Tag Archive for: Crisis in Ethiopia

Brookings: Internal and external conflicts compound in Ethiopia

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Source: Brookings | Chris Heitzig

In recent weeks, tensions between Ethiopia and Sudan over the disputed Al-Fashqa region have flared up, including an attack on Tuesday that left 80 civilians dead, according to Sudan’s Foreign Ministry. The latest violence comes in the wake of fatal attacks in the region last month that killed more than 220 people. The situation is complicated by a multitude of actors, including gangs, which Sudanese officials have claimed are responsible for some of the violence. On Tuesday, Ethiopia indicated that it was losing patience for Sudan’s militarization on the border of the disputed territory. Sudan has blamed Ethiopian military forces for escalating conflict in the region and reported on Wednesday that an Ethiopian military aircraft had recently entered into Sudanese territory.

A new round of negotiations to resolve the dispute over the filling of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam was short-lived, as the three countries concluded on January 10 without a resolution. In separate statements, Ethiopia and Egypt faulted Sudan for the latest impasse. The statement released by Egypt’s foreign ministry read, “Sudan insisted on the assigning of African Union experts to offer solutions to contentious issues … a proposal which Egypt and Ethiopia have reservations about.” Sudan, however, claims the stalemate stems from Ethiopia’s determination to fill the reservoir with 13.5 million cubic meters of water this year in the face of objections from other countries in the region. “We cannot continue this vicious cycle of circular talks indefinitely,” said Sudanese Irrigation Minister Yasir Abbas.

These tensions continue to mount despite the fragile situation within Ethiopia itself. Last week, a senior Ethiopian military official confirmed that Eritrean troops were indeed present in the country’s Tigray region, which has been the source of infighting for several months. Humanitarians fear that fighting in that region has rendered the local population vulnerable to displacement and food insecurity. Last week, the United Nations expressed in a report the fear that Tigray could also be a source of “massive community transmission” of COVID-19 due to the suspension of health services caused by the conflict.

Ethiopia’s Oromia conflict: Why a teacher was killed ‘execution-style’

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Source: BBC

The shooting dead of Kitilaa Guddata has left his family in shock.

The 32-year-old high school teacher was among the latest casualties in the conflict between government forces and rebels in Ethiopia’s Oromia region.

The violence centres around demands by an insurgent group for the “liberation” of Oromia – a vast swathe of land that is home to Ethiopia’s largest ethnic group, the Oromo – and the subsequent security crackdown.

It has led to civilians being caught in the crossfire – including Mr Kitilaa. His family allege that he was killed after about 10 police officers took him from his home in Sekela town on the night of 19 November.

Frantic search

“His wife – the mother of his two children – begged them to take her instead, but they told her he would be back after some questioning,” said a relative, who spoke to BBC Afaan Oromoo on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.

The teacher never returned. His family said that after a frantic search they found his body, along with those of two other people, a couple of days later.

“There was a river and they killed him on a rock next to it. He was shot from behind; his hands were tied at the back. It looks like they used him as a target for shooting practice,” the relative alleged.

Attempts to obtain comment from the Oromia Special Police Force were unsuccessful, but Oromia regional government spokesman Getachew Balcha said he was unaware of the security forces falsely accusing people of being allied with the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA).

“Measures are taken only against those whose crimes are known and exposed by the people,” he told BBC Afaan Oromoo.

“But anyone found to have committed a crime, including police members and government officials, would be held accountable,” he added.

The Oromia Special Police Force has increasingly become involved in operations aimed at quelling the insurgency in the southern and western parts of Oromia after an unspecified number of soldiers were hastily redeployed to the Tigray region following the outbreak of conflict there in early November.

It highlights the mounting security challenges in Ethiopia, ending the euphoria that had gripped the nation when Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed rose to power in April 2018 and won the Nobel Peace Prize the following year.

He introduced sweeping reforms to end decades of authoritarian rule, including unbanning political parties and rebel groups, releasing thousands of detainees, and allowing exiles to return.

As Ethiopia’s first Oromo prime minister, Mr Abiy’s premiership was particularly welcomed in Oromia, with the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), the biggest rebel group, turning into an opposition party.

But one of its top military commanders, Kumsa Diriba, who is also known as “Jaal Maro”, failed to reach a deal with the government over the disarmament of fighters.

After also falling out with the OLF, he continued the insurgency for what he calls the “liberation” of Oromia under the banner of the OLA from his forest hide-out in the west.

At the time in 2018, the security forces promised to crush his group within two weeks, but more than two years later they are still battling the insurgents.

‘Buried without family knowing’

Meanwhile, reports of civilian casualties mount. Another case is that of Galana Imana, a father of two.

In a BBC Afaan Oromoo interview, his younger sister Chaltu Imana said he was arrested by nearly 20 armed officers at his home in Ambo town, about 100km (60 miles) west of Addis Ababa, in November.

Ms Chaltu said she desperately searched for him for four days until she received news that police had found a body by a river. She then went to a local police station, where officers confirmed they had found a body and buried it.

“After some deliberations they asked us to bring his photo and describe how he was dressed the night he was arrested. Later they confirmed to us that the man they buried matched the photo and the description we gave them.

“They told us to go home and mourn him in the absence of his body. We had no option,” she said, adding that the officers confirmed that her brother had died of a gunshot wound.

“We only know about his arrest. We don’t know what his crime was, we don’t know why they preferred to kill him rather than take him to court,” Ms Chaltu said.

Her brother had only been politically active in the OLF, having served on a committee to welcome leaders who had returned from exile in 2018, she said.

Ethnic Amharas killed

The exact number of casualties from the conflict is unclear, but the state-linked Ethiopian Human Rights Commission said it had recorded the alleged killing of 12 civilians by the security forces in Oromia in November alone.

“Political disagreements are costing civilians dearly,” commission adviser Imad Abdulfetah told BBC Afaan Oromoo.

He emphasised that OLA fighters have also been accused of targeting civilians.

Their victims include Amharas, the second largest ethnic group in Ethiopia and its historic rulers. More than 50 of them have been killed in western Oromia’s Horro Guduru zone since November, in an apparent attempt to drive them out of the region.

The zone had been largely peaceful. The attacks suggest that the OLA has now moved in, and the killings have shocked people and raised fears of causing ethnic tensions.

According to government accounts, 13 Amharas were reportedly killed in the zone’s Amuru district in November. In a deadlier attack in the same month, at least 34 Amharas were gunned down after OLA fighters called them to a meeting in a school compound in Guliso district.

The BBC also spoke to two residents of Abbay Choman district, who witnessed the killing of seven Amharas in December.

Competing political visions

Residents said the gunmen, whose identities they were unsure of, used a loudhailer to summon both Oromos and Amharas to a meeting on the evening of 8 December.

“There were eight armed men, they had long hair, their faces were covered, they asked for residents who were Amharas to identify themselves. They told the rest of us to go home and took away about 10 of those who stood up,” an Oromo resident said.

“We were waiting for their release the whole night, they didn’t come. We found seven bodies the next morning,” he added.

While it is unclear what exactly the OLA means by the “liberation” of Oromia, the main opposition parties in Oromia are demanding greater regional autonomy, believing it to be the best way to guarantee the political, cultural and language rights of different ethnic groups.

But their critics, especially urban elites with a more cosmopolitan outlook, fear this could result in ethnic identities becoming more entrenched, and Ethiopia disintegrating into ethnic fiefdoms.

Many Oromos feel Mr Abiy is leaning towards the latter view and wants to centralise power. This perception grew especially after he dissolved the ethnically based ruling coalition in 2019 and gave his newly formed Prosperity Party (PP) power at both the centre and in Ethiopia’s 10 regions.

The same argument is part of the conflict in Tigray.

‘Enemy of the people’

In Oromia, the security forces have also arrested almost the entire leadership of the two main opposition parties, the OLF and Oromo Federalist Congress (OFC), accusing them of fuelling violence to advance their cause for greater autonomy. They deny instigating violence.

Their detention has led to many opposition supporters concluding that the political space Mr Abiy opened in 2018 had now closed. This has resulted in sympathy, if not support, for the OLA growing, especially among youths impatient for change.

The OLA has mainly attacked government officials and police officers – including commanders – in small towns and villages as part of a strategy to make them ungovernable for Mr Abiy.

However, it has also created a culture of fear among Oromos. Armed men raided two banks in Hagamsaa village in December and set ablaze an ambulance, which was taking a pregnant woman to a medical facility to deliver her baby, and a private vehicle in nearby Shambu town. Locals suspect that the rebels were trying to obtain money and vehicles for their insurgency.

The OLA is strongest in southern Oromia, which borders Kenya. The group suffered a major blow there in December when a powerful traditional leader in the region, Kura Jarso, denounced it as an “enemy of the people” after accusing its fighters of killing civilians, raping women and stealing cattle.

The conflict has also spilled into Kenya, where tens of thousands of Oromos live and are loyal to Mr Kura. In November, residents in the Kenyan town of Moyale said Ethiopian troops had crossed the border ransacking neighbourhoods and taking away 10 people they accused of sheltering members of the OLA, also referred to as OLF-Shane.

Mr Abiy visited the Kenyan side of the border with Kenya’s President Uhuru Kenyatta in December.

In his speech, he lumped the Oromo rebels with Somalia-based militant Islamist group al-Shabab, which is the main security threat in Kenya. He said both should be “eliminated”, although there is no evidence linking the ethnic nationalists to the Somali militants.

It was a further sign that Mr Abiy intends to continue taking a hard-line approach to tackling conflicts in Ethiopia.

EU – We need humanitarian access to Tigray as urgent first step towards peace in Ethiopia

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Statement: EU | Josep Borrell, EU foreign affairs chief

“For more than two months, conflict has been raging in the Ethiopian Tigray region. The authorities must allow humanitarian access as first step towards peace.” 

For more than two months, conflict has been raging in the Tigray region in Ethiopia. The situation is desperate for the local population and the conflict is unsettling dynamics both within Ethiopia and the whole region. I have passed a clear message to the Ethiopian leadership: we are ready to help, but unless there is access for humanitarian aid operators, the EU cannot disburse the planned budget support to the Ethiopian government.

Without deliberate efforts of de-escalation, conflicts tend to worsen, as Ethiopia’s bloody conflict in the northern Tigray region is reminding us. What started two months ago as an internal matter between an autonomous region and the federal government has become a fight affecting the whole region.

“The situation on the ground goes well beyond a purely internal ‘law and order’ operation”

The situation on the ground goes well beyond a purely internal ‘law and order’ operation. We receive consistent reports of ethnic-targeted violence, killings, massive looting, rapes, forceful returns of refugees and possible war crimes. More than 2 million people have been internally displaced. And while people are in dire need of aid, access to the affected region remains  limited, which makes it very difficult to deliver humanitarian assistance.

Moreover, there are regional spill-over effects of the conflict, with for instance Eritrean troops being involved in the military operations in Tigray and with Ethiopian troops being withdrawn from Somalia.55.000 refugees have fled to Sudan and tensions grow dangerously at the border between Sudan and Ethiopia. By affecting or involving other countries, the conflict is also a direct threat to the stability of the whole region.

Just over a year ago, in October 2019, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Ali was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. It was a recognition for his firm efforts to achieve peace, in particular with neighbouring Eritrea, and for promoting peace and reconciliation in the country and in the East and Northeast African regions. Today the world needs Ethiopia’s Prime Minister and his government to live up to this prestigious recognition – by doing all it takes to end the conflict. As an immediate first step, the Ethiopian authorities must comply fully with international humanitarian law and ensure that people in need get access to life-saving aid. This applies to all states in conflict.

When I spoke to the Ethiopian Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Demeke Mekonnen last week, I underlined that the European Union has been and will remain a reliable partner of Ethiopia. We strongly support the democratic and economic reform agenda of the authorities. Just in terms of bilateral development cooperation, we have provided € 815 million over the last 7 years (2014-2020). On top of this, Ethiopia is benefitting from € 409 million worth of projects under the EU Trust Fund for Africa, focused mainly on support to refugees and host populations.

“I stressed that in the absence of full humanitarian access to all areas of the conflict, we have no alternative but to postpone the planned disbursement of €88 million in budget support.”

To help Ethiopia face the COVID-19 pandemic, the EU mobilised € 487 million to support the government’s Health Preparedness and Response Plan. And several budget support operations were fast-tracked to enable the country to face the economic strains of the pandemic. However, I also stressed that, under the current circumstances, in particular in the absence of full humanitarian access to all areas of the conflict, we have no alternative but to postpone the planned disbursement of €88 million in budget support.

It is in the best interest of Ethiopia and the wider region to allow humanitarian access and to resume the path towards an inclusive and sustainable peace. Regional experiences are relevant here: Sudan stared into the abyss of civil war two years ago, before the parties to its political dispute stepped back and chose a peaceful transition instead. Ethiopia was the midwife to that transition, together with the African Union and the United Nations. Maybe Khartoum can now return the important effort. But this requires that there first be a de-escalation of tensions between the two countries.

I hope we will be able to work out swiftly a favourable outcome with the authorities and we are ready to meet government representatives in Addis Ababa very soon. As EU, we will continue to do our part, in cooperation with the African Union. As we often say, we support ‘African solutions to African problems’. It is urgent, now, to find these solutions.

Will Somalia Be Collateral Damage of Ethiopia’s Tigray Conflict?

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Source: World Politics Review | Peter Kirechu

In November, as the Ethiopian government escalated its military campaign against the northern Tigray region, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed quietly ordered a drawdown of Ethiopian peacekeepers from neighboring Somalia. The scale of the move is still unconfirmed, but as many as 3,000 Ethiopian troops were reportedly redeployed to fight against the regional ruling party in Tigray, the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front, or TPLF. Around 200 to 300 ethnic Tigrayan soldiers in Somalia were also disarmed, and some may have even been purged from the ranks.

The Ethiopian troops’ departure injects additional uncertainty into Somalia’s already precarious security situation, as it struggles to hold federal elections that were scheduled for this month, while containing a long-running insurgency by the violent extremist group al-Shabab. The situation is further complicated by escalating tensions between the federal government, based in Mogadishu, and Somalia’s semiautonomous regional states—a standoff that bears similarities to Ethiopia’s conflict between the federal government and Tigray. Both Abiy and his Somali counterpart, Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed—who is more commonly known by his nickname, Farmajo—have sought to centralize executive authority within their respective federal governments despite sustained and increasingly violent opposition by powerful rivals.

Although Tigrayans make up only around 7 percent of Ethiopia’s population, the TPLF has played an outsized role in Ethiopian politics for decades, largely due to its leadership of the military campaign to overthrow the old communist dictatorship, the Derg, in the 1980s and early 1990s. In 2006, the TPLF-led government sent troops to Somalia to help secure the country’s nascent transition to a federal government after decades of civil war. Ethiopia later joined the African Union mission against al-Shabab as a troop-contributing country in 2014. These deployments helped foster ties between the TPLF and regional state leaders in Somalia, particularly in the south, where al-Shabab is most active.

When Abiy took office in 2018, however, he promptly began sidelining the TPLF, including by dissolving the old ethnic federalist coalition, known as Ethiopian People’s Democratic Front, and replacing it with a single, pan-Ethiopian political party that the TPLF refused to join. Abiy’s campaign to create a strong central government resonated with Farmajo, who has similarly sought to curb the authority of Somalia’s semiautonomous states. Abiy’s efforts to defang the TPLF and remove ethnic Tigrayans from the ranks of peacekeepers in Somalia can thus be seen as part of a burgeoning partnership between the Somali and Ethiopian leaders, united by their mutual desire to centralize federal power and weaken the political influence of domestic rivals in both countries.

