Data analysis highlights the human cost if thousands of overseas projects lose funding
Experts have warned of “devastating” consequences of the UK’s foreign aid cuts after Guardian analysis revealed the UK is cutting funding at a time when major recipient countries are at risk of becoming more politically unstable.
Thousands of activities providing life-saving support are being cut due to the government’s decision to reduce aid spending to 0.5% of gross national income.
Continue reading...A round-up of the coverage of the struggle for human rights and freedoms, from Thailand to Mexico
Continue reading...Mutilation, slavery and torture of women and girls detailed in accounts published by Amnesty, in what organisation says could amount to war crimes
Ethiopian government forces have been systematically raping and abusing hundreds of women and girls in the current conflict in Tigray, according to a new report from Amnesty International.
Adding to a growing body of evidence that rape is being used as a weapon of war in the northern region of Ethiopia, Amnesty’s research offers a snapshot of the extent of the crimes in an area where communications with the outside world have been deliberately restricted by federal authorities.
Continue reading...Abiy Ahmed issues call for all eligible civilians to ‘show your patriotism’ amid fighting with Tigrayan forces
The Ethiopian prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, has issued a call for all eligible civilians to join the armed forces as fighting rages in multiple regions of Africa’s second-most populous nation.
“Now is the right time for all capable Ethiopians who are of age to join the defence forces, special forces and militias and show your patriotism,” Abiy’s office said in a statement released less than two months after he declared a unilateral ceasefire against Tigrayan rebels.
Continue reading...Government says it will ‘deploy entire defensive capability’ and Amhara region threatens attack against Tigray forces
Ethiopia’s spreading conflict has escalated after the government warned that it could deploy its “entire defensive capability” against the restive Tigray region after advances by rebels into neighbouring regions.
After the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) rebuffed calls on Friday to withdraw from the neighbouring Afar and Amhara regions, the government in Addis Ababa said the rebels were testing its patience and threatening the ceasefire called in June.
Continue reading...Médecins Sans Frontières and Norwegian Refugee Council, active in war-torn Tigray, in talks over ban
The Ethiopian government has suspended the work of two international aid organisations for three months, including in the conflict-hit Tigray region, accusing them of spreading misinformation.
Ethiopia Current Issues Fact Check, a government-run website focused on Tigray, accused Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) and the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) of violating several rules.
Continue reading...Nearly 400,000 have died since it won independence 10 years ago. Now violence looms again, within and beyond its borders
Independence isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be. Recent additions to the family of nations, such as Kosovo and East Timor (Timor-Leste), have struggled to find their feet. In 2017, Catalonia’s secessionists split their homeland in two. Scottish referendum voters took a pass in 2014. The uncomplicated glory days when “third world” liberation movements ousted colonial regimes seem a long time ago.
South Sudan, which marked its 10th birthday on Friday, came late to Africa’s independence party – the product of a complex 2005 deal to end Sudan’s decades-old civil war. Barack Obama, seeking the credit, waxed lyrical. “Today is a reminder that after the darkness of war, the light of a new dawn is possible,” he declared.
Continue reading...A roundup of the coverage on struggles for human rights and freedoms, from Chile to Cambodia
Continue reading...Since the interim government of Ethiopia’s Tigray region fled after rebel fighters advanced into Mekelle, a ‘unilateral ceasefire’ has been announced. More than 7,000 captive Ethiopian soldiers walked from Abdi Eshir for four days
Continue reading...Call for withdrawal of Eritrean forces from war-torn region and restoration of rebel government
Rebels in Ethiopia’s war-torn Tigray region have accepted a ceasefire “in principle” but posed strict conditions for it to be formalised.
Notable among those conditions was the withdrawal from the region of Eritrean forces as well as fighters from the neighbouring Ethiopian region of Amhara, who have been supporting the Ethiopian army during the eight-month long conflict.
Continue reading...Another 1.8 million people are on the brink, officials say, and 33,000 children are severely malnourished
Top UN officials have warned the Security Council that more than 400,000 people in Ethiopia’s Tigray are now in famine and that there was a risk of more clashes in the region despite a unilateral ceasefire by the federal government.
After six private discussions on Friday, the Security Council held its first public meeting since fighting broke out in November between government forces, backed by troops from neighbouring Eritrea, and TPLF fighters with Tigray’s former ruling party.
Continue reading...Lack of phone and internet hampering humanitarian efforts in war-torn Ethiopian province, UN warns
Humanitarian organisations in Ethiopia are demanding that phone lines and internet are restored to the troubled northern province of Tigray, warning that the ceasefire declared by Addis Ababa this week will only help alleviate famine if aid workers can operate safely.
