Finding a Path to Peace in Ethiopia’s Tigray Region War has devastated Ethiopia’s northernmost region.

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International Crisis Group | Pending comprehensive national dialogue, Addis Ababa should ease Tigray’s immediate predicament, engaging elements of the authorities it unseated to govern the area and ensure that aid reaches the millions in need.

What’s new? After weeks of fighting in Ethiopia’s Tigray region, federal troops removed the regional government and declared victory. Yet thousands have died, hundreds of thousands are at risk of starvation and the conflict continues. Addis Ababa has established an interim administration, but ousted Tigrayan politicians say they will fight back.

Why did it happen? Relations between Addis Ababa and Mekelle tanked after Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed took office in 2018 and Tigray’s leaders lost federal power. Tensions spiked when Tigray defied central authority by holding regional elections in September, culminating when Tigrayan forces captured the national military command in the region, triggering federal intervention.

Why does it matter? The conflict has poisoned relations between Tigrayan and other Ethiopian elites and inflamed public opinion in Tigray against the federal authorities, who may well struggle to administer a restive region. If Addis Ababa’s energies are drained by enforcing its rule on Tigray, other Ethiopian ethno-nationalist forces may be emboldened.

What should be done? To get Tigray’s public on side, Ababa Ababa should ensure that Eritrean and Amhara regional forces that participated in the intervention withdraw. It also should urgently allow aid to reach all Tigrayans who need it. Ultimately, inclusive dialogue is needed to address federal-Tigray disagreements and wider disputes over regional autonomy. Read more

Ethiopia’s secret war in Tigray region: Ethnic killings, rapes, near-starvation reported

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Fox News | If the fighting doesn’t end soon, an American woman with family in the region said, “we’ll be left without families”

Many women have “conclusively and without a doubt” been raped in the Tigray region, home to Ethiopia’s secretive conflict – which may have left tens of thousands of civilians dead – the country’s minister for women said Thursday in a rare government admission of its fallout.

More than 100 women in the largely remote northern region have reported being raped amid the four-month-long conflict between Ethiopian forces and allied fighters – including Eritrean fighters whose presence is denied – and the fugitive former leaders of Tigray who long dominated Ethiopia’s government.

The rape allegations have come out despite women having few police or health facilities for reporting alleged crimes.

“Hence, there is a possibility that the actual number of cases might be higher and more widespread than the reported cases,” the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission said in a report of the 108 alleged rapes over the last two months.

Both sides in the conflict that started in early November see the other as illegitimate after last year’s national elections were delayed because of the coronavirus and Tigray defiantly held its own.

Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed once said no civilian had been killed in the conflict, but more recently he admitted it has “caused much distress for me personally.”

Abiy, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019, attempted to centralize power in the country in September and was reportedly furious over Tigray’s decision to hold its own election after the national elections were postponed.

Hailu Kebede, foreign affairs head for the Salsay Woyane Tigray opposition party, called the conflict the “least-documented” war, estimating along with two others, that more than 52,000 civilians have died over the last few months.

“The world will apologize to the people of Tigray, but it will be too late,” he told The Associated Press.

Journalists have been barred from the region where communications are patchy but accounts from survivors who have escaped paint an unthinkable picture of the atrocities occurring in the region.

Disturbing reports have included claims of people being forced to rape members of their own family under threat of violence and women forced to have sex with soldiers in exchange for basic necessities.

“Many, many severe cases of malnutrition” have been also reported in the region where the vast majority of its 6 million citizens remain unreachable, the Red Cross said Wednesday. The organization said thousands could starve to death.

A woman from Tigray studying in Europe said Ethiopian soldiers had recently come to her village with food but are withholding it from families suspected of having ties to Tigray fighters.

“If you don’t bring your father, your brothers, you don’t get the aid, you’ll starve,” the woman told the Associated Press after somehow speaking to her sister who lives in the Tigray.

She also learned that her uncle and two nephews were killed by Eritrean soldiers during a recent holiday gathering. A local advocacy association, relying on witnesses who have reached cities with phone service, has listed 59 victims overall.

“I’m so ashamed of my government,” the student, speaking on condition of anonymity for her family’s safety, cried. And since it’s nearly impossible to contact people in the region she said she worries if “somebody from my family dies, I will learn about it from Facebook.”

An American nurse who was visiting her family in the border town of Rama estimated looting Eritrean soldiers had left 1,000 dead.

She was able to fly out of the country and return to her home in Colorado.

If the fighting doesn’t end soon, she told the AP, “we’ll be left without families.”

When black lives don’t seem to matter

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The Spectator | A man is filmed dying under a policeman’s knee in Minneapolis. Riots break out, statues are toppled and the Western world erupts with civil unrest. More than 50,000 people are massacred, tortured and raped, leaving orphaned children to forage for food and find their drinking water in puddles. Some of it is caught on camera. Nobody turns a hair.

In this social media age, activists tend to focus with great intensity on a narrow, politically-approved range of issues. Israel-Palestine, food banks, structural racism, unconscious bias, trans rights. You know the list. But fewer people seem to care about people being killed, mutilated and starved in Ethiopia.

In case you missed it, months of brutal fighting in the northern region of Tigray has left tens of thousands dead and many more malnourished, with almost five million people cut off from aid supplies. In recent weeks, videos of brutal executions of civilians in rural communities have emerged. Due to a media blackout by the Ethiopian government, they cannot be verified and must be taken as such. But they do seem to match the facts.

Part of the problem is that NGOs and journalists are largely being barred from the area. There have been some eyewitnesses, however. Ato Abera Tola, the Ethiopian Red Cross president, who recently visited the squalid displacement camps in the northern town of Shire, warned that tens of thousands would perish from starvation within eight weeks. Women and children, he said, were ‘all emaciated…their skin is really on their bones’.

Those who made it to the camps were the lucky ones, he suggested. In rural areas, away from the camps, people are suffering unimaginably. ‘We have to get prepared for the worst, is what I’m saying,’ Abera said. Further east, in an act of ‘systematic aggression to health facilities’ in the regional capital of Mekele, hospitals have been looted, leaving them with no medicines or essential supplies. Basic vaccines have expired, and HIV drugs have run out.

‘I have never seen a place (like it) where a simple antibiotic is not present,’ Francesco Rocca, president of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, said. ‘This is unacceptable. There is a high risk of an outbreak of cholera or other diseases.’

The catastrophe is rooted in Ethiopian political history. The richness of the country stems from its diversity of culture and civilisation (it is home to one of the world’s oldest forms of Christianity). The state is a federation of ten different ethnic and linguistic regions.

Prime minister Abiy Ahmed has tried to enforce a pan-Ethiopian, nationalist agenda, aiming to unify the ethnic factions under a single banner. This has butted against the pride of minorities. In September, under pressure of Covid, there was a disputed election in the fiercely independent Tigray region. Ahmed – who, ironically enough, won a Nobel Peace Prize two years ago – sent federal forces in, sparking conflict with the Tigray People’s Liberation Front. Eritrean troops weighed in behind him.

‘The fighting made people want retribution for old grievances,’ Ahmed Soliman, an Africa expert at Chatham House, told me. ‘On the Eritrean border in particular, there has been conflict between communities on either side.’

As the unrest spread, local fighters saw themselves as battling to correct historic wrongs. There was looting in the towns. Numerous lives were lost to missiles, rockets and bombs from Chinese-made drones, and there were accounts of mass executions of civilians, some conducted with knives and machetes. After Rwanda, everyone vowed never again. How’s that going?

Where were the petitions? Where were the street protests? Where were the security council resolutions, the outrage, the international solidarity? The African Union sent three former presidents to Addis Ababa in an attempt at mediation. It flopped. The UN and EU struggled to get to grips with the crisis. Dominic Raab, the foreign secretary, made a half-hearted visit in January. The NGOs were in despair. But overall, the level of urgency does not seem commensurate to the horrors. And that is bound up with public opinion.

The hard fact is that the hellish suffering of millions of Ethiopians has failed to move Western hearts and minds. This may be depressing, but it is not entirely surprising. I remember, for instance, waiting grimly for news outside the morgue in Colombo while covering the horrific Easter bombings in Sri Lanka for the British press a couple of years ago. The question from editors wasn’t about the number of victims. The question was: ‘How many Brits?’.

Some argue that by covering stories the way it does, the media shapes its audience’s priorities, rather than the other way round. There may be some truth in this. More often, however, the reader is master and the hack must jump to his bell.

Human nature is not always a pretty thing. A wealth of psychological research has shown that people instinctively feel empathy and affection for those similar to themselves. That informs what they want to read and watch, which in turn drives the ugly side of our trade, pithily expressed by the late American foreign correspondent Edward Behr: ‘Anyone here been raped and speaks English?’

Making people care about a story is about making it relevant to them. And – as appalling as it is – one man who died at the hands of a cop in Minneapolis holds more emotional currency for many people than piles of corpses surrounded by unbearable tragedy on the other side of the world.

So much for the media. But what about the international community? Last year, the United Nations General Assembly condemned Israel 17 times. By comparison, it issued just six critical resolutions for the rest of the world combined, from China to North Korea to Yemen (not to mention Ethiopia).

Imagine the outrage if the 50,000 dead Ethiopians had actually been Palestinian, and the aggressors Israeli troops. It would never happen, of course. But the street protests, the petitions, the Security Council resolutions, the diplomatic pressure, the social media campaigns would speak for themselves (not to mention the synagogues attacked in France). And Tigray? Tumbleweed.

Human nature may have its ugly side. But I’m an optimist. It is within our gift to care. If man is part angel and part ape, I’m with Disraeli: we can strive to be on the side of the angels, especially when it comes to the desperate people of Tigray. What stands in the way, however, is the noisy, virtue-signalling obsession with things like Israel, or unconscious bias, or misgendering, or mixed-sex lavatories, all given rocket boosters by social media.

And you thought that black lives mattered.

Er Norge redd for å stille krav til Etiopia?

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Bistandsaktuelt | MENINGER: Den nye partnerlandstrategien baseres kun på «de gode historiene om Abiy Ahmeds regjering». Hvorfor tør ikke Norge å stille tydelige krav til Etiopias myndigheter? spør Dereje T. Asefa.

Jeg fikk tilsendt den nye partnerlandstrategien for Etiopia som Norge vil følge. Etter gjennomlesning forstår jeg hvorfor Kjetil Tronvolls kalte den «utdatert» i en artikkel publisert av Bistandsaktuelt.

Partnerlandstrategien bruker bare «de gode historiene om Abiy Ahmeds regjering i 2018» som grunnlag. Man kan virkelig lure på hvorfor fredslandet Norge velger å ignorere fakta når man utarbeider en strategi for et framtidig samarbeid. Jeg sendte et brev til Utenriksdepartementet i januar i år og ba dem om å forklare hvorfor de valgte å gjøre dette. Norge var også blant de første landene internasjonalt som ga utrykk for bekymring over krigen i Etiopia.

Optimismen rundt Abiy er borte

Abiy Ahmed er en helt annen politisk person med en helt annen agenda nå enn i 2018. Dessverre har perioden etter fredspristildelingen vært preget av store negative endringer. Optimismen rundt Abiy Ahmed og hans regjering eksisterer ikke lenger. Landet sliter politisk, økonomisk og sikkerhetsmessig. Demokratiske institusjoner og utviklingsinstitusjoner er svekket. Flere opposisjonsledere, journalister og regimekritikere har blitt fengslet. De demokratiske verdiene ble satt til side da fredsprisvinneren valgte å erklære krig mot provinsen Tigray i november i fjor.