Abiy and Farmajo share a mutual suspicion of the TPLF’s enduring influence within the Ethiopian military and security services. This deep-seated mistrust likely informed the disarming of Tigrayan peacekeepers in Somalia in November, which Abiy’s government defended as an effort to root out the “infiltration of TPLF elements in various entities.” Prior to the recent drawdown, Ethiopia had nearly 4,000 troops assigned to the United Nations Mission in Somalia, or AMISOM, targeting al-Shabab, and an additional 4,000 troops supporting a separate bilateral security agreement between the Somali and Ethiopian governments.

Farmajo is running for a second term in a presidential election that is scheduled for next month, but is likely to be delayed. If his reelection bid is successful—not a certain prospect—his political survival would be influenced by the outcome of the Ethiopian offensive in Tigray. Sporadic fighting is continuing despite Abiy’s declaration of victory in late November, after federal troops captured the regional capital, Mekelle. A decisive defeat of the heavily armed and well-trained TPLF troops would strengthen Abiy’s grip on the military, and may also weaken the TPLF’s historical ties to allies in Somalia, especially those in its southern and central federal member states.

An enduring guerrilla insurgency in Tigray will likely stress Ethiopia’s military resources and raise the prospect of additional drawdowns from the Somalia mission.

Here, Farmajo’s efforts to marginalize his political opponents have been bolstered by Ethiopia’s military presence. It is also in these Somali heartland regions, the epicenter of the al-Shabab insurgency, where Farmajo’s efforts to expand federal authority have faced the most resistance. In 2018, he intervened in a local election in Somalia’s South West state to prevent a former al-Shabab leader and defector, Mukhtar Robow, from competing in the state’s presidential election. Farmajo’s federal government reportedly orchestrated Robow’s arbitrary arrest and detention by Ethiopian security forces, leading to his withdrawal from the race, and the subsequent election of a Farmajo ally.

And last March, Farmajo unsuccessfully tried to intervene to prevent the reelection of Ahmed Madobe, a key political opponent who serves as president of Somalia’s southernmost regional state, Jubaland. Here, again, Farmajo leveraged Ethiopia’s military presence and political support in a bid to unseat an incumbent and expand the federal government’s writ of authority. This effort sparked violent clashes between federal troops and Jubaland’s forces, and drew in both Kenya and Ethiopia—two troop-contributing countries in the AMISOM mission that stand on opposite sides of the fractious dispute in Jubaland.

Kenya has long supported the Jubaland administration of Madobe, a former ally of al-Shabab who now opposes the group. Madobe led the 2012 military campaign that ousted al-Shabab from Kismayo, the regional capital, and has since enjoyed Kenya’s military and political backing. Madobe also has historical ties to the former TPLF-led government in Addis Ababa, dating back to Ethiopia’s military campaign against Islamist extremists in southern Somalia during the 2000s.

Today, al-Shabab has been beaten back from Jubaland’s cities, but it still maintains a presence in rural parts of the state. Kenya, which has suffered from deadly al-Shabab attacks in the past, views Jubaland—and therefore Madobe—as an essential security buffer on its northeastern border with Somalia. Abiy, on the other hand, is suspicious of Madobe’s historical links with the TPLF, as well as other Ethiopian groups that are opposed to Abiy’s agenda.

These tensions imperil AMISOM’s already beleaguered campaign against Al-Shabab, which took a hit from the sudden withdrawal of U.S. troops that President Donald Trump ordered last month. National interests have long driven countries’ decisions on participation in the AMISOM mission, but the rift between Kenya and Ethiopia—and each country’s divergent support for rival domestic factions inside Somalia—fundamentally weakens the AMISOM mission. These tensions may not spill into direct confrontation, but they create an additional wedge that the resurgent al-Shabab can exploit to advance its military and political objectives.

The conflict in Tigray only exacerbates these exigent rifts. An enduring guerrilla insurgency in Tigray will likely stress Ethiopia’s military resources and raise the prospect of additional drawdowns from the Somalia mission. A conclusive TPLF defeat, on the other hand, would embolden Abiy’s centralization campaign—an outcome that would resonate in Somalia and strengthen Farmajo’s like-minded agenda.

While prospects for a negotiated settlement in Tigray are still uncertain, it presents the best opportunity to mediate the Ethiopian federal government’s rivalries with the TPLF and other regional state rivals. Such an outcome could also provide a viable blueprint for the negotiation to ease federal-regional tensions in Somalia, where the effects of the Tigray conflict will likely reverberate for many months to come.

Peter Kirechu is the former director of the Conflict Finance and Irregular Threats Program at the Center for Advanced Defense Studies (C4ADS). He is a specialist on illicit transnational networks in the Middle East and Africa.

Massacre ‘of 750’ reported in Aksum church complex, Tigray, Ethiopia

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Source: Church Times | Rebecca Paveley

Reports of a massacre of 750 people in the cathedral complex that reputedly houses the Ark of the Covenant have emerged from the Tigray region of Ethiopia.

Accounts have come from those who fled the town of Aksum and walked more than 200km to the regional capital, Mekelle.

The massacre was first reported in dispatches from the Belgium-based NGO European External Programme with Africa (EEPA). The area is sealed off to journalists, but many reports of massacres have nevertheless emerged, some of which have been documented by Amnesty International.

The former BBC World Service Africa editor and Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, Martin Plaut, said that those who escaped the Aksum massacre had reported that the attack began after Ethiopian federal troops and Amhara militia approached the Church of St Mary of Zion.

