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...
Britain urged all parties to pull back from the violence in Tigray and allow humanitarian workers access to the area on Thursday, after the Ethiopian government declared a unilateral ceasefire earlier this week. “We welcome the Government of Ethiopia’s announcement of a humanitarian ceasefire in Tigray and urge all other parties to the conflict to make similar announcements,” a spokesperson for the Foreign Office said. “The violence must now stop and unfettered humanitarian access granted. Eritrean forces should also leave Tigray.” You Deserve to Make Money Even When you are looking for Dates Online. So we reimagined what a dating should be. It begins with giving you back power. Get to meet Beautiful people, chat and make money in the process. Earn rewards by chatting, sharing photos, blog...
The Ethiopian army could re-enter the seized Tigray regional capital of Mekelle within weeks if needed, a spokesman for a government task force said on Wednesday, adding that government-allied Eritrean forces had withdrawn from the region. It was the first public statement by a federal government official since Mekelle was taken by Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) forces this week in a major turn of events after eight months of conflict in which thousands of people have been killed. read more People in Mekelle, where communications were down on Wednesday, said on Monday incoming Tigrayan fighters had been greeted with cheers. There were similar scenes in the northern town of Shire on Wednesday, where Eritrean forces had pulled out and Tigrayan forces had entered, residents said. Peo...
Ethiopia’s embattled northern region of Tigray remains largely inaccessible, the International Red Cross said Wednesday. The situation has led to starvation deaths, the organization said. “Eighty percent of the Tigray is unreachable at this particular time,” president of the Ethiopian Red Cross Society, Abera Tola, told a press conference. “People in Tigray need everything: food and food items, water and sanitation, medical supplies, and mobile clinics. And humanitarian organizations need access to Tigray to reach the most vulnerable. And this is a call to hold the parties involved: give us safe and unhindered access, respect our teams, respect the medical doctors, respect the health facilities, respect the health workers”, said Francesco Rocca, president of the International Federation of...
The DRC’s President Félix Tshisekedi has now taken over the helm of the African Union to serve as the chairman for one-year. He replaces his South African counterpart Cyril Ramaphosa, following the AU’s 34th summit on Saturday. But Tshisekedi faces big challenges this year with the coronavirus pandemic hitting health service and economies hard. The continent has so far been hit less hard than other regions, recording 3.5 percent of global virus cases and 4 percent of global deaths, according to the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC). But many African countries are battling damaging second waves while straining to procure sufficient vaccine doses. African leaders are speaking out against hoarding by rich countries at the expense of poorer ones. “There is a vaccin...
Two U.S. senators have called on their government to consider imposing sanctions on any political or military officials found to be responsible for human rights violations during a month of conflict in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region. The proposed resolution was introduced on Wednesday by Senator Ben Cardin, a Democrat, and Senator Jim Risch, a Republican. It was the first such call by U.S. lawmakers since war between Ethiopian federal forces and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) broke out on Nov. 4. The conflict is thought to have killed thousands and displaced more than 950,000 people, according to United Nations estimates, about 50,000 of them into Sudan. Concern has mounted over reports of civilians targeted by both sides, posing a policy dilemma for the United States, whic...
An Ethiopian spokesman on Tuesday said that the country’s forces fired on a UN team, claiming they ignored instructions and drove through government checkpoints in the northern region of Tigray. The shooting came as the UN and aid agencies are continuing to seek access to northern Ethiopia, more than a week after fighting there was declared over on November 28. “Some of the UN staff were actually detained and some were shot at,” said Redwan Hussein. “They broke two checkpoints to drive to areas where they were not supposed to go, and that they were told not to go. When they were about to break the third one, they were shot at and detained.” Speaking at a press conference in the capital Addis Ababa, Redwan insisted the UN staffers were to blame for Sunday’s incident close to the town of Shi...
A senior European Union official said on Friday that an agreement between relief organizations and the Ethiopian government for access to the war-hit Tigray region limits aid to federal-controlled areas only and requires too much bureaucracy. “The agreement … has some important shortcomings,” EU Crisis Management Commissioner Janez Lenarcic told reporters. “Humanitarian aid should also go to areas not under government control in line with the fundamental principles of humanitarian aid. There may be malnourished children on the other side also.” There was no immediate reaction from Ethiopia’s government, which says it is channelling aid already into the northern region, where it has battled rebellious local forces for a month. Get more stories like this on Twitter You Deserve to Make Money ...
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...