Since the Ethiopian National Defense Forces (ENDF) withdrew from Mekelle, Tigray’s capital, on Monday, all telecommunications have been down, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha). Unicef said ENDF personnel had entered its office and dismantled crucial satellite equipment.
Continue reading...Warning comes less than 48 hours after unilateral ceasefire declared by Addis Ababa
Ethiopian military and diplomatic officials have threatened to send troops back into Tigray less than 48 hours after announcing that Addis Ababa had declared a unilateral ceasefire in the devastated northern province.
The announcement on Wednesday that Ethiopian federal forces would withdraw from Tigray caught many observers by surprise, and signals a major shift in strategy. However, the new threat underlines the fragility of any current calm.
Continue reading...Celebrations on streets of Mekelle after soldiers and officials appointed by Ethiopian government flee city
Dissident leaders of Ethiopia’s war-hit Tigray region have dismissed a government ceasefire declaration and vowed to drive out “enemies” from the region, after rebel fighters advanced on the Tigrayan capital.
In a dramatic development in the nearly eight-month-old conflict, which has been marked by large-scale atrocities, federal security forces and officials from the central government appointed interim administration fled Mekelle on Monday night. Residents took to the streets in jubilation, firing celebratory gunfire and fireworks into the sky.
Continue reading...Spokesperson for Tigray People’s Liberation Front says Mekelle is ‘under our control’
The interim government of Ethiopia’s war-hit Tigray region has fled as rebel fighters advanced into the region’s capital and the national government announced a “unilateral ceasefire”.
Witnesses said federal soldiers and police were also abandoning Mekelle late on Monday, and fireworks and celebratory gunfire could be heard as Tigrayan fighters took the city’s airport and other key positions.
Continue reading...MSF says it condemns attack on colleagues ‘in strongest possible terms’ after bodies found near car
Three aid workers who had been working in Ethiopia’s Tigray region have bee found dead, their organisation, Médecins Sans Frontières, announced on Friday.
MSF said it had lost contact with the workers while they were traveling on Thursday afternoon. Their bodies were found near their empty car this morning.
Continue reading...At least 64 people dead after strike on Tuesday that left at least 180 injured, say local officials
At least 64 people have been killed and 180 injured in an Ethiopian airstrike on a market in the war-torn Tigray region, according to local health officers, doctors, local residents and witnesses.
“The airstrike was in the market area, so many, many people were injured,” said Mulu Atsbaha, an adviser to the Tigray regional administration on maternal and child health on Thursday.
Continue reading...Rights chief calls for concerted global action, citing recent violations in China, Russia and Ethiopia
The UN rights chief has called for concerted action to recover from the worst global deterioration of rights she had seen, highlighting the situation in China, Russia and Ethiopia among others.
“To recover from the most wide-reaching and severe cascade of human rights setbacks in our lifetimes, we need a life-changing vision, and concerted action,” Michelle Bachelet told the opening of the UN Human Rights Council’s 47th session.
Continue reading...Frontrunner Abiy Ahmed needs popular mandate to bolster his grip on power amid growing criticism
Voters have begun casting their ballots in delayed elections in Ethiopia that supporters of the prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, say are proof of his commitment to democracy and critics warn could be the launchpad for consolidation of an increasingly authoritarian rule.
The national and regional polls take place against a background of a gruelling military conflict in the northern Tigray region, the looming prospect of a famine, rising ethnic violence and deep economic problems.
Continue reading...People are starving in the Tigray region. The culprit is the devastating war
In the early 1980s, as a terrible famine claimed between 400,000 and 1 million lives in Ethiopia, the international community responded to what was widely misunderstood and misreported as a natural disaster. Famines are never just a matter of drought. Human Rights Watch later noted that Ethiopia’s repeated crises – especially the devastating one of 1983-85 – “were in large part created by government policies, especially counter-insurgency strategies”. Tigray was “the very nadir of the famine”, as a destructive army offensive was accompanied by the deliberate blocking of aid.
Now famine has reached Tigray again – and once more, it is because an Ethiopian government is at war with the Tigray People’s Liberation Front. The federal government wants to celebrate the beginning of twice-delayed parliamentary elections on Monday, portraying them as the advent of democracy. But the polls are overshadowed by questions over electoral conditions and multiple crises, most of all in Tigray (where there will be no voting). Over 350,000 people in the region are in famine conditions, and 2 million more are on the brink – more than a third of the region’s population. They include 33,000 children at imminent risk of death.
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