Author: eradmin

For Ethiopian Orthodox Christians, who comprise more than 40% of their country’s population and most of the people in the Tigray region, the city of Axum is the holiest of places.

They believe it to be home to the Ark of the Covenant, or the original Ten Commandments, and the birthplace of Ethiopian Christianity.

“I would die to protect this church,” said Alem Gebreslase, a 24-year-old parishioner, on Sunday at the Church of Our Lady Mary of Zion, one of the oldest churches in Ethiopia and Axum’s center or worship. “But God will protect the Ark.”

In past years, pilgrims and tourists would flock to Axum to pray, visit historical sites and snap pictures. Last year, when the coronavirus pandemic swept the world, most stayed away. Then in November 2020, war broke out and visitors stopped coming almost completely.

The war, primarily between the Ethiopian National Defense Force and the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front, includes Eritrean forces fighting against the TPLF, and militias on both sides.

The violence began in November 2020 when TPLF forces attacked federal military bases in Tigray and Ethiopian forces swept through the region.

In the first month of conflict, Eritrean troops killed hundreds of civilians in Axum, according to Amnesty International.

In Axum, locals described those early days of violence, with details varying from mass shootings to house-to-house raids. Consistent in every person’s story, however, were descriptions of so many bodies.

“Besides the soaring death toll,” Amnesty International said in a February statement, “Axum’s residents were plunged into days of collective trauma amid violence, mourning and mass burials.”

In recent months, Axum has quieted, with violence mostly taking place in the countryside. The city has also begun hosting different kinds of visitors. Families displaced by war in their villages and small towns have come in droves, crowding into empty schoolhouses and on the grounds of the church.

“The situation has become reversed,” said Aygdu, a 57-year-old Axum merchant who gave only his nickname for security reasons. “People were fleeing from the city to the countryside. Now they are fleeing from the country to the city.”

Along the roadsides in remote areas outside of Axum, hundreds of Ethiopian and Eritrean soldiers could be seen in trucks, buses and cars over the weekend. In the city of Axum, Ethiopian federal forces patrolled the streets, enforcing a strict nightly curfew.

In the churchyard early Sunday, a mother of five begged for small amounts of money, saying she just arrived in Axum the day before, when troops entered her town.

“I have no other place to go,” she said.

A city strained

At a restaurant in town that serves traditional Ethiopian food, beers and sodas, Aygdu, the merchant, said the influx of displaced families has forced people to open their businesses, despite sporadic violence.

The church and the schools appear crowded with displaced families, he said, but there are also many households hosting relatives, straining the budgets in a town that has been in economic free-fall for more than a year. Prices of basic food items have doubled, he added.

“We may feel it’s dangerous,” he explained, “But if we don’t open our shops, we may die from hunger.”

In the early days of conflict, locals say businesses, homes and public services were looted and hundreds of civilians were killed. Aygdu’s furniture supply store was looted along with his house, he said.

“Even my television and bed were taken,” he said.

Hospitals overwhelmed

Hospitals and health care centers across the region have also been looted, according to Axum University’s Referral Hospital’s administrative director, Zemichael Weldegebriel.

“We are trying to support poor communities,” he said in his office on Thursday. “But the health care we can provide is not meeting their requirements.”

His hospital, which is supposed to take the worst cases from an area where 3.5 million people live, he said, is now taking every kind of case, because most local health care centers were either damaged or robbed until their cupboards were nearly bare.

People are still dying from war injuries, he added, but mortality rates have also gone up for people who have never been victims of bombs or bullets. More women are dying in childbirth, more children are malnourished, and more injuries and sicknesses are fatal because of late or substandard care, he said.

Essential medicines are missing and agents to conduct medical tests are largely not available, he explained. Free replacement medicine is provided by the federal government, but he said local supply centers are mostly out of stock.

And the war wounded keep coming. “In seven months, we have never been out of patients,” he said.

In a ward filled with the wounded, Nigusse Tadele, 29, said he was hurrying out of the house as bombs drew nearer. A blast hit near him and his next memory was waking up at a clinic where his injured toes became infected before he could get to the hospital.

More than a month later, he has lost his toes and lays in a cot in Axum, waiting to recover and return to his work as a government agriculture worker, he said.

“They may suspect there are TPLF supporters in our village,” he said, considering why he was hit. “But I haven’t seen any military camp.”

