Category: General

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

(ENA) The “Defend Ethiopia” task force in collaboration with Ethiopians and Eritreans living in the UK and the Ethiopian Embassy in London organized and made a rally in Cornwell, South West England

According to Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the purpose of the rally held in Cornwell, South West England where the G7 countries summit is being hosted, is to protest the undue pressure on Ethiopia that compromises the country’s sovereignty.

Source: Ethiopia News agency

Official Ceremony for the Consecration of His reverend Abune Qerlos, 5th Patriarch of Eritrea’s Orthodox Tewahdo Church, held today at Asmara’s St. Mary’s Church with all the elaborated church rituals. Representatives of monasteries, dioceses, administrations, and departments of the Holy Synod as well as Theological Colleges, Government officials, and members of the diplomatic corps attended the official ceremony. At the ceremony, a brief history of His Reverend Abune Qerlos was presented.

His Reverend Abune Qerlos has been elected as 5th Patriarch of Eritrea’s Orthodox Tewahdo Church in an election conducted on 12 May in Asmara in accordance with the norms and regulations of the Holy Synod and the Church.

Abune Qerlos was Arch-Bishop of Adi-Keih Diocese.

Source: Ministry of Information Eritrea

Cameroon has offered huge consignments of food and mattresses to at least 3,000 displaced persons said to be in dire need on its eastern border with the Central African Republic. Most of the people, displaced by violence following December presidential elections in the CAR, say they lost everything and that ongoing unrest keeps them from returning home.

At least 700 displaced people from the Central African Republic turned out in Kentzou, an administrative unit on Cameroon’s eastern border with the CAR, Friday to receive assistance from the host country. One day earlier, Cameroon said it had sent a delegation led by Territorial Administration Minister Paul Atanga Nji to eastern Cameroon to help those displaced by the CAR crisis.

Nji visited several border villages and administrative units, including Kentzou and Garoua-Boulai. Nji said he distributed food and humanitarian assistance from the government of Cameroon. He said Cameroon decided to assist displaced persons after local government officials said the Central Africans were living in poverty.

He said the government of Cameroon mobilized 17 trucks to transport and donate mattresses, blankets, buckets and food to at least 3,400 displaced people. He said President Paul Biya instructed him to tell the displaced persons to live in peace and respect Cameroon’s laws. He said Cameroon wