Tigray People’s Liberation Front says Eritreans are fighting alongside Ethiopian government forces
Forces in Ethiopia’s Tigray region said troops from neighbouring Eritrea launched a “full-scale offensive” on Tuesday and heavy fighting was ongoing in several areas along the border.
Reuters was not immediately able to verify the account on Twitter from Getachew Reda, a spokesperson for the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF).
Continue reading...Food experts say shipment is drop in bucket for drought-hit Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia but hope supplies pick up
The first ship carrying grain from Ukraine for people in the hungriest parts of the world has docked at Djibouti, on the Horn of Africa, as areas of east Africa are badly affected by deadly drought and conflict.
Food security experts say it is a drop in the bucket for the vast needs in the worst-hit countries of Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia, the country to which the shipment is going. But the flow of Ukrainian grain to other hungry parts of the world is expected to continue, with another ship leaving on Tuesday for Yemen. The UN World Food Programme has said it was working on multiple ships.
Continue reading...Medical officials say three children among those killed as fighting resumes in northern Ethiopia days after a truce collapsed
An airstrike on a children’s playground has killed at least seven people in the capital of Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region, medical officials there said, in the first such attack after a four-month-old ceasefire collapsed this week.
The officials said three children were among the dead but a federal government spokesperson denied any civilian casualties.
Continue reading...Tigrayan rebels and government each accuse the other of striking first as conflict resumes
Fighting has erupted between government forces and Tigrayan rebels in northern Ethiopia, shattering a five-month truce between the warring sides.
Both have repeatedly blamed the other for a lack of progress towards negotiations to end the 21-month conflict in Africa’s second most populous nation.
Continue reading...Urgent action needed to avert further disaster in war-torn country as funding ‘fast running out’
Nearly one in three children under five in the Ethiopian region of Tigray are malnourished and the UN said urgent action is needed to prevent them from dying.
According to a new emergency assessment carried out by the World Food Programme (WFP), 29% of very young children are suffering from global acute malnutrition (GAM). More than half of pregnant or breastfeeding woman are also malnourished.
Continue reading...Four years of failed rains in Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia have left the region facing catastrophe this year
The number of people at risk of starvation in the drought-ravaged Horn of Africa has increased to 22 million, the UN’s world food programme (WFP) says.
Years of insufficient rainfall across Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia have caused the worst drought in 40 years and conditions akin to famine in the hardest-hit areas, aid groups say.
Continue reading...People in Ethiopian region turn to desperate measures after authorities stop 6 million people accessing their own money
Hunger in the besieged region of Tigray is pushing people to increasingly desperate measures as the authorities are systematically blocking and confiscating remittances needed by millions of people.
Banking services and all communications have been cut off to the state by the Ethiopian administration since last year, with 6 million people denied access to their own money.
Continue reading...Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus says world ignoring disaster being inflicted on 6 million people by Ethiopian government
The head of the World Health Organization has returned to his suggestion that racism may be driving the lack of international interest in the ongoing war in Ethiopia.
Civil war broke out in November 2020 and has pitted Tigrayan forces against federal Ethiopian forces, also drawing in Eritrean troops, in fighting that has triggered a serious humanitarian crisis.
Continue reading...Exclusive: Tigrinya speakers say they face beatings, detention and privation, and blame UN for ‘abandoning’ them, despite right to be in Ethiopia
Eritrean refugees in Ethiopia say they are being targeted for arbitrary arrest and forcible relocation to war-torn parts of the country, despite having UN permission to remain in Ethiopia.
Government security officers are accused of rounding up, abusing and unlawfully detaining refugees who have legal status, as well as Eritreans who have foreign citizenship.
Continue reading...Analysis: Foreign minister seeks to win friends and influence people in countries where closeness can be traced back to USSR
Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, is arriving in Uganda on the latest stop of his tour of Africa, aimed at rallying support on the continent for Russia as the war in Ukraine goes into its sixth month.
Many African leaders have refused to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and have accused the US and Nato of starting or prolonging the conflict.
Continue reading...A toxic combination of climate emergency, conflict and Covid is pushing some of the poorest countries into an acute hunger crisis
Global hunger toll soars by 150m as Covid and war make their mark
The world is in the grip of an unprecedented hunger crisis. A toxic combination of climate crisis, conflict and Covid had already placed some of the poorest countries under enormous strain, but Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has sent grain and fuel prices soaring.