Source: Voice of America

The United States has renewed its condemnation of Nigeria for its recent suspension of Twitter, a move that senior U.S. officials said is a sign of restricting political space in the largest country in West Africa.

Nigerian authorities indefinitely suspended Twitter earlier this month after the U.S.-based social media company deleted a tweet by the country’s President Muhammadu Buhari for violating its terms of service.

“The Twitter suspension was very concerning and remains a source of concern,” said Akunna Cook, deputy assistant secretary of state for African affairs, during a Monday webinar hosted by the Washington-based Atlantic Council.

Cook, a daughter of Nigerian immigrants, said the country can “play a constructive role” in West Africa but “signs of closing of political space” and signs of restricting free speech are worrisome.

The Nigerian government’s subsequent threats to arrest and prosecute its citizens who use Twitter has drawn wide criticism from the West and international human rights organizations. Nigerian authorities said they banned Twitter because it was persistently being used “for activities that are capable of undermining Nigeria’s corporate existence.”

Separately, Cook on Monday called China a “strategic competitor” on the continent, while urging Beijing to have “greater transparency” when giving loans to African countries.

“Transparency limits corruption,” said the deputy assistant secretary of state. “China has become a large lender to African countries and many large borrowers from China are struggling, struggling with debt sustainability.”

The State Department’s top official on African affairs also said there will be “more robust engagements” between the U.S. and Africa under President Joe Biden’s administration but stopped short of elaborating whether there will be a U.S.-Africa summit in 2022, the same year as a planned Russia-Africa summit.

Source: Voice of America

The new chief of the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) says U.N. peacekeepers are being blocked from accessing some sensitive areas, despite an agreement by South Sudan’s government to cooperate with the mission.

Nicholas Haysom was appointed by U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres earlier this year to oversee the activities of 14,500 U.N. soldiers and 2,000 police in the country.

In an exclusive interview with VOA’s “South Sudan in Focus” program, Haysom said U.N. peacekeepers are not able to patrol in Western Equatoria and Western Bahr El Ghazal states, due to a lack of consent from the South Sudan government.

In September 2020, Chinese UNMISS troops were prevented from traveling to Lobonok village, east of the capital, Juba, where civilians were under attack from both government forces and the rebels of the National Salvation Front.

The government of South Sudan and the U.N. signed a status of force agreement on August 8, 2011, to allow U.N. peacekeepers to operate in the country. The agreement requires South Sudan to give consent to peacekeepers for their activities. But Haysom said getting a consent from the host country is still problematic in some cases.

‘’This has been an issue we have been engaging with the host country for some time. We now have a situation where we can more or less reach about 90% of the country provided we follow a particular route, which is not a permit-based approach, but a notification approach,” he said.

Intercommunal violence

Despite the peacekeepers’ presence, the U.N. Commission on Human Rights warned earlier this year that internal communal violence is threatening to engulf parts of Central Equatoria, Jonglei, Warrap and Lakes states.

South Sudan has also witnessed a recent spike in road ambushes by unidentified groups and fighting between government forces and rebels of the National Salvation Front in parts of the Central Equatoria state.

Haysom said negotiations, not military intervention, is key to ending such violence in South Sudan.

“Quite frankly, political agreements between communities are more effective than the guns and gun powder required to effect an end to intercommunal violence,” he said.

The U.N. top diplomat in South Sudan said the U.N. Security Council directed the mission this year to develop a three year-strategic vision to prevent a return to civil war; to support durable peace at the local and national levels; to support inclusive and accountable governance and free and fair peaceful elections.

Haysom said UNMISS is planning to step up patrols between Juba and Nimule to deter security threats on the main supply route linking South Sudan Uganda and Kenya.

But he said protection of civilians is the responsibility of the state adding that the United Nations can only come in to fill a vacuum.

“First of all, you would need to appreciate the responsibility for protecting civilians doesn’t rest with the UN. It rests with the host country,” he said. “A host country is expected to protect its own citizens. We play a supplementary role particularly it [state] is incapable or unable to do it.”

Haysom said South Sudan’s leaders should work towards creating a national vision for achieving peace and prosperity.

“You know, provided things move forward, the international community I think will increasingly engage and that would be an improvement. Provided things move forward, it will create an atmosphere in which we can build trust between the parties,” he said.

Source: Voice of America