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Tag: Ethiopia government

  • Ukraine foreign minister urges African nations to ditch neutrality in Russia war

    Ukraine foreign minister urges African nations to ditch neutrality in Russia war

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    ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AP) — Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba is urging African countries to abandon their stances of neutrality towards his country’s war with Russia.

    Many African countries have refused to take sides in the European conflict, with several abstaining from votes at the United Nations General Assembly condemning Russia’s invasion. Ethiopia is one of them.

    Speaking in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian capital, on Wednesday, Kuleba said Ukraine was “very upset that some African countries chose to abstain” and called them to lend Ukraine diplomatic support “in the face of Russian aggression.”

    “Neutrality is not the answer,” he told reporters. “By being neutral towards Russian aggression against Ukraine, you project neutrality to the violations of borders and mass crimes that may occur very close to you.”

    Russia has built a substantial presence in several parts of Africa, where Russian private military contractor Wagner is active, and recently held joint military drills with South Africa. Russia plans to hold an Africa-Russia summit in July.

    Kuleba also called on African countries to endorse the “ten-point peace formula” proposed by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in December and emphasised Ukraine’s wish to build “mutually beneficial” relations with Africa, based on trade in energy, technology and pharmaceuticals.

    “We have to remind each other of the importance of Africa to Ukraine and the importance of Ukraine to Africa,” Kubela said, admitting that Ukraine’s previous attitude towards the continent was characterised by “inertia.”

    Both Ukraine and Russia supply a significant amount of grain to Africa.

    Kubela is currently on an African tour that also includes visits to Morocco and Rwanda. In Ethiopia, he held discussions with Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, African Union Commission Chairman Moussa Faki Mahamat and Azali Assoumani, the president of the Comoros and current chair of the continent-wide body.

    Kubela made his first trip to Africa in October when he visited Senegal, Ivory Coast, Ghana and Kenya. The trip was cut short after Russia launched strikes against Ukrainian infrastructure.

    His Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, has also been active in shoring up ties with African countries since the Ukraine war broke out, touring the continent once in 2021 and making at least two visits so far this year.

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  • UN, others cite new displacement from Ethiopia’s Tigray

    UN, others cite new displacement from Ethiopia’s Tigray

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    ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AP) — Forces from Ethiopia’s Amhara region have displaced tens of thousands of ethnic Tigrayans from disputed territory in the north of the country in recent weeks despite a peace deal agreed late last year, according to aid workers and internal agency documents seen by the AP.

    The Mai Tsebri area in northwestern Tigray is close to the regional border with Amhara. It changed hands several times during the war, which erupted in 2020 and ended with a ceasefire in November. The Amhara people claim the area as their own.

    Since early March, some 47,000 people uprooted from Mai Tsebri have gone to Endabaguna, a town roughly 55 kilometers (34 miles) further north, according to United Nations figures seen by the AP on Thursday.

    Another report, prepared by a humanitarian agency, says residents fled Mai Tsebri because of “harassment, ethnic profiling and direct threats” from irregular Amhara forces that also carried out “evictions.”

    That report adds that there have been no aid deliveries to Endabaguna since the displaced people started arriving. As a result, it says, they are “on the brink of starvation.”

    The displaced people at Endabaguna are sheltering in a reception center originally built by the U.N. and Ethiopia’s government for refugees from Eritrea, which borders Tigray. The site was badly damaged during the war.

    An aid worker who recently visited the center said conditions there were “very bad” and the number of people was “increasing day by day.”

    “The roofing and pipelines are damaged, there is no toilet and latrine, the doors and windows of the rooms are looted (or) damaged, and there is no proper water supply,” said the aid worker, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.

    It was not immediately possible to get a comment from Amhara authorities.

    A second aid worker, who also requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to a reporter, said many of the people recently uprooted from Mai Tsebri were displaced for a second time, having already been forced from their homes in the western part of Tigray.

    Amhara forces annexed western Tigray in the early stages of the war. They stand accused of “ethnic cleansing” by the U.S. State Department after they forcibly deported hundreds of thousands of Tigrayans from the area.

    Under the recent ceasefire, aid deliveries to Tigray resumed after two years of restrictions. However, aid workers say Amhara forces have continued to block food distribution around Mai Tsebri, and residents have reported killings.

    One Mai Tsebri resident, Teferi Muley, said he fled the area in November after he was threatened by Amhara troops, who accused him of helping the Tigray rebels. He said he returned in March to the nearby village of Haida, where he witnessed the shooting of several artisanal gold miners by Amhara troops.

    Last week Ethiopia’s government said it planned to fold the security forces of the 11 federal regions into the national army or police. This prompted a wave of protest across Amhara, as well as gun battles between the federal military and regional Amhara units who refused to disarm.

    Humanitarian officials believe the upheaval will likely lead to an increase in displacements from Mai Tsebri, which already stand at an average of 150 households every day, according to an assessment by another aid agency.

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  • Zambian police announce discovery of bodies of 27 Ethiopians

    Zambian police announce discovery of bodies of 27 Ethiopians

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    LUSAKA, Zambia — The bodies of 27 men believed to be Ethiopian nationals were discovered Sunday in Zambia’s capital city, police have confirmed.

    Police investigations indicate the bodies “all males aged between 20 and 38, were dumped … in Ngwerere area (of Lusaka) by unknown people,” Danny Mwale, Deputy Police Public Relations officer, said in a statement.

    “They are all believed to be Ethiopian nationals,” Mwale said.

    One man was still alive and was rushed to a hospital for treatment, he said.

    The 27 bodies have been taken to the University Teaching Hospital mortuary for formal identification and postmortems, he said.

    Police and other security services are investigating, said Mwale.

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  • Sudan official: Deaths from southern tribal clashes at 220

    Sudan official: Deaths from southern tribal clashes at 220

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    CAIRO — Two days of tribal fighting in Sudan’s south killed at least 220 people, a senior health official said Sunday, marking one the deadliest bouts of tribal violence in recent years. The unrest added to the woes of an African nation mired in civil conflict and political chaos.

    Fighting in Blue Nile province, which borders Ethiopia and South Sudan, reignited earlier this month over a land dispute. It pits the Hausa tribe, with origins across West Africa, against the Berta people.

    The tensions escalated Wednesday and Thursday in the town of Wad el-Mahi on the border with Ethiopia, according to Fath Arrahman Bakheit, the director general of the Health Ministry in Blue Nile.

    He told The Associated Press that officials counted at least 220 dead as of Saturday night, adding the tally could be much higher since medical teams were not able to reach the epicenter of the fighting.

    Bakheit said the first humanitarian and medical convoy managed to reach Was el-Mahi late Saturday to try to assess the situation, including counting “this huge number of bodies,” and the dozens of injured.

    “In such clashes, everyone loses,” he said. “We hope it ends soon and never happens again. But we need strong political, security and civil interventions to achieve that goal.”

    Footage from the scene, which corresponded to the AP’s reporting, showed burned houses and charred bodies. Others showed women and children fleeing on foot.

    Many houses were burned down in the fighting, which displaced some 7,000 people to the city of Rusyaris. Others fled to neighboring provinces, according to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Overall, about 211,000 people have been displaced by tribal violence and other attacks across the country this year, it said.

    Authorities ordered a nighttime curfew in Wad el-Mahi and deployed troops to the area. They also established a fact-finding committee to investigate the clashes, according to the state-run SUNA news agency.

    The fighting between the two groups first erupted in mid-July, killing at least 149 people as of earlier October. It triggered violent protests and stoked tensions between the two tribes in Blue Nile and other provinces.

    The latest fighting comes at a critical time for Sudan, just a few days before the first anniversary of a military coup that further plunged the country into turmoil. The coup derailed the country’s short-lived transition to democracy after nearly three decades of the repressive rule of Omar al-Bashir, who was removed in April 2019 by a popular uprising.

    In recent weeks the military and the pro-democracy movement have engaged in talks to find a way out of the ongoing situation. The generals agreed to allow civilians to appoint a prime minister to lead the country through elections within 24 months, the pro-democracy movement said last week.

    However, the violence in Blue Nile is likely to slow down such efforts. Protest groups, who reject the deal with the ruling generals, have been preparing for mass anti-military demonstrations called for Tuesday, the anniversary of the coup.

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