agencies have warned in a joint letter to the prime minister, Rishi Sunak.
They say one person is dying every 36 seconds, yet British aid to the region is only one-fifth of what Britain provided when the region was struck by famine in 2017. More than 7 million children are acutely malnourished across the three countries.
Continue reading...Doctors and aid workers describe race against time to keep patients alive in northern Ethiopian region
Convoys carrying desperately needed food aid have entered Tigray, as humanitarian groups gained access to the war-torn northern Ethiopian region for the first time since a ceasefire agreement was signed two-week ago.
Doctors and aid workers in Tigray have described a race against time to keep sick or malnourished patients alive as they wait for humanitarian assistance.
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