“We thought it couldn’t get any worse,” said David Beasley, director of the UN World Food Programme (WFP), in June. “But this war has been devastating.”
Continue reading...Prime minister Abiy Ahmed blames Oromo Liberation Army but group says government-allied militias behind attacks
An unknown number of villagers have been killed in an ethnically motivated massacre in western Ethiopia, the country’s state-appointed rights body said, in the latest wave of violence following a mass killing in mid-June.
The Oromia region, where the Amhara are a minority ethnic group, has experienced outbreaks of violence for many years, rooted in grievances about political marginalisation and neglect by the central government.
Continue reading...Witnesses say victims of massacre in country’s western Oromia region were ethnic Amharas – a minority in the area
The suspected death toll in an attack by gunmen in Ethiopia’s western Oromia region has risen, with new witness testimony suggesting that between 260 and 320 civilians were killed on Saturday.
Reports of the massacre surfaced on Sunday, as survivors described one of the deadliest such incidents for several years in Ethiopia.
Continue reading...People ‘killed like chickens’ as ethnic tensions continue in Africa’s second most populous country
Witnesses in Ethiopia said on Sunday that more than 200 ethnic Amhara have been killed in an attack in the country’s Oromia region and are blaming a rebel group, which denies it.
It is one of the deadliest such attacks in recent memory as ethnic tensions continue in Africa’s second most populous country.
Continue reading...Covid, climate, stability and violence contributing to young people feeling pessimistic about future, survey of 15 countries suggests
African youth have lost confidence in their own countries and the continent as a whole to meet their aspirations and a rising number are considering moving abroad, according to a survey of young people from 15 countries.
The pandemic, climate crisis, political instability and violence have all contributed to making young people “jittery” about their futures since the Covid pandemic began, according to the African Youth Survey published on Monday.
Continue reading...At least 19 journalists caught up in mass detentions after government moves against Fano, its former ally in Tigray conflict
Ethiopia has launched a sweeping crackdown against an influential armed militia in its Amhara region that has led to the arrest of more than 4,000 people, including journalists, activists and a former general.
The militia group, known as the Fano, played a key role alongside the federal military in beating back November’s southward advance through the Amhara region by the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), which is fighting an 18-month-long civil war against the government and its allies.
Continue reading...Doctors call for international help as Ethiopia civil war leaves terminally ill being treated with paracetamol in Mekelle hospital
Doctors caring for cancer patients at the main hospital in Tigray say they have only two chemotherapy drugs left in date and are treating terminally ill people with expired medication and paracetamol. Eighteen months of war have left the sickest in society suffering agonising deaths, they say.
For the first time in 11 months, doctors at the Ayder referral hospital in Mekelle took receipt of an oral chemotherapy drug earlier this month as part of an airlift by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). Until then, they had had only one, Doxorubicin, still in date.
Continue reading...UK government urged to act as worst drought in 40 years threatens region while aid efforts and global attention remain focused on Ukraine war
The UK government has been urged to give the hunger crisis gripping the Horn of Africa “proper attention”, as new polling showed just two in 10 people in Britain are aware that the worst drought in 40 years is even taking place, let alone threatening famine.
As the war in Ukraine rages, the combined effect of three failed rainy seasons has pushed parts of Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia to the brink, killing livestock, forcing people to leave their homes and increasing levels of child malnutrition. The Russian invasion has exacerbated the situation, pushing up the price of staples such as wheat and sunflower oil, as well as fuel.
Continue reading...With hunger across Horn of Africa and 600,000 children out of school, ‘desperate’ parents push more girls into early marriage
Drought-afflicted areas of Ethiopia are seeing “dramatic” increases in child marriage as the worst climate-induced emergency for 40 years pushes people to the brink, the head of Unicef has said.
Three consecutive failed rainy seasons have brought hunger, malnutrition and mass displacement to millions of people in the Horn of Africa, including parts of Ethiopia, Somalia, Kenya and Djibouti.
Continue reading...Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus says world ‘is not treating the human race the same way’ amid Tigray crisis
The head of the World Health Organization (WHO) has criticised the global community’s focus on the war in Ukraine, arguing that crises elsewhere, including in his home country of Ethiopia, are not being given equal consideration, possibly because the people affected are not white.
Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus questioned whether “the world really gives equal attention to Black and white lives” given that ongoing emergencies in Ethiopia, Yemen, Afghanistan and Syria had garnered only a “fraction” of the concern for Ukraine.
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