Up to 1000 people were believed to be sheltering in the church complex. One of the chapels, the Chapel of the Tablet, is believed by Ethiopian Christians to contain the Ark of the Covenant, which is hidden from the view of everyone, apart from a single priest who never leaves the compound.

Mr Plaut said: “People were worried about the safety of the Ark, and when they heard troops were approaching feared they had come to steal it. All those inside the cathedral were forced out into the square.”

EEPA’s latest dispatch on the situation in Tigray, on Tuesday, reports that 750 people were shot in Aksum, although this has not been verified. It says that the massacre was carried out by Ethiopian federal troops and Amhara militia.

The Church is not thought to have been damaged, and Mr Plaut said that the Ark is likely to have been hidden before troops arrived, although it has not been possible to confirm this.

The Ark is believed by Ethiopian Orthodox Christians to have been hidden in Aksum by Menelik I, the son of King Solomon of Israel. The kingdom of Aksum was one of the four great powers of the ancient world, and the town of Aksum is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Fighting broke out in Tigray in November, after the Ethiopian Prime Minister, Abiy Ahmed, sent federal troops, supported by militia and troops from Eritrea, to fight the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), which he accused of holding illegitimate elections (News, 20 November 2020). The TPLF was part of the governing coalition of Ethiopia until 2019.

The government declared that the conflict was over after it captured Mekelle, in late November, but the TPLF continues to fight a guerrilla war.

The Ethiopian government has admitted shelling an ancient mosque in Tigray, and has promised to repair it. The al-Nejashi mosque in northern Tigray was hit by shells, and its dome, minaret, and ancient tombs, reputedly of 15 disciples of the Prophet Muhammad, were damaged. A church near by was also damaged in the attack, and the government has pledged that it will also repair it.

EEPA reported that, after the shelling, the mosque had been looted by Ethiopian and Eritrean troops, and that some civilians had died trying to protect it.

Humanitarian aid has been unable to get to the region, despite pleas from the United Nations, which estimates that 2.3 million children have been cut off from food and aid (News 1 January). More than one million people have been displaced by the fighting, and more than 50,000 have fled into Sudan. There are also concerns for the safety of many Eritrean refugees in camps in Tigray.

Mysterious Wheat Deals Complicate Hunger Fight in Ethiopia

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Source: Bloomberg | Samuel Gebre, Agnieszka de Sousa and Simon Marks

Nation scrapped import tenders for grain after no progress
Ethiopia is seeking outside assistance to help feed its people

Back in November, Ethiopia unveiled two deals to buy deeply discounted wheat from suppliers that seasoned traders had never heard of. A website named for one of the companies listed a German address that didn’t exist and appeared to use stock photos of models.

Two months on, it remains a mystery who was behind the deals or what their motivation was, especially as Ethiopia says it hasn’t lost any money. One thing is clear though: no wheat has been delivered. The government has now canceled the tenders and plans to start over.

It’s an embarrassing blunder that could have ramifications for a country in desperate need of food. Ethiopia relies on more than 1 million tons of wheat imports a year to feed its people; the two canceled tenders together represented 600,000 tons. Global wheat prices have risen since the deals were initially awarded, meaning it will probably have to pay more now.

Ethiopia’s grain-tender process has for years been dogged by cancellations and corruption allegations, as well as putting strain on much-needed foreign-exchange reserves. The nation had already postponed or canceled tenders over the course of last year. That’s especially a problem for a country where some 11 million people were seen in need of food aid by the end of last year.

Ethiopia’s farming industry last year suffered from the worst desert-locust infestations in decades as well as the Covid-19 pandemic. At the same time, conflict in parts of the country displaced tens of thousands of people, adding to widespread food shortages.

“There is no doubt that there is a major food security crisis,” said Tedd George, founder at Kleos Advisory, a U.K.-based adviser on African markets. “Ethiopia has lost a number of tenders beforehand. It may have been that they have had difficulty finding more established, more respected traders to provide wheat.”

A spokesperson for the Ministry of Finance this week said that while the two tenders were canceled, the nation has been able to meet its needs through other purchases and domestic supply, though couldn’t comment further.

Major grain merchants have largely shunned Ethiopia’s tenders due to unfavorable terms such as requiring offers to be valid for 30 days, exposing traders to losses should prices change. However, there are a handful of smaller suppliers that regularly participate in the tenders.

The two tenders awarded in November were for the purchase of 400,000 tons from Rosentreter Global Food Trading and 200,000 tons from Martina Mertens, at a combined value of about $117 million. However, the companies were unknown to nine experienced international grain traders surveyed by Bloomberg.

The Public Procurement and Property Disposal Service this month said it canceled the tenders because the companies didn’t follow through with the deals and plans to reissue them. Since the tenders were awarded in early November, benchmark futures have climbed about 10% to $6.72 a bushel in Chicago.

When asked about Rosentreter’s authenticity in November, PPPDS Director-General Tsewaye Muluneh said that while it was the first time the new company had participated in tenders, it had passed the PPPDS’s checks.

Two Companies

There are reasons to question the firms’ legitimacy. Rosentreter and Martina Mertens offered wheat much cheaper than other tender participants. The German address that was stated on a website for Rosentreter doesn’t exist, phone numbers wouldn’t connect, an email failed to deliver and personal biographies used what seems are stock photos of models.

