A pogrom is happening in Ethiopia

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The Globe & Mail | Robert Rotberg 

Ethiopia is killing its own citizens, wantonly. That is chilling, but true: By attempting to extirpate Ethiopians of Tigrayan ethnicity and heritage, Ethiopia’s military and government stands accused of purposeful ethnic cleansing, a precursor to all-out genocide, as outlawed by the UN convention against genocide.

Upholders of world order, such as Canada, should immediately refer the atrocities in the Tigrayan region of Ethiopia to the International Criminal Court so that its investigators can examine the massacres and prepare prosecutions. Additionally, the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) norm, championed by a Canadian-instigated commission and adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2005 to end a slaughter of the innocents, should now be invoked.

Late last year, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed decided that leaders from the Tigray region – and apparently, by extension, all Tigrayans – had undermined his authority by defying the central government and holding a vote for its local legislative assembly. As punishment, Mr. Abiy sent the military to invade the small northern region of Tigray.

Only 6 per cent of Ethiopians are Tigrayans, but Mr. Abiy – whose Oromo ethnic group is the largest in the country, comprising 34 per cent of the population – had seemingly decided that their very existence threatened his control of 110 million Ethiopians.

Mr. Abiy promised that the campaign would be short and surgical, but that’s not how events have played out. Because telephone service and the internet have been mostly cut off since November in Tigray, no one really knows how many Tigrayans have been maimed or killed by the Ethiopian army and how much of Tigray has been destroyed. However, smuggled reports indicate that thousands have died in combat and collaterally; despite Mr. Abiy’s claims to the contrary, doctors in the main hospital in Mekelle, Tigray’s provincial capital, have said that indiscriminate shelling has killed civilians. At least 50,000 Tigrayans have fled across the Sudanese border into squalid refugee camps. About 4.5 million of Tigray’s six million inhabitants desperately need emergency food aid, and some will soon starve.

Two weeks ago, the military executed Seyoum Mesfin, Ethiopia’s former long-time foreign minister; at least 47 of 167 prominent Tigrayans on a most-wanted list have also been killed or captured. About 750 civilians huddling in a cathedral in the historic town of Aksum were reportedly massacred. Widespread raping is alleged, especially in Mekelle. Troops are still scouring the jagged Tembien mountains for remaining Tigrayan leaders, taking no prisoners.

Tigrayans, who were once mainstays of the country’s army, air force, sections of the civil service and Ethiopian Airlines (which was headed by a Tigrayan who has since been refused permission to fly), have been marginalized even beyond Tigray’s borders. It has the appearance of a pogrom.

The underlying cause of Mr. Abiy’s sudden hostility to Tigrayans stems from the overthrow of Emperor Haile Selassie in 1974 by a Marxist military junta led by Mengistu Haile Mariam, a vicious dictator who drove Ethiopian deeper into poverty than ever before with a Stalinist-inspired agricultural program.

Meles Zenawi, a charismatic Tigrayan, created a revolutionary guerrilla force in the Sudan and, in 1991, led the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) to a series of striking military victories against Mr. Mengistu’s army. After Mr. Mengistu eventually fled to Zimbabwe, Mr. Meles and a cabal mostly made up of Tigrayans ruled Ethiopia in a quasi-democratic fashion, rigging elections (especially in 2005) but also gradually uplifting the lives of many Ethiopians, including those who are Oromo and Amhara, the largest two ethnic groups in the country.

The Oromo and other ethnic groups felt discriminated against by Tigrayans under Mr. Meles. After he died unexpectedly in 2012, he was succeeded by Hailemariam Desalegn, an Ethiopian from the southern Wolayta ethnic group. He ruled on behalf of the Tigrayans who had assisted Mr. Meles.

After protests by Oromo erupted in 2017, Mr. Hailemariam transferred power in 2018 to Mr. Abiy, an Oromo who had fought with Mr. Meles and the EPRDF against Mr. Mengistu and who was a trusted ally in the Tigrayan-led government. Now, he has abruptly turned against Tigray.

In 2019, Mr. Abiy won the Nobel Peace Prize for ending the country’s 19-year diplomatic standoff with Eritrea and for releasing political prisoners and adopting liberal governance within Ethiopia. Mr. Abiy was lauded across Africa, Europe and the Americas as a welcome new democratic leader. Now he has exposed his true colours, besmirching the very name and ideals behind the Nobel Peace Prize.

It is past time to stop the slaughter in Tigray and to bring Mr. Abiy to justice.

US ‘Directly’ Presses Eritrea to Withdraw Forces From Tigray

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Associated Press — The United States says it has directly “pressed senior levels” of Eritrea’s government to immediately withdraw its troops from neighboring Ethiopia, where witnesses have described them looting and hunting down civilians in the embattled Tigray region.

A State Department spokesperson in an email to The Associated Press on Thursday said Washington has conveyed “grave” concerns about credible reports of abuses. There were no details on how officials with Eritrea, one of the world’s most secretive countries, responded.

Eritrea has said little publicly about the conflict in Tigray as Ethiopian soldiers fight forces loyal to the now-fugitive Tigray regional leaders who once dominated Ethiopia’s government for nearly three decades. The Tigray leaders were marginalized after Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed took office in 2018, and each side regards the other as illegitimate.

Ethiopia has repeatedly denied the presence of Eritrean soldiers, who some witnesses have estimated in the thousands. Now concerns are growing that the Eritrean forces refuse to leave. Eritrea remains an enemy of the fugitive Tigray leaders after a two-decade border war that ended under Abiy.

Eritrea’s information ministry on Thursday published a statement by the country’s embassy in the U.S. responding to an open letter this week by former U.S. ambassadors to Ethiopia that expressed concern about the Tigray conflict and Eritrea’s involvement.

“The allusion by these ambassadors to potential territorial war between Eritrea and Ethiopia can only be disingenuous in content and vicious in intent,” Eritrea’s statement said, expressing “profound dismay at their provocative and ill-intentioned swipe.”

The Tigray region remains largely cut off from the outside world and Ethiopia has blocked almost all journalists from entering, complicating efforts to verify assertions by the warring sides.

Meanwhile, humanitarian workers have had limited access to the estimated 6 million people in Tigray as food and other supplies run short and concerns about starvation grow.

The situation is “deteriorating every day, every minute,” the president of the Ethiopian Red Cross Society, Ato Abera Tola, told reporters on Thursday as Red Cross entities appealed for more financial support. “There is no area which is not affected by this conflict … the conflict is everywhere.”

The Ethiopia head of delegation for the International Committee for the Red Cross, Katia Sorin, said they still had not been able to reach rural areas of Tigray, a largely agricultural region. The ICRC is one of the few international organizations to maintain its operations in Tigray after fighting began.

“We’re helping, but it’s a drop in the ocean of need,” Sorin said.

Joint NGO Letter call for a Special Session on the deteriorating human rights situation in Ethiopia

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The Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect saves lives by mobilizing the international community to act in situations where populations are at risk of mass atrocity crimes. | R2P

28 January 2021 | OPEN LETTER |

To Permanent Representatives of Member and Observer States of the United Nations Human Rights Council, Geneva, Switzerland

Your Excellency,

We, the undersigned human rights non-governmental organizations, strongly support the call for a UN Human Rights Council (HRC) special session on the deteriorating human rights situation in Ethiopia and urge your delegation to support such a session without further delay.

Since 4 November 2020, fighting between federal government forces and affiliated militias with forces and militia allied to Tigray’s ruling party, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, have reportedly killed hundreds of civilians and caused more than one million people to flee their homes, including at least 57,000 refugees who are now in Sudan. There have been widespread reports of serious violations of international humanitarian law and human rights violations and abuses including possible atrocity crimes, including indiscriminate attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure, unlawful killings, widespread looting, and rape and sexual violence against women and girls. There have also been reports of massacres committed along ethnic lines within Tigray, as well as ethnic profiling, discrimination, and hate speech against Tigrayans both within and outside the country. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees has also expressed alarm for the “safety and well-being” of the 96,000 Eritrean refugees in Tigray, given the unconfirmed but “overwhelming number of reports of Eritrean refugees in Tigray being killed, abducted and forcibly returned to Eritrea,” where they could face persecution. Access to independent humanitarian aid continues to be limited in Tigray despite an agreement reached between the federal government and the UN on 29 November. Journalists critical of the government have been arrested, exacerbating existing restrictions on communication and information from the region.

Given the gravity of these alleged violations and abuses, we believe that a Human Rights Council special session on Ethiopia is essential to ensure international scrutiny of the situation and to adopt measures to prevent any further deterioration of the crisis.

While the Council should pay particular attention to the situation in Tigray, it should not restrict itself to addressing only one region of Ethiopia. It is important that the Council acknowledges the general deterioration of human rights in other parts of the country, particularly in the last year. This includes reports of deadly violence along ethnic and communal lines; allegations of abuse by security forces in Oromia, Benishangul-Gumuz, Southern Nations, Nationalities and Peoples’ and Amhara regions; and fighting along the borders between the Tigray and Amhara regions, the Oromia and Somali regions, and the Afar and Somali region.

A Special Session would enable the HRC to receive information from the High Commissioner for Human Rights and others on the gravity of the ongoing crisis, including how long-standing grievances and structural issues have contributed to the overall deterioration of the human rights situation, and to take appropriate action, in line with the Council’s prevention mandate, to prevent further violations and abuses.

We believe that supporting calls for action by the heads of various UN agencies, including through holding a special session, is necessary to uphold the HRC’s founding principles of the promotion and protection of human rights. On 7 December the UN Secretary-General expressed his concern about the situation in Tigray, calling for full respect for human rights and the guarantee of unfettered humanitarian access. On 22 December the High Commissioner for Human Rights described the situation as “heart-breaking as it is appalling” and emphasized the urgent need for “independent, impartial, thorough and transparent investigations to establish accountability and ensure justice” for grave violations. Furthermore, on 12 November the UN Special Advisers on the Prevention of Genocide and the Responsibility to Protect warned that if escalating ethnic tensions in Ethiopia are not urgently addressed the “risk of atrocity crimes in Ethiopia remains high.”

We respectfully urge you to recognize serious concerns expressed by the UN Secretary-General, High Commissioner for Human Rights, High Commissioner for Refugees and the Special Advisers on the Prevention of Genocide and the Responsibility to Protect by:

  • calling, without delay, for the convening of a special session of the UN Human Rights Council to discuss the situation in Ethiopia, with a focus on the human rights violations and abuses that continue to take place in Tigray and throughout the country;
  • presenting for adoption a resolution to ensure independent and impartial investigations into alleged violations and abuses of international human rights law and violations of international humanitarian law, some of which may amount to atrocity crimes, committed by all parties to the conflict. The findings should be reported to the Human Rights Council, including recommendations to prevent further human rights violations and abuses and ensure accountability.

Respectfully yours,

  1. African Centre for Democracy and Human Rights Studies (ACDHRS)
  2. CIVICUS
  3. Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect
  4. Global Justice Center
  5. Human Rights Watch
  6. International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH)
  7. International Service for Human Rights (ISHR)
  8. Southern African Human Rights Defenders Network (SAHRDN)
  9. Women’s Refugee Commission (WRC)
SOURCE | Global Centre for the Responsibility to Protect and other NGOs

Ethiopia Moves Artillery to Sudanese Border After Deadly Clashes

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Bloomberg | Sudan delegation met Saudi officials to discuss crisis. Tension adds to dispute over construction of giant hydro dam. 

Ethiopia moved heavy weapons to disputed territory on its border with Sudan, according to people familiar with the matter.

The military build-up in an area known as the al-Fashqa triangle signals increasing tensions, after deadly clashes in recent weeks raised international concern. Sudanese officials met Saudi Arabian officials in Riyadh on Wednesday to discuss the crisis, after the U.K. last week called for a de-escalation of tensions.

The Ethiopian army deployed armaments including tanks and anti-aircraft batteries to the border region in the past two weeks, said two foreign diplomats who asked not to be identified because the information isn’t public. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s spokeswoman Billene Seyoum referred a request for comment to the Foreign Ministry, and Redwan Hussein, spokesman for the government’s emergency task force, didn’t respond to a request for comment sent by text message.

Ethiopia’s government earlier this month accused the Sudanese military of carrying out organized attacks using machine-guns and armored convoys at their border. Those attacks killed “many civilians,” according to Ethiopia’s Foreign Ministry.

Tensions between the two nations have ratcheted up since conflict erupted in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region on Nov. 4. Regional analysts and diplomats have said Abiy is under pressure from powerful Amhara politicians in his government, including Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Demeke Mekonnen, not to back down on the border dispute.

The state of Amhara, whose fighters backed the Ethiopian federal army’s incursion into Tigray, claims ownership of parts of al-Fashqa, including areas that are within Sudanese territory. Historically, Khartoum has allowed Amhara farmers to conduct business and live in the fertile area as long as they pay taxes and operate under Sudanese laws. In turn, Ethiopia has recognized the land as Sudanese.

Demeke’s spokesman, Dina Mufti, didn’t answer two calls to his mobile phone seeking comment.

The border dispute is straining relations already weakened by an impasse over a giant hydropower dam Ethiopia is building on the main tributary of the Nile River. Sudan and Egypt depend on the flow of the river for fresh water, and both countries want Ethiopia to agree to rules on the filling and operating of the reservoir to safeguard supplies.

Sudan says the border area around al-Fashqa was demarcated under colonial-era treaties dating back to 1902, putting the land firmly inside its international borders.
Mohamed al-Faki Suleiman, a member of Sudan’s transitional government, said Wednesday he’d sought political support from Saudi Arabia in talks he held in Riyadh, Sudan’s state-run SUNA news agency reported. Any eruption of war could affect security in the wider region, including the Red Sea, he said.

Ethiopia’s leader won the Nobel Peace Prize. Now he’s accused of war crimes.

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Washingtonpost (Opinion)  — FIFTEEN MONTHS ago Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for ending his country’s conflict with neighboring Eritrea. Now he may be perpetrating grave crimes against humanity. After launching an invasion of the rebellious province of Tigray, Mr. Abiy’s regime stands accused of sealing off the region and blocking deliveries of food and other humanitarian aid. International aid officials are warning that millions of people could be at risk of famine.

When he rose to power in 2018, Mr. Abiy displaced politicians and generals from Tigray who had ruled Ethiopia for 27 years under a ruthless autocracy. In addition to ending the war, the new leader released political prisoners and promised democratic elections. Yet the campaign Mr. Abiy launched against Tigray in early November has all the earmarks of Ethiopia’s previous dictators. In occupying the province’s capital and other towns, federal forces, ethnic militias and allied troops from Eritrea have carried out massacres and rapes, according to the sporadic reports emerging from the region. Journalists have been banned, and phone and Internet services are down. Two million of Tigray’s 6 million people are believed to be displaced.

Without food deliveries, many of those people could starve. Yet up until late last week, federal and regional officials were blocking deliveries by the United Nations, even while government troops reportedly burned crops and destroyed livestock. On Friday, U.N. humanitarian relief coordinator Mark Lowcock reported that authorities had finally authorized the movement of 500 metric tons of food to Tigray’s main cities and two out of four refugee camps. But, he tweeted, “we must get more aid workers and life-saving supplies into Tigray so we can scale up operations.” U.N. officials say about 80 aid workers are waiting in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, for permission to travel to Tigray. Until they can get in, it won’t be clear how serious the food problem remains.

Mr. Abiy’s government claims to be engaged in a “stabilizing mission” after routing the forces of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF). In fact, it has been relentlessly hunting down fugitive TPLF leaders — including longtime former Ethiopian foreign minister Seyoum Mesfin, 71, who was gunned down this month in what authorities claimed was a shootout. Though four dozen TPLF leaders have reportedly been killed or captured, scores remain at large, along with thousands of fighters who still control parts of the province.

Mr. Abiy contends his forces have already triumphed in Tigray and the conflict will soon be over. More likely, a guerrilla war with the TPLF will drag on for years, and the humanitarian crisis will deepen, even if an immediate famine is averted. That’s why the United States and the European Union, which heavily fund Ethiopia, should withhold further aid until there is full humanitarian access to Tigray and the government agrees to pursue peace talks.

Biden administration puts hold on foreign arms sales, including F-35s to UAE

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UAE

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration has put a temporary hold on several major foreign arms sales initiated by former President Donald Trump.

Officials say that among the deals being paused is a massive $23 billion transfer of stealth F-35 fighters to the United Arab Emirates. That sale and several other massive purchases of U.S. weaponry by Gulf Arab countries had been harshly criticized by Democrats in Congress. The officials did not identify the other sales that had been temporarily halted.

The new administration is reviewing the sales but has not made any determination about whether they will actually go through, the State Department said. It called the pause “a routine administrative action” that most incoming administrations take with large-scale arms sales.

“The department is temporarily pausing the implementation of some pending U.S. defense transfers and sales under Foreign Military Sales and Direct Commercial Sales to allow incoming leadership an opportunity to review,” the department said.

“This is a routine administrative action typical to most any transition, and demonstrates the Administration’s commitment to transparency and good governance, as well as ensuring U.S. arms sales meet our strategic objectives of building stronger, interoperable, and more capable security partners,” it said.

In its waning months, the Trump administration authorized tens of billions of dollars in new arms sales, including announcing plans to send 50 F-35s to the UAE. That announcement came shortly after Trump lost the Nov. 6 election to now-President Joe Biden and followed the signing of the Abraham Accords between Israel, Bahrain and the UAE, under which the Arab states agreed to normalize relations with Israel.

Congressional critics have expressed disapproval with such sales, including a major deal with Saudi Arabia, that then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo pushed through after bypassing lawmakers by declaring an emergency required it. The critics have alleged the weapons could be used to prosecute Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen, which is the home of one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.

Less than a month after the Nov. 10 UAE sale was announced, an effort to block the deal fell short in the Senate, which failed to halt it.

Senators argued the sale of the defense equipment had unfolded too quickly and with too many questions. The administration has billed it as a way to deter Iran, but UAE would have become the first Arab nation — and only the second country in the Middle East, after Israel — to possess the stealth warplanes.

Sivilbefolkningens nye hverdag i Tigray: Frykter soldatene, jakter på mat

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Folk dør av sult i den konfliktherjede Tigray-provinsen i Etiopia. Bønder er blitt drept og deres eiendeler plyndret av eritreiske soldater alliert med den etiopiske regjeringshæren. Folk flykter til hovedbyen Mekele eller ut på landsbygda i håp om å kunne få mat.

Behovene er enorme og folk sulter, men store deler Tigray er utilgjengelig for FNs nødhjelpsarbeidere og internasjonale hjelpeorganisasjoner. Lokale organisasjoner er i gang med nødhjelpsarbeid noen steder.

Ifølge den seneste rapporten fra FNs nødhjelpskontor OCHA er sikkerhetssituasjonen «ustabil og utforutsigbar». Det er aktive kamphandlinger i flere deler av provinsen. Humanitær adgang uten hindringer forblir et problem snart tre måneder etter starten på konflikten. Flere internasjonale hjelpearbeidere og nødhjelpstransporter venter på de riktige tillatelsene til å kunne bevege seg nordover og inn i Tigray.

I mellomtiden er det mange hundretusener som sulter, og som lever i frykt for soldater på plyndringstokst.

Sult har drevet dem på flukt. De gikk til fots til Mekelle. I begynnelsen fikk de hjelp fra familie og venner. Etter hvert gikk de tom for mat.

– Vi lider selv om vi har penger. Vi sulter fordi Abiy (Etiopias statsminister, red.anm.) har stengt bankene. Vi får ikke lov til å bruke våre egne penger i disse vanskelige tider, sier “Merhawit” til Bistandsaktuelt.

– Min mor døde mens hun sov. Hun hadde håpet i det lengste at noen ville komme med mat til oss. Men det skjedde ikke, sier Gebretensye.

Folk fra landsbyene rundt Axum og Adwa trekker seg inn mot byene fordi avlingene de skulle hatt til mat er blitt brent.

Det er mellom 2 og 4 millioner mennesker med behov for matvarehjelp ifølge FN, mens helsesystemet har brutt fullstendig sammen. 60 000 mennesker har flyktet til nabolandet Sudan, mens nærmere en halv million er internt fordrevne.

(©Bistandsaktuel)

 

Tigray-konflikten: Frykter hundretusener skal dø av sult

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VG | Situasjonen i Tigray-provinsen i Etiopia har gått fra vondt til verre, mener norsk ekspert.

4. november 2020 beordret Etiopias regjering et militært angrep på Tigray-folkets frigjøringsfront (TPLF). Partiet har makten i landets nordligste region, Tigray, som har rundt seks millioner innbyggere. Tigrayene er en minoritet i Etiopia, men dominerte etiopisk politikk i flere tiår fram til våren 2018.

Etter folkelige protester ble Abiy Ahmed statsminister, den første fra landets største etniske gruppe, oromoene.

I 2019 ga Nobelkomiteen statsminister Abiy Ahmed fredsprisen. Nå anklages samme mann for krigsforbrytelser og oppfordring til etnisk konflikt. Det er kommet anklager om etnisk motiverte drap på begge sider av konflikten.

Demonstrerte

Forrige fredag samlet demonstranter fra den norske tigrean-foreningen seg utenfor Stortinget, i et håp om å belyse den pågående humanitære krisen i Tigray-regionen. Mange av dem som deltok i demonstrasjonen er direkte berørt av konflikten, og flere sier de har mistet familiemedlemmer.

Les videre >>

Anger in Somalia as sons secretly sent to serve in Eritrea military force

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MOGADISHU (Reuters) – Ali Jamac Dhoodi thought his son was working as a security guard in Qatar, helping prepare for next year’s soccer World Cup. Then one day last April, officials from Somalia’s National Intelligence Agency arrived with $10,000 in cash.

They told him his son had died – not in Qatar, but in Eritrea, one of the world’s most secretive countries.

“They showed me a picture from their WhatsApp and asked me, ‘do you know this picture and his full name?’ I said, ‘yes he is my son,’” Dhoodi, 48, told Reuters. “They said to me ‘your son died’. I cried.”

They gave him the money, and told him not to ask questions.

Ali’s son was one of three young Somali men whose families told Reuters they had been recruited by Somalia’s federal government for jobs in Qatar, only to surface in Eritrea, where they were sent to serve in a military force against their will. Two other families said their sons had simply disappeared.

The apparent secret recruitment of young Somali men for a fighting force in Eritrea is stirring public anger in Somalia, a poor country where opportunities to work abroad are eagerly sought. Protests erupted last week in the capital Mogadishu and in the towns of Guriel and Galkayo over the missing recruits.

Reports that Eritrean forces have taken part in fighting that broke out in November last year in neighbouring northern Ethiopia – which Eritrea and Ethiopia strongly deny – have led some Somalis to worry their sons may have been sent there.

Asked if Eritrea had recruited Somalis, trained them or sent them to Ethiopia, Eritrean Information Minister Yemane Meskel told Reuters: “This is ludicrous … There is massive disinformation floating around.”

Somali government spokesman Mohamed Ibrahim and Information Minister Osman Dube did not respond to requests for comment on the Somali government’s apparent role in the recruitment, but Ibrahim said no Somalis had been sent to Ethiopia.

