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The U.N. humanitarian chief warned Thursday that the grave humanitarian crisis in Ethiopia's embattled Tigray region is deteriorating, with no sign of Eritrean troops withdrawing and alarmingly widespread reports of systematic rape and other sexual violence mainly by men in uniform.
The post UN: Tigray's Humanitarian Crisis Worsens, No Eritrean Exit appeared first on Los Angeles Sentinel.
He replaces Debretsion Gebremichael, whose immunity from prosecution was removed Thursday.
Meanwhile, Amnesty International said Thursday that scores of civilians were killed in a \"massacre\" in the Tigray region, that witnesses blamed on forces backing the local ruling party.
The \"massacre\" is the first reported incident of large-scale civilian fatalities in a week-old conflict between the regional ruling party, the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), and the government of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, winner of last year's Nobel Peace Prize.
\"Amnesty International can today confirm... that scores, and likely hundreds, of people were stabbed or hacked to death in Mai-Kadra (May Cadera) town in the southwest of Ethiopia's Tigray Region on the night of 9 November,\" the rights group said in a report.
Amnesty said it had \"digitally verified gruesome photographs and videos of bodies strewn across the town or being carried away on stretchers.\"
The dead \"had gaping wounds that appear to have been inflicted by sharp weapons such as knives and machetes,\" Amnesty said, citing witness accounts.
Witnesses said the attack was carried out by TPLF-aligned forces after a defeat at the hands of the Ethiopian military, though Amnesty said it \"has not been able to confirm who was responsible for the killings\".
It nonetheless called on TPLF commanders and officials to \"make clear to their forces and their supporters that deliberate attacks on civilians are absolutely prohibited and constitute war crimes\".
Abiy ordered military operations in Tigray on November 4, saying they were prompted by a TPLF attack on federal military camps -- a claim the party denies.
The region has been under a communications blackout ever since, making it difficult to verify competing claims on the ground.
Abiy said Thursday his army had made major gains in western Tigray.
Thousands of Ethiopians have fled across the border into neighboring Sudan, and the UN is sounding the alarm about a humanitarian crisis in Tigray.
\"Serious violations of international law, which may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, may have been committed,\"- The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet
For thousands of Ethiopians who have fled fighting in the Tigray region to Sudan, this year’s Coptic Christmas on January 7 is a sombre celebration. There will be little feasting for those living hand-to-mouth in the crowded Um Raquba refugee camp.
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U.N. agencies are warning migrants and refugees crossing the central Mediterranean Sea risk losing their lives if European nations continue to prevent search and rescue vessels from saving those in distress.
The U.N. human rights office expresses alarm at recent reports of rescue boats failing to assist migrants in trouble on the central Mediterranean Sea, considered to be one of the deadliest migration routes in the world.
The agency deplores the coordinated pushback of migrant boats by nations and by hard-nosed policies by some European countries intent on preventing private humanitarian search and rescue vessels from supporting migrants in distress.
Colville says his agency is concerned about the many refugees and migrants who are being returned to Libya after they are rescued at sea.
U.N. agencies are calling for the release of all refugees and migrants in Libyan detention facilities.
As measles, coronavirus and Ebola hit the Democratic Republic of Congo, women face stigma and delayed sexual health treatment
As the world races to stem the coronavirus, Democratic Republic of Congo is racing to also stop the spread of measles and a new outbreak of Ebola, leaving women delaying reproductive health needs, aid groups warned.
Congo is also facing armed conflict, bringing with it sexual violence against women who, as caregivers, are often on the frontlines of caring for the sick and at higher risk of falling ill and also often blamed for spreading these viruses.
\"The additional pressure to tackle these outbreaks will add a burden to the already strained health systems and this will impact on the delivery of basic health services, especially for children and women,\" said Umutoni in emailed comments.
A study by the International Rescue Committee (IRC), a humanitarian relief organisation, reported that women were afraid of being accused of having Ebola and therefore delayed or avoided treatment for reproductive health needs or bleeding.
Young women often go to older women with sexual and reproductive health needs, said Umutoni, which is why they need access to information so they can transfer it to others.
In Jan. 2007, the U.S. launched airstrikes on the retreating Islamists, who they believed included three members of al-Qaeda suspected of involvement in the 1998 bombings of the American embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam. The air strikes were strongly criticized in a number of Muslim countries, which accused the Americans of killing Somali civilians. Battles between the insurgents and Somali and Ethiopian troops intensified in March, leaving 300 civilians dead in what has been called the worst fighting in 15 years. The fighting created a humanitarian crisis, with more than 320,000 Somalis fleeing the fighting in Mogadishu in just two months. In July, a national reconciliation conference opened in Mogadishu but was quickly postponed when leading opposition figures failed to appear. The fighting intensified once again in October. The Alliance for the Reliberation of Somalia, a coalition of moderate Islamist leaders, and the transitional government agreed to a cease-fire in June 2008 that called on Ethiopian troops that were propping up the fragile government to be replaced by UN troops. The future of the deal was tenuous from the start and was greeted by much skepticism. Indeed, it was unclear if the UN could assemble a force willing to be deployed to the troubled region, and several powerful Islamist groups did not participate in the negotiations.
Al-Shabab, the militant wing of SICC, began gaining strength in 2007. It allied itself with al-Qaeda and won the support of many local warlords, primarily in the south. The group has raised alarms in the U.S. that its brand of militant Islam would spread throughout eastern Africa and beyond. The group seeks to return Somalia to an Islamist state and has intimidated civilians with stonings, by chopping off hands, and by banning many forms of technology, while continuing to wage war against the transitional government. Al-Shabab has taken advantage of the power vacuum and weak transitional government. By February 2009, the group controlled almost all of southern
Clarence Clyde Ferguson was appointed Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to Uganda on March 17, 1970 by President Richard Nixon. He presented his credentials June 30, 1970 and terminated his mission on July 19, 1972. Ferguson was born November 4, 1924 in Wilmington, North Carolina to Clarence Clyde and Georgena Owens Ferguson.
Because North Carolina denied African Americans access to higher education, Ferguson went to Ohio State where he graduated cum laude in 1948. A member of Phi Beta Kappa, he also graduated cum laude from Harvard Law School in Massachusetts with a Bachelor of Law (LLB) in 1951. During the 1960s, the LLB was elevated to a Juris Doctor degree and awarded retroactively to those who previously completed the required studies. Ferguson was also later awarded honorary doctorates from Rutgers University in 1966 and Williams College in 1976.
In 1955, Ferguson became the first African American professor in the law school at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey. He subsequently served as the dean of the Howard University School of Law in Washington, D.C. from 1963 to 1969. He joined the faculty of Harvard Law School in 1976 and worked there until his death. He was the author of five books and a number of academic articles.
Ferguson served in the United States Army from 1943 to 1946. He took part in the Battle of Normandy in France and received a Bronze Star. Troubled by his experiences he subsequently “labored tirelessly to safeguard and extend the fundamental freedoms” essential to all men. He began by working periodically on the legal defense team of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in the mid-1950s.
Although Uganda had been relatively stable under the leadership of President A. Milton Obote (despite accusations of corruption), his regime was overthrown in a coup led by General Idi Amin, five months after Ferguson assumed his ambassadorship to Uganda. Amin soon emerged as a brutal, ruthless dictator whose policies had a disastrous impact
Armed groups have committed massacres and other atrocities, and defence and security forces have also been responsible for grave human rights violations in these provinces as well as in other parts of the country.
\"I am appalled by the increase in brutal attacks on innocent civilians by armed groups, and by the reaction of the military and security forces who have also committed grave violations, including killings and sexual violence.
According to the UN Joint Human Rights Office in the DRC (UNJHRO), between 1 October 2019 and 31 May 2020, at least 531 civilians have been killed by armed groups in Ituri, 375 of them since March, when the violence soared.
In North Kivu, the launch of military operations by the government forces in November 2019led to retaliatory attacks against civilians by the main armed group, the ADF, which by 31 May had killed at least 514 civilians using machetes, axes and heavy weapons, and have been abducting children and attacking schools and hospitals.
Serious violence and killings have also been taking place in Kongo Central and Kinshasa where, between 30 March and 24 April, at least 62 civilians were killed and 74 injured during seven operations conducted by the PNC and the FARDC against militants of the politico-religious group Bundu Dia Kongo (BDK).
Burundi's constitutional court on Friday ruled that the country's newly elected leader Evariste Ndayishimiye be rapidly sworn in following the sudden death of President Pierre Nkurunziza earlier this week.
Nkurunziza's death on Monday, aged 55, came after the May election of his successor Ndayishimiye, who was meant to be inaugurated in August.
Nkurunziza, a devout evangelical who believed he was chosen by God to lead Burundi, leaves behind a deeply isolated country in political and economic turmoil after his divisive 15-year rule.
READ HERE | Nkurunziza: Burundi's leader who believed he was chosen by God
However some observers have said he may run into trouble with the generals if he tries to introduce reforms or improve the human rights situation in the country.
After the news of Nkurunziza's death Ndayishimiye vowed to \"continue his high-quality work that he has done for our country\".
[UN News] The dire shortage of food, water, fuel and cash in the Tigray region in northern Ethiopia is seriously affecting people there, including aid workers, the United Nations reported on Tuesday, citing its humanitarian affairs office, OCHA.
Sudan on Wednesday proposed that the heads of state of the three countries involved in the spat over the use of the Nile waters directly handle the disagreement to provide a lasting political solution.
Khartoum said the Grand Renaissance Dam in Ethiopia and the mode of filling it should be directly handled by the top leadership of Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt.
A statement issued by the Sudanese Ministry of Irrigation said there had been “conceptual differences” between Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan on a number of issues related to the Renaissance Dam.
Sudan says the current agreement is supposed to address the filling and operation of the dam, and not the sharing of water among the three countries.
Ethiopia and other Nile basin countries have argued that Egypt and Sudan are beneficiaries of an archaic treaty that gives the two countries the largest chunk of the water.
The Congo, in west-central Africa, is bordered by the Republic of Congo, the Central African Republic, the Sudan, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania, Zambia, Angola, and the Atlantic Ocean. It is one-quarter the size of the U.S. The principal rivers are the Ubangi and Bomu in the north and the Congo in the west, which flows into the Atlantic. The entire length of Lake Tanganyika lies along the eastern border with Tanzania and Burundi.
Transitional government.
Formerly the Belgian Congo, this territory was inhabited by ancient Negrito peoples (Pygmies), who were pushed into the mountains by Bantu and Nilotic invaders. The American correspondent Henry M. Stanley navigated the Congo River in 1877 and opened the interior to exploration. Commissioned by King Leopold II of the Belgians, Stanley made treaties with native chiefs that enabled the king to obtain personal title to the territory at the Berlin Conference of 1885.
Leopold accumulated a vast personal fortune from ivory and rubber through Congolese slave labor; 10 million people are estimated to have died from forced labor, starvation, and outright extermination during Leopolds colonial rule. His brutal exploitation of the Congo eventually became an international cause célèbre, prompting Belgium to take over administration of the Congo, which remained a colony until agitation for independence forced Brussels to grant freedom on June 30, 1960. In elections that month, two prominent nationalists won: Patrice Lumumba of the leftist Mouvement National Congolais became prime minister and Joseph Kasavubu of the ABAKO Party became head of state.
But within weeks of independence, the Katanga Province, led by Moise Tshombe, seceded from the new republic, and another mining province, South Kasai, followed. Belgium sent paratroopers to quell the civil war, and the United Nations flew in a peacekeeping force.
Kasavubu staged an army coup in 1960 and handed Lumumba over to the Katangan forces. A UN investigating commission found that Lumumba had been killed by a Belgian
The Weekndis assisting in a crisis taking place in the East African country of Ethiopia. The Grammy award winner revealed on his Instagram page over […]
National name: al-Mamlaka al-Maghrebia
Current government officials
Languages: Arabic (official), Berber dialects, French often used for business, government, and diplomacy
Ethnicity/race: Arab-Berber 99.1%, Jewish 0.2%, other 0.7%
Religions: Islam 99%, Christian 1%
National Holiday: Throne Day, July 30
Literacy rate: 52.3% (2004 est.)
Economic summary: GDP/PPP (2009 est.): $146.7 billion; per capita $4,600. Real growth rate: 5.1%. Inflation: 2%. Unemployment: 9.9%. Arable land: 19%. Agriculture: barley, wheat, citrus, wine, vegetables, olives; livestock. Labor force: 11.35 million; agriculture 40%, services 45%, industry 15% (2003 est.). Industries: phosphate rock mining and processing, food processing, leather goods, textiles, construction, tourism. Natural resources: phosphates, iron ore, manganese, lead, zinc, fish, salt. Exports: $15.61 billion (2009 est.): clothing, fish, inorganic chemicals, transistors, crude minerals, fertilizers (including phosphates), petroleum products, fruits, vegetables. Imports: $31.83 billion (2009 est.): crude petroleum, textile fabric, telecommunications equipment, wheat, gas and electricity, transistors, plastics. Major trading partners: France, Spain, UK, Italy, India, Germany, Russia, Saudi Arabia, China (2006).
Communications: Telephones: main lines in use: 1.266 million (2006); mobile cellular: 16.005 million (2006). Radio broadcast stations: AM 27, FM 25, shortwave 6 (1998). Radios: 6.64 million (1997). Television broadcast stations: 35 (plus 66 repeaters) (1995). Televisions: 3.1 million (1997). Internet Service Providers (ISPs): 137,187 (2007). Internet users: 6.1 million (2006).
Transportation: Railways: total: 1,907 km (2006). Highways: total: 57,493 km; paved: 32,716 km (includes 507 km of expressways); unpaved: 24,777 km (2004). Ports and harbors: Agadir, El Jadida, Casablanca, El Jorf Lasfar, Kenitra, Mohammedia, Nador, Rabat, Safi, Tangier; also Spanish-controlled Ceuta and Melilla. Airports: 60 (2007).
International disputes: claims and administers