Rosentreter’s website no longer works, and Bloomberg couldn’t identify one, or locate contact details, for Martina Mertens.

It’s not clear who would stand to benefit from the failed tenders. Tsewaye said Ethiopia hasn’t lost any money in the two tenders, with the companies even putting up a bond payment to participate. She wouldn’t elaborate further.

The Ministry of Finance didn’t respond to phone calls, emails and text messages over the past two months seeking comment on the authenticity of the companies involved and whether the awards were a blunder.

The government held a monopoly on wheat purchases until early last year when, as part of new state reforms, it started allowing some private companies to import as long as they use their own foreign currency. There’s no public list of who is eligible to import.

It seems the country still needs more food. The Catholic Relief Services said Ethiopia has asked it for assistance, with distribution already underway. The World Food Programme also confirmed it’s assisting the government in procuring wheat.

Ethiopia’s National Disaster Risk Management Commission said 11.1 million people needed food aid last year and that it’s working on figures for 2021. The country is currently buying about 700,000 tons of wheat and plans to purchase another 300,000 tons later this year, said Mitiku Kassa, head of the agency.

“It is inevitable they are going to need support from the World Food Programme,” Kleos Advisory’s George said. “At least this will be wheat, not a tender someone will cancel.”

 

— With assistance by Megan Durisin

Sudan sends delegation to neighboring countries, bans aviation over state bordering Ethiopia

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Sudan sends delegation to neighboring countries to talk over the country’s border dispute with Ethiopia. 

Sudan’s Transitional Council and the Joint Council of Ministers have decided to visit neighboring countries regarding the country’s border dispute with Ethiopia, Al Ain News reported.

Authorities are reportedly in Cairo, Asmara, Juba and Saudi Arabia to explain the situation.

Lieutenant General Shamsedin Kabashi, a member of the Transitional Federal Council (TFP) is in South Sudan, Lieutenant General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, vice chairman of the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) in Eritrea, Lieutenant General Ibrahim Jabir, a member of the Transitional Federal Council (TFP) in Chad, and Mohammed Faki Suleiman in Saudi Arabia.

Acting Foreign Minister Omar Kemedin, Chief of Intelligence General Jamal Aden Omar, Information Minister Faisal Mohammed Salih and Lieutenant General Sham Il-Dean Kabashi, a member of the Transitional Council, left for Cairo today.

Lt. Gen. Abdulfatah Alburhan visited the Ethiopia-Sudan border. Reportedly, he told members of the defense force that he will not leave the area as it belongs to Sudan.

Aviation banned

On Thursday Sudan announced a ban on civil aviation in the airspace of Al-Qadarif state which borders Ethiopia, citing security reasons, Anadolu Agency reported.

“The Ministry of Defense has sent a decision to the Civil Aviation Authority to prevent flying over the airspace of Al-Qadarif State,” Abdelhafez Abdelrahim, the spokesman for the Sudanese Civil Aviation Authority, told Anadolu Agency.

The decision was based on “security reasons,” he added.

The two East African nations have been locked in a border dispute since December when Sudanese forces crossed into Ethiopia saying they were reclaiming their lands.

Dozens Die in Ethnic Massacre in Troubled Ethiopian Region

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Source: The New York Times | Simon Marks and Declan Walsh

It was the latest of several bloody outbursts over the past year in the western region of Benishangul-Gumuz, along the border with Sudan, where ethnic tensions are running high.

At least 80 people were killed on Tuesday when unidentified gunmen stormed through a village in western Ethiopia in the latest of a series of ethnically driven massacres in the area, the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission and witnesses said on Wednesday.

The massacre in Benishangul-Gumuz region, along the border with Sudan, is the latest challenge to the regime of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, who came to power in 2018 promising to unite Ethiopia but has struggled to contain a growing wave of ethnic violence.

The attacks further threaten the stability of Africa’s second-most populous nation at a time when Mr. Abiy is already embroiled in an escalating conflict in the northern Tigray region, where he launched a major military operation on Nov. 4 that he said was intended to capture defiant local leaders.

Analysts say the campaign in Tigray has hampered Mr. Abiy’s ability to stem clashes like the recent one in Benishangul-Gumuz, because it has forced him to divert soldiers from across Ethiopia to Tigray. As a result, ethnic clashes that had already been growing for months have only gotten worse.

In the latest episode, witnesses said that men of the Gumuz ethnic group, armed with rifles and swords, stormed into Daletti village early Tuesday. Photos from the aftermath of the attack, provided by local activists, showed bloodied bodies of women and children strewn on the ground, many with horrific wounds. They said that many of the victims were ethnic Amharas and Agaws, who are a minority in that region.

“A group of Gumuz men came to our village chanting ‘leave our land,’” said Sebsibie Ibrahim, 36, a shop owner in Metekel district, speaking by phone. “They fired their guns and used swords to attack anyone they came across — women, children, elderly people.”

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In the chaos that followed, houses were torched and an old man was beheaded outside his house, Mr. Sebsibie said. “Blood was flooding from his neck,” he said.

On Dec. 22, Mr. Abiy took time out from the campaign in Tigray to visit Benishangul-Gumuz and calm tensions in the area. But a day later, armed men attacked a village, leaving at least 100 people dead, according to human rights groups.

Aaron Maasho, a spokesman for the government-funded Ethiopian Human Rights Commission, which reported the killings on Wednesday, urged Mr. Abiy to deploy extra security forces to keep the peace in the troubled region.

“For the umpteenth time, we call on the federal and regional authorities to scale up security in Metekel,” he said, referring to the district of Benishangul-Gumuz where the killings took place.

Mr. Abiy’s decision to open up Ethiopian politics after he came to power in 2018, releasing political prisoners and allowing exiles to return, was widely acclaimed. But it also unleashed simmering ethnic tensions.

Benishangul-Gumuz, for example, is home to five major ethnic groups, mostly from the Berta and Gumuz peoples. But the region is also home to minority Amharas, Oromos, Tigrayans and Agaws — a source of escalating tension.

Billene Seyoum, a spokeswoman for Prime Minister Abiy, did not respond to questions about the violence.

Dessalegn Chanie, an Amhara opposition politician, said there had been signs in recent days that armed men from the Oromo and Gumuz ethnic groups were preparing an attack, particularly in areas where there was little federal security presence.

“These attacks were premeditated and highly prepared,” he said.

Although Mr. Abiy declared victory in Tigray last month, United Nations officials say the fight continues.

On Wednesday, Ethiopia said its military had killed three senior members of Tigray’s former ruling party, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, including Seyoum Mesfin, a former foreign minister of Ethiopia.

Outrage over damage to Tigray mosque

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Source: Middle East Eye | Zecharias Zelalem

Details of the damage inflicted on the al-Nejashi mosque – believed to be one of the oldest mosques in Africa – took weeks to emerge

Nejashi

 

The conflict in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region – pitting the Ethiopian and Eritrean armies against rebel Tigray forces since 4 November – has caused concern over its humanitarian toll, with tens of thousands of Ethiopians fleeing to neighbouring Sudan and allegations surfacing of violent crimes against civilians.

In recent weeks, outrage has poured in on social media as news emerged that the conflict had also touched one of the region’s most revered religious heritage sites: the historical al-Nejashi mosque in the area of Wukro.

One of Africa’s oldest mosques and touted as a potential Unesco World Heritage site, al-Nejashi has been mourned as one of the casualties of the chaos of war – while belated government vows to repair it have been treated with suspicion.

Worrying rumours

Since fighting began in Tigray over two months ago, the area has been cut off from the rest of the world due to internet and phone outages. Ethiopian authorities have also barred journalists and aid workers from much of the region.

Mounting reports of potential war crimes and infrastructural damage have therefore been difficult to authenticate, as Addis Ababa continues to resist calls from the United Nations to grant it unfettered access to the region, where it estimates over a million people have been internally displaced.

In late November, rumours began to surface on social media of fighting in Wukro, more than 800km north of the Ethiopian capital. Accounts emerged that several houses of worship – including the al-Nejashi mosque and the nearby Amanuel Orthodox church – had been shelled around that time.

On 27 November, an Ethiopian army commander told Ethiopian state broadcaster FBC that his troops had secured control of the area, but made no mention of damage to religious sites.

A day later, Ethiopian troops captured the regional capital of Mekelle and Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed declared the war over.

But telephone and internet services are yet to be restored to Wukro and its surroundings, as fighting persists in rural areas.

On 18 December, a communique by the Belgium-based Europe External Programme with Africa reported that the mosque “was first bombed and later looted by Ethiopian and Eritrean troops”, before mentioning that sources in the region spoke of killings at the mosque.

Distress over the incident reached fever pitch on New Year’s Day, when photos and video footage of the significantly damaged al-Nejashi mosque first appeared on social media, going viral.

Images showed the mosque’s minaret destroyed, its dome partially collapsed and its facade in ruins. Inside the mosque, rubble littered the floor.

Ahmed Siraj, a representative of the regional International Association of Muslims in Tigray, told Middle East Eye that his organisation had recorded the deaths of several people killed by combatants in the wake of the partial destruction of the mosque.

“We have determined from our sources that a number of innocent people, including a father of four children, were killed by Eritrean soldiers simply for protesting against the mosque’s pillaging on 26 November,” Siraj said.

Siraj added that a number of artefacts were believed to have been stolen from the mosque, including religious manuscripts, books and letters dating as far back as the seventh century, while a shrine believed to hold the remains of some followers of the Prophet Muhammad was also in need of repairs.

An official from the state-run Ethiopian Heritage Preservation Authority said on 5 January that a team would be sent to inspect the mosque’s damage, as well as that of a nearby church, before repairs were undertaken.

But Siraj said such efforts couldn’t undo the human and cultural toll.

“Repairs won’t bring them back. Nor will it bring back the stolen artefacts,” he said.

The office of the Ethiopian premier had not responded to a MEE request for comment at the time of writing.

Renowned history

Confirmation of the damage inflicted to the al-Nejashi mosque provoked widespread shock and outrage among Ethiopians, Muslims and Christians alike.

The iconic mosque was built in the seventh century and is among the holiest sites in Islam.

Ahmedin Jebel, a prominent Ethiopian Muslim scholar and writer, told MEE that the mosque was reportedly built by early followers of the prophet fleeing persecution from the ruling Quraysh tribe in Mecca.

The prophet reportedly told a dozen of his followers to head towards the kingdom of Aksum – located in present-day Ethiopia – where the Christian king, known as Nejashi, would offer them sanctuary.