Krigen i Tigray har tatt flere tusen sivile liv. Over 61.000 har flyktet til nabolandet Sudan. Halvparten av flyktningene er barn og kvinner. Store deler av Tigray-regionen er totalt isolert fra omverdenen, og over 1,2 millioner mennesker har blitt hjemløse. Store deler av regionen er uten tilgang til strøm, telefon og internett, og kommunikasjon med omverdenen er umulig. De fleste veiene og flyplassene er stengt. Forsyninger av nødvendige og livreddende materialer kommer derfor ikke frem til de som trenger det. Folk har ikke penger til å kjøpe det de trenger fordi bankene er stengt. Det rapporteres nå at barn og kvinner har begynt å dø av sykdom og sult. Seksualisert vold mot barn og kvinner er vanlig. Nobels fredsprisvinneren vil ikke gi humanitære organisasjoner uhindret tilgang til Tigray-regionen. Dét til tross for at FN rapporterer at over 4,5 millioner – 70 prosent av den regionale befolkningen – trenger nødhjelp.

Situasjonen vil bli kritisk dersom Abiy Ahmed fortsetter å bruke sult som våpen mot befolkningen i Tigray samtidig som humanitære organisasjoner nektes tilgang til regionen. Sikkerheten til de nærmere 100.000 eritreiske flyktningene som oppholder seg i flyktningeleirene i Tigray er betraktelig svekket. Rapporter viser at noen av disse flyktningene har blitt myrdet av eritreiske soldater som deltar i kampene i Tigray, mens andre har blitt sendt tilbake til Eritrea mot sin vilje.

Det er ikke bare Tigray som sliter under Abiy Ahmed. Lokale og internasjonale medier rapporterer om uroligheter og konflikter i Oromia, Benshangul, Somali, Afar og flere andre provinser i landet. Det er uenigheter mellom flere regionale stater. Antall etniske konflikter har økt betydelig etter Abiy Ahmed kom til makten. Disse konfliktene har bidratt til at Etiopia har blitt kjent som et av de landene i verden med høyest andel internt fordrevne flyktninger. Abiy Ahmed selv har rapportert til det etiopiske stortinget at det har vært 113 etniske konflikter i løpet av de siste tre årene. Historier om massakrer, krigsforbrytelser, voldtekter og krim har blitt vanlige innslag i de daglige nyhetssendingene.

Norge må stille krav

Norge uttrykker sin bekymring for sivilbefolkningen i den krigsrammede Tigray-regionen i Etiopia. Utenriksminister Ine Eriksen Søreide mener det må undersøkes om det har forekommet krigsforbrytelse i Tigray i en artikkel i Bistandsaktuelt.

Søreide sa at «eventuelle brudd på humanitærretten, menneskerettighetene og flyktningkonvensjonen må dokumenteres og verifiseres for å muliggjøre straffeforfølgelse i fremtiden». Realiteten er at det allerede finnes mer enn nok dokumentasjon på brudd på humanitærretten, menneskerettighetene og flyktningkonvensjonen. Forholdene er godt dokumentert av FN-organisasjoner, norske humanitære organisasjoner, menneskerettighetsorganisasjoner og media. Flere offentlige personer fra Abiy Ahmeds regjering har til og med bekreftet noen av disse bruddene. Videre har Norge hentet «norske statsborgere med opprinnelse fra Tigray» i konfliktsonen tilbake til Norge. Disse personene har sett og kan bekrefte krigsforbrytelser, voldtekter, drap og vandalisme begått av etiopiske og eritreiske hærstyrker.

Det er derfor urovekkende at partnerlandsstrategien for Etiopia, som Norge skal forholde seg til ved fremtidige samarbeid, har utelatt de nåværende faktaene som er godt dokumentert og kjent for den norske regjeringen.

Utviklingsminister Dag-Inge Ulsteins uttalelser om at Norge «nå gjennomgår bistandsporteføljen» og «vurderer behov for endring» er positive. Å gjennomgå bistandsporteføljen er bra, men endring er «absolutt nødvendig» akkurat nå. Foreldede fakta og «gode gamle historier» må byttes ut med nåværende fakta. Det er viktig at arbeidet med oppdatering og endring av partnerlandsstrategien settes i gang nå.

Norge har utrykt sin bekymring flere ganger, og situasjonen i Etiopia har gått fra vondt til verre. Likevel har Norge ikke iverksatt konkrete tiltak som tvinger den etiopiske regjeringen til å respektere internasjonale lover. Jeg synes det er uforståelig at Norge ikke tør å stille tydelige krav til Etiopias myndigheter slik EU gjør. Norge har makt til å kreve at Etiopia både må respektere menneskerettighetene og flyktningkonvensjonen og gi humanitære aktører tilgang til Tigray-provinsen. EU har allerede begynt å stille slike krav, og Norge bør følge EUs eksempel.

Partnerlandstrategien må oppdateres og endres slik at den tar hensyn til nåværende fakta. Dét er det man må gjøre for å formidle et tydelig krav. Norge må bruke strategien til å gi klar beskjed og stille krav til at folkerett, menneskerettigheter og internasjonale konvensjoner respekteres dersom Norge skal fortsette å gi bistand til Etiopia.

Ethiopia: Concern grows over health of jailed political leaders

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Al Jazeera | Several Ethiopian opposition figures charged with ‘terrorism’ last year began a hunger strike in late January,

Concerns are growing about the health of several imprisoned Ethiopian opposition figures who launched a hunger strike some two weeks ago, with protests erupting in Oromia to demand the release of some of the region’s most prominent political leaders.

Senior Oromo Federal Congress (OFC) members Bekele Gerba and Jawar Mohammed are among some 20 people facing charges ranging from “terrorism” to illegal possession of firearms in connection with the unrest that followed the murder of a popular Oromo musician last year.

Bekele, Jawar and others began the food strike in late January in response to reports of arrests and mistreatment of supporters and family members who attend their courthouse hearings, according to their legal team.

“Four of them have already collapsed and have been taken to hospital,” Ibsa Gemeda, one of the defendants’ lawyers, told Al Jazeera. “The others are unable to have conversations or move around. Some of them have serious underlying health issues and we are worried that this could result in their deaths.”

Jawar himself has been extremely weakened by the strike he launched on January 27 and has since developed unspecified kidney problems, according to his lawyer.

The Ethiopian Human Rights Commission (EHRC) last week said it had visited the defendants and confirmed they were on hunger strike.

“Very close supervision is required to prevent any grave threat to their health and life,” Daniel Bekele, EHRC chief commissioner, said in a statement, adding that “reasonably justified demands of the prisoners must be addressed”.

A court hearing was cancelled last week due to the defendants being too weak to attend. It came as the youth took to the streets of several cities including Ambo and Dire Dawa to protest against the continued detention of the Oromo leaders, with a number of injuries and at least one death reported.

“We are asking for the releases of our political leaders,” Yeroon Tolassa, a student activist who attended last week’s protests, told Al Jazeera from Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa. “Our political leaders and activists are jailed in the thousands.”

It was on the back of popular uprisings that first ignited among the ethnic Oromo, who constitute about a third of Ethiopia’s 112 million people, that Abiy Ahmed ascended to the Ethiopian premiership in April 2018. Promising to rid the state of its repressive nature, Abiy – Ethiopia’s first Oromo prime minister – ordered the release of thousands of political prisoners, promised free and fair elections and later won the Nobel Peace Prize for his landmark restoration of ties with neighbouring Eritrea, with whom Ethiopia fought a bloody border war between 1998 and 2000.

But for many Oromos, the initial enthusiasm has all but dissipated. Abiy’s opponents accuse him of growing authoritarian tendencies, while rights groups have expressed serious concerns over the detention of dozens of opposition members and journalists and the shutdown of independent media outlets.

Jawar, a founder of the United States-based Oromia Media Network, was an ally of Abiy and played a key role in coordinating the protests that catapulted him to power, before becoming a public critic of his administration. He and the others on hunger strike are accused of inciting the wave of violence that followed the June 29, 2020 murder of beloved singer-songwriter Hachalu Hundessa and left hundreds dead.

In August, a month before charges were announced, Human Rights Watch said the detentions and investigations were marred “by serious due process violations” while several months and multiple court hearings later, prosecutors have yet to provide evidence linking the defendants to the alleged crimes.

“The charges against them are politically motivated,” said Ibsa. “The case is motivated by the government’s desire to remove Jawar and others from the political realm, and muzzle opposition in the Oromia state.”

Government officials have previously dismissed such claims, while authorities maintain the evidence will be presented in due time.

“Criminal charges won’t be issued without evidence proving involving in a crime,” Awel Sultan, communications head at the Ethiopian attorney general’s office, told Al Jazeera. “Prosecutors aren’t to speak of the evidence while the court entertains the case. When the court begins hearing witnesses, you’ll begin to understand the nature of the evidence implicating them.”

Highly anticipated general elections scheduled for last year have been postponed until June 2021 because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The OFC wields considerable influence across Oromia and was expected to provide Abiy’s governing Prosperity Party with its stiffest challenge at the polls.

Free elections were long portrayed as the end goal of a government that had promised structural changes that would widen the political space. After the uprisings of 2015-16 eventually led former Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn to resign in February 2018, Abiy sealed the position on an interim basis, promising to oversee the transition to an all-encompassing democracy.

Three years later, there are fears the upcoming polls would mirror those of the past quarter-century, none of which was deemed free and fair by international standards. Over the course of last year, there have been reports of mass arrests of opposition party supporters, while parties have also been prohibited from holding rallies. In addition to key candidates being jailed, analysts say the fact that elections are not expected to be held in the war-hit Tigray region because of security fears, fuels legitimacy doubts.

“The systemic shuttering of the political opposition by arresting candidates, supporters and prohibiting rallies, shows us that the conditions for free and fair democratic elections have not been met,” Awol Allo, lecturer in law at Keele University in the United Kingdom, told Al Jazeera. “The ruling party knows that its ideology doesn’t appeal to the Oromo masses. The only way it could secure victory at the polls would be by eliminating any formidable opposition presence.”

The country’s National Electoral Board has acknowledged the issue of jailed politicians, but the board’s Chairwoman Birtukan Mideksa recently hinted that it would not be able to intervene on behalf of the jailed hunger strikers.

“We are aware that political candidates have been arrested. We’ve been able to succeed in convincing authorities to free some of them,” Birtukan said at a virtual Q&A session with social media users last week. “But we have mandate limitations. We cannot intervene on behalf of candidates accused of murder, inciting violence and whose cases are in the courts.”

With next court appearances scheduled for March 1, barring additional delays, the case has taken a toll on family members of the detainees, including Arfasse Gemeda, wife of Jawar and a human rights advocate.

“It’s been very difficult being physically far away,” she told Al Jazeera from the US, where she resides. “Especially during this hunger strike. As the days go on, I’m afraid of what I’m going to hear when I answer the phone or check Facebook. It’s a constant state of trauma,” she added.

“Although we are not physically in jail, our minds are.”

Ethiopia: Journalist attacked and threatened with death

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International Federation of Journalists | Ethiopian freelance journalist Lucy Kassa was attacked at her home in Addis Ababa on 8 February by three unidentified armed men in plain clothes who threatened to kill her for her reporting. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) condemns the attack and demands the government take urgent steps to ensure her safety.

Lucy Kassa has worked for various international media including Los Angeles Times, Al Jazeera and the Norwegian magazine «Bistandsaktuelt» for several years.

Since armed conflict broke out in the Tigray region in November between the Ethiopian government and the local authorities, Kassa has reported extensively on the human rights situation there.

On 8 February, 3 attackers in plain clothes entered Kassa’s home, beat her and threatened to kill her “for writing bad stories about Tigray”. Her computer and some photos were stolen by the attackers.

The attack ocurred at the time the journalist was working on a story for the Los Angeles Times about a woman who was gang-raped by Eritrean soldiers and other women being abducted in a rural village in Tigray. The story was published today.

Kassa claims she was attacked because of her reporting on the war in Tigray. “I was interrogated by the armed men on my relationship with the TPLF junta and I told them that I have nothing to do with the TPLF,” she told Bistandsaktuelt.

She has been criticised for being too critical of both the Abiy Government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF).

IFJ General Secretary Anthony Bellanger, said: “The attack on Lucy Kassa is a cowardly and deliberate attack on freedom of expression. The only intention of the attackers is to silence Lucy, so that she will not report on the horrendous atrocities that are being committed in Tigray by both government forces and the TPLF. Journalists must be allowed to do their jobs without any form of intimidation and harassment”.

The International Federation of Journalists urges the Abiy government to provide Lucy Kassa with all the safety measures she needs to carry out her duties as a journalist.

Korrespondent skal ha blitt angrepet og truet i eget hjem: − Jeg er veldig redd

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VG | Mandag skal tre bevæpnede menn i sivilt tøy ha tatt seg inn i leiligheten til Bistandsaktuelt korrespondent, Lucy Kassa (29), i Addis Abeba.

Kassa har vært Bistandsaktuelts korrespondent i to år. Hun sier til VG at hun først ikke forsto hva mennene lette etter da de snudde leiligheten hennes på hodet.

– Så fant de bildene jeg har fått tak ifra en kilde i Adigrat i Tigray. Bildene skulle støtte oppunder en sak jeg jobber med for LA Times. Noen lette og noen avhørte meg, sier hun.

Saken omhandler en kvinne som skal ha blitt bortført, holdt fanget i over 15 dager og gjengvoldtatt av eritreiske soldater.

– Grunnet etnisiteten min antok de at jeg støtter TPLF, og at jeg skriver om situasjonen fordi jeg er fra Tigray. Jeg sa at jeg skriver om situasjonen fordi jeg er journalist, ikke fordi jeg er fra Tigray. Jeg ble ikke trodd. De sa ting ville bli vanskelig for meg om jeg fortsatte og at det neste gang ville det få større konsekvenser. De truet meg på livet, sier Kassa.

– Jeg er veldig redd, det er første gang jeg møter slik trakassering og trusler. Natt til tirsdag var jeg våken hele natten og jeg frykter for familien min. Jeg ikke vet om de vil komme tilbake eller vil gjøre meg noe i fremtiden. Det er usikkert, jeg vet ikke om de kan komme til å fengsle meg eller drepe meg.

Les videre >>

Etiopisk minister erkjenner at det har skjedd voldtekter i Tigray

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NTB | Etiopias kvinneminister sier at det utvilsomt har skjedd voldtekter i den krigsherjede Tigray-regionen i Etiopia.

Uttalelse er en sjelden innrømmelse av at kvinner og jenter i Tigray er blitt utsatt for seksuelle overgrep under regjeringsstyrkenes offensiv.

Kvinneminister Filsan Abdullahi Ahmed kom med uttalelsen etter at en gruppe fra etiopiske påtalemyndigheter besøkte Tigray for å etterforske anklagene om seksuelle overgrep mot lokale kvinner.

– Vi venter på etterforskningen av disse forferdelige forbrytelsene, sier hun, men uten å nevne noe om omfanget eller hvor i regionen overgrepene er begått.

Fortsatt er regionens 6 millioner innbyggere i stor grad isolert fra resten av verden.

Den etiopiske menneskerettskommisjonen har meldt at det i løpet av de to siste månedene er rapportert inn 108 voldtekter til helsepersonell i ulike deler av regionen.

Kommisjonen mener imidlertid at antallet kan være høyere ettersom klinikkene som normalt mottar meldinger om voldtekt, i stor grad er borte.

Flere øyenvitner sier at både etiopiske regjeringsstyrker og soldater fra nabolandet Eritrea har stått bak voldtekter.

(©NTB)

Ethiopia Confirms Rapes ‘Without a Doubt’ in Tigray Conflict – AP

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Associated Press | CARA ANNA | A senior Ethiopian official says rape has occurred “conclusively and without a doubt” in the country’s embattled Tigray region.

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — Rape has occurred “conclusively and without a doubt” in Ethiopia’s embattled Tigray region, the country’s minister for women said in a rare government acknowledgement of the toll on civilians during 100 day of fighting.

The minister, Filsan Abdullahi Ahmed, issued the statement late Thursday after a task force visited Tigray to investigate accounts of sexual assault in a region of some 6 million people that remains largely cut off from the world.

“We await the investigation of these horrible crimes,” the minister said, adding that a team from the attorney general’s office is processing the information. She did not say how many rape accounts the task force members collected or what parts of the Tigray region they visited.

A spokesman for the attorney general’s office did not immediately respond to questions.

The minister’s statement came hours after the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission in a new report said 108 rapes had been reported to health facilities in the past two months in the Tigray capital, Mekele, and the communities of Adigrat, Wukro and Ayder.

“Local structures such as police and health facilities where victims of sexual violence would normally turn to report such crimes are no longer in place,” the report said. “Hence, there is a possibility that the actual number of cases might be higher and more widespread than the reported cases.”

Several witnesses have told The Associated Press about alleged rapes by Ethiopian soldiers or those from neighboring Eritrea, an enemy of the fugitive Tigray leaders and whose presence Ethiopia’s government denies.

Last month the United Nations special representative on sexual violence in conflict said “serious allegations of sexual violence” had emerged in Tigray, while women and girls face shortages of rape kits and HIV drugs amid restrictions on humanitarian access.

“There are also disturbing reports of individuals allegedly forced to rape members of their own family, under threats of imminent violence,” Pramila Patten said in the U.N. statement. “Some women have also reportedly been forced by military elements to have sex in exchange for basic commodities, while medical centers have indicated an increase in the demand for emergency contraception and testing for sexually transmitted infections.”

S&P joins Fitch in downgrade of Ethiopia on potential debt restructuring

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(Reuters) – S&P Global Ratings on Friday downgraded Ethiopia’s long-term foreign and local currency sovereign credit ratings to ‘B-’ from ‘B’ on potential debt restructuring, announcing the move days after Fitch Ratings downgraded the country.

“Exacerbated by the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, Ethiopia’s structurally weak external balance sheet has deteriorated further, in our view”, S&P Global Ratings said.

On Tuesday, Ethiopia’s sovereign dollar bonds dropped nearly 2 cents as Fitch chopped Ethiopia’s credit score by two notches after Addis Ababa signaled it could be the first with an international government bond to use a new G20 ‘Common Framework’ plan.

The scheme, which is open to over 70 of the world’s poorest countries, encourages their governments to defer or negotiate down their external debt as part of a wider debt relief program.

S&P said it estimated Ethiopia’s public debt repayment needs at about $5.5 billion over 2021-2024, including a $1 billion Eurobond due in 2024.

The ratings agency added that the economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic have slowed Ethiopia’s economic activity in the services and industry sectors, including retail trade, hospitality, transportation, and construction.

S&P described the Tigray conflict in November 2020 that followed increased tensions between the federal and local authorities as “the most significant (conflict) since Prime Minister Abby Ahmed took office in 2018.”

“Another outbreak of armed conflict could spur wider ethnic tensions, weakening Ethiopia’s political and institutional framework and threatening the government’s transformative reform agenda”, it added.

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