The leaders of Somalia, Ethiopia and Eritrea have been drawing closer together since 2018, after a change of leadership in Ethiopia. Ethiopia and Eritrea, once archenemies, signed a peace deal and have regular high level visits. Somalia – which once accused Eritrea of supporting Islamist rebels – now has friendly relations with its president.

‘A BULLET IS THE REPLY’

Hussein Warsame said his son Sadam, 21, had been recruited for a security job in Qatar in October, 2019. Nothing was heard from him for more than a year. Finally, last November, he phoned from Eritrea.

“We were all shocked to land in Eritrea. We thought we were being flown to Qatar,” he quoted his son as telling him. “Dad, there is no life here, I have not seen food save a lump or slice of bread since I left Somalia in 2019, and when recruits demonstrate or reject orders, a bullet is the reply.”

Sahra Abdikadir, whose son Aqil Hassan Abdi disappeared in 2019 under similar circumstances, told Reuters that he had called in January and said he was in a camp in an unknown location in Eritrea.

Eritrea, a heavily militarised society, has never held elections, has no independent media and forces its citizens into indefinate government service. Former guerrilla leader Isaias Afwerki has been president since 1993.

Somalia has had only limited central government rule since 1991.

Both countries have a history of decades of conflict in the Horn of Africa region, often involving their much larger neighbour Ethiopia.

A regional security analyst who asked not to be identified told Reuters he had learned from conversations with Somali security officials that about 1,000 Somalis had been recruited and taken to Eritrea in at least three groups. One group had returned to Somalia, the second group was unreachable and the third was still in Eritrea.

Reuters was unable to confirm those details.

Situation Report EEPA HORN No. 69 – 28 January 2021

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Europe External Programme with Africa is a Belgium-based Centre of Expertise with in-depth knowledge, publications, and networks, specialised in issues of peace building, refugee protection and resilience in the Horn of Africa. EEPA has published extensively on issues related to movement and/or human trafficking of refugees in the Horn of Africa and on the Central Mediterranean Route. It cooperates with a wide network of Universities, research organisations, civil society and experts from Ethiopia, Eritrea, Kenya, Djibouti, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan, Uganda and across Africa. Key in-depth publications can be accessed on the website.

Reported war situation (as confirmed per 27 January)

● Arbi Harnet (a group of underground sources in Eritrea) warns that preparations are being made and already “near completion” for a “renewed final offensive” in Tigray.

● The offensive is being finalised and implementers are being informed that this will be “the final offensive to annihilate TPLF”, orchestrated as what is called a “final offensive”, the group states.

● Report that large numbers of Ethiopian uniforms arrived in Mekelle yesterday and that Eritrean soldiers were changing uniforms during the telecom shut-down. More Eritrean soldiers arrived in Mekelle.

● There is concern that Eritrean soldiers may be instructed to fight in Ethiopian uniforms in some places. Eritrean troops were dressed in ENDF uniforms in the Hawzen and Nebelet battles and they were captured by Tigray regional forces wearing these uniforms.

● At the airport in Mekelle, Eritrean troops, carrying out the security, are dressed in ENDF uniforms.

● The news comes as other sources report that Brigadier General Abraha Kassa, Director of National Security of Eritrea, was in Addis Ababa on 25/1. There was a disagreement among Eritrean and Ethiopian higher officials during the meeting at the 4 Killo Palace, the office and residence of the PM. Various sources reported altercations, with some reporting gunshots and a report of people having been shot, possibly even killed; the exact number of casualties is unknown due to variance in reports. ● Information from the Eritrean Embassy in Addis Ababa was leaked, according to a source, instructing a strategy to ensure a policy against “all educated and elite Tigreans” to be ‘forced to flee’ or ‘be squashed’ ‘mercilessly’ (as reported yesterday).

● This strategy builds on the Eritrean government’s interest in the list of arrest warrants of Tigray leadership. Eritrean official government news-site Tesfanews published a list of arrest warrants that – according to the news site, had been issued by the Ethiopian federal policy Commission. The list was published on Nov 13 and includes the names of 64 persons. The same list was published by Fana.

● The following persons named in this list of arrest warrants have now been killed: Asmelash Weldesilassie (TPLF executive member); Daniel Assefa (Head of Tigray Bureau of Finance and Planning) and ; Seyoum Mesfin (former Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ethiopia); Abay Tsehaye (former Director of Policy Study and Research Center Institute); Zeray Asgedom (former Director General of the Ethiopian Broadcasting Authority) ; and Sekoture Getachaw (former official).

● The following persons named in this list have been arrested: Dr Abraham Tekeste (Vice president of Tigray Regional State); Keria Ibrahim (former Speaker of House of Federation of Ethiopia); Dr Engineer Solomon Kidane (former Head of Addis Ababa City Road and Transport Bureau); Dr Addisalem Balema (Director General of Policy Research Institute); Mulu Gebregziabher (former state Minister of Transport); and TPLF co-founder, Sebhat Nega.

● Bank accounts of the persons on the arrest warrant list have been frozen.

● The Eritrean underground group Arbi Harnet states that “Eritrean soldiers have been trying to escape the war to seek refuge in Sudan or in different directions once they reached Tigray”.

● According to the group many Eritrean soldiers and particularly women soldiers from the 17th and 61 brigades are now stationed in Humera” to stop Eritrean soldiers from fleeing to Sudan.

● The intervention of Eritrean and ENDF allied forces lacks a military command structure, other than the high-level personal relationships between PM Abbiy and President Esayas. The military culture between the armed forces is different. While the ENDF is trained as a professional outfit, Eritrean Defence Force (EDF) is based on a conscript army, trained to survive on the land that has been captured, rather than rely on supplies and support.

● An ENDF colonel was killed by Tigray regional forces on 25/1 in Adwa.

● Six vehicles carrying soldiers were destroyed by Tigray regional forces in the Hamedo area, along the way from Adwa to Rama. The vehicles were allegedly going to Eritrea carrying looted properties.

● A new list is available of the victims of the attack on the Medhanie Alem church in Gu’etelo in wereda Gulomakeda (reported earlier). The list was compiled by local inhabitants and published in social media. On the celebration day of Medhanie Alem Eritrean soldiers killed 32 persons, among whom one could not be identified, and nine priests and church servants, one child and other villagers, mostly in Gu’etelo and some in nearby villages Ara’ero, Fredashim, Agamyu and Sebeya.

● More than 20 civilians have been killed by Eritrean troops in the Edaga Arbi area, Central zone, Tigray.

Reported International situation (as confirmed per 27 January)

● The United States has made clear its position that all Eritrean troops need to leave Tigray immediately citing “Credible reports” had emerged of their involvement in human rights abuses, assaults in refugee camp, sexual violence and looting. The statement says there is “evidence of Eritrean soldiers forcibly returning Eritrean refugees from Tigray to Eritrea.”

● According to the statement “Eritrea appeared to have launched artillery attacks from its side of the border, and had troops in Tigray, though the exact number was unclear.”

● The State department states dialogue between the Ethiopian government and Tigrayans was “essential”, and humanitarian aid needed to be mobilised immediately because of “credible reports” that hundreds of thousands of people may starve to death.

● The Biden administration has imposed a temporary freeze on U.S. arms sales to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates as it reviews billions of dollars in weapons transactions approved by former President Donald Trump, according to U.S. officials.

● Mr. Biden “has made clear that we will end our support for the military campaign led by Saudi Arabia in Yemen, and I think we will work on that in very short order,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said at his confirmation hearing last week. Washington will continue to help defend the Saudis against Houthi attacks, Mr. Blinken said.

● The review, the officials said, includes the sale of precision-guided munitions to Riyadh as well as top-line F-35 fighters to Abu Dhabi, a deal that Washington approved as part of the Abraham Accords, in which the United Arab Emirates established diplomatic relations with Israel.

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