OCHA
Ethiopia urges Tigray rebels to join ceasefire, hostilities persist
Ethiopia’s government urged Tigrayan rebels to join a unilateral ceasefire in their conflict on Thursday as aid agencies struggled to reach hundreds of thousands of people facing famine. The Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), the former rulers of Ethiopia’s Tigray region, said on Monday it was back in control of the regional capital Mekelle after nearly eight months of fighting. The government declared a unilateral ceasefire but the TPLF dismissed it as a joke. Hostilities persisted on Thursday and pressure built internationally for all sides to pull back. “Operations are under way … and the number of prisoners of war is increasing by the minute,” TPLF spokesman Getachew Reda told Reuters by satellite phone, with light artillery fire crackling in the background. “We are closing in on...
United Nations, Ethiopia reach aid pact for war-hit Tigray
Ethiopia and the United Nations reached an agreement on Wednesday to channel desperately needed humanitarian aid to a northern region where a month of war has killed, wounded and uprooted large numbers of people. The pact, announced by U.N. officials, will allow aid workers access to government-controlled areas of Tigray, where federal troops have been battling the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) and captured the regional capital. The war is believed to have killed thousands, sent 45,000 refugees into Sudan, displaced many more within Tigray, and worsened suffering in a region where 600,000 people were already dependent on food aid even before the flare-up from Nov. 4. Aid agencies had sounded the alarm about a growing humanitarian crisis and been pressing for access, after hundred...
#EndSARS: Four policemen die, 11 stations razed in Anambra
No fewer than four Police officers were confirmed dead and two injured in Anambra during the recent #EndSARS protests in the state by hoodlums. Mr John Abang, Commissioner of Police in Anambra said this in Awka on Wednesday during the parade of 17 suspected hoodlums. The list of 17 suspects paraded indicated that 10 of them were indigenes of Anambra, four from Ebonyi and three from Abia. Abang said 11 Police Stations were burnt down and six vandalised during which the hoodlums carted away motorcycles, ammunition and other valuables. He said about 20 vehicles were razed, including an Armoured Personnel Carrier and patrol vehicles. The Commissioner who applauded his men for the professionalism with which they managed the crisis, said lives of police officers in the state were still in danger...