“Twelve men and four women took heed of the prophet’s advice and made the pilgrimage to the Kingdom of Aksum,” Jebel said. “Among them, Ruqayyah bint Muhammad, daughter of the prophet himself.

“In Islam, the mosque has a renowned rich history of justice and tolerance, as King Nejashi rejected bribes from the Quraysh to turn in his guests who had fled their homelands seeking freedom,” he added. “Mosques around the world have since been named in Nejashi’s honour.”

Jebel was pessimistic about the Ethiopian Authority for Research and Conservation of Cultural Heritage’s initiative to repair the mosque.

“There was a concentrated effort by the preservation authority to cover up the mosque’s destruction for weeks,” he explained. “The fact that the destruction of a mosque as cherished and prominent as the al-Nejashi mosque could be kept secret this long has me doubting whether they would put in a sincere effort to hasten repairs.”

Government silence

Prior to the publication of images of the mosque, Ethiopian government officials hadn’t addressed growing accounts of the mosque’s destruction.

While information has been difficult to verify due to strict government restrictions in Tigray, the most well-circulated account of events has alleged that the mosque was hit by either Eritrean or Ethiopian army heavy weaponry, before being looted by allied Eritrean soldiers.

Akemel Negash is a journalist and senior editor for local news outlet Amba Digital, which was the first media organisation to cover the mosque’s destruction prior to the release of the pictures. He echoed Jebel’s sentiments and said authorities’ deafening silence was an effort to avoid backlash.

‘It left me devastated. There’s no precedent for this. The al-Nejashi mosque has been around for millennia’

– Ahmed Siraj, International Association of Muslims in Tigray

“The federal government has been prompt to report on the destruction of property throughout the war, but only when it’s caused by their foes,” he told MEE.

“The destruction of Aksum Airport by Tigrayan rebel forces was given immediate airtime on state media. Images of homes and hospitals said to have been destroyed by them have been widely circulated as well.

“But when the government’s allied forces destroy something as prominent as one of Islam’s most cherished heritage sites, they keep it hushed until citizen journalists exposed it. They were well aware of it, but said nothing as it didn’t serve political ambitions,” he added.

While many appear unconvinced by the government’s pledges to swiftly repair the mosque, for Tigray Muslims such Siraj, the damage is already done.

“It left me devastated,” Siraj said. “There’s no precedent for this. The al-Nejashi mosque has been around for millennia.

“In that time, there have been all sorts of tyrants in Ethiopia, including some who targeted Muslims for oppression. But none of them dared touch the mosque,” he added.

“The fact that this would first happen in the 21st century is especially shocking and should be worrying for all Ethiopians.”

Over 80 civilians killed in latest west Ethiopia massacre: EHRC

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Age of victims of attack in Metekel zone in Benishangul-Gumuz region ranged between two and 45, says Ethiopian Human Rights Commission.

EHRC

 

More than 80 civilians, including children as young as two years old, have been killed in the latest attack to afflict western Ethiopia, according to the country’s national human rights commission.

Aaron Maasho, spokesman and senior adviser for the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission (EHRC), told Al Jazeera the massacre took place on Tuesday between 5am and 7am in the region of Benishangul-Gumuz, which borders Sudan and South Sudan.

“We received information that over 80 people died whose ages range from 2 to 45 years old,” he said from the capital, Addis Ababa.

There was no claim of responsibility and no immediate information about the identity of the attackers. “We can confirm that the perpetrators of the attack have not been apprehended by the authorities yet,” Maasho said.

The attack took place in an area called Daletti, in the Metekel zone of Benishangul-Gumuz, which has been plagued by recurring violence in recent months that has left hundreds of people dead.

Some 207 people were killed in one attack on December 23 alone.

Maasho said “thousands of people” have been displaced due to the continuing violence in Metekel.

“We call on the federal and regional authorities to strengthen the coordination and measures, including at the district level, to prevent similar attacks against civilians,” added the spokesman of the EHRC, a government-affiliated but independent body.

‘They burned my house’

Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has struggled to impose order in Metekel or explain what is driving the violence, despite visiting the area in December and empowering a command post to take charge of security there.

Opposition politicians have described the violence in Metekel as ethnically motivated, alleging a targeted campaign by ethnic Gumuz armed groups against members of other ethnic groups in the area, including the Amhara, Ethiopia’s second-largest group.

One survivor of the latest attack, Ahmed Yimam, told AFP news agency on Wednesday that he had counted 82 bodies and said 22 people were injured.

“The attack was carried out mostly using knives although arrows and firearms were also used,” he said.

Worke Ahmed, 60, told Reuters news agency by telephone that men involved in Tuesday’s attack were armed and that he saw more than 100 of them. Some wore uniforms that he could not identify, he said.

“They burned my house and my brother’s house, with 200 cattle and 11 goats inside,” he said.

Africa’s second-most populous nation has been grappling with regular outbreaks of deadly violence since Abiy was appointed in 2018 and accelerated democratic reforms that loosened the state’s iron grip on regional rivalries.

Elections due this year have further inflamed simmering tensions over land, power and resources.

In a separate part of the country, Ethiopia’s military has been fighting rebels in the northern Tigray region for more than two months, in a conflict that has displaced some one million people.

The deployment of federal troops there has raised fears of a security vacuum in other restive regions.

Ethiopia is also experiencing unrest in the Oromia region and faces long-running security threats from Somali fighters along its porous eastern border.

 

SOURCE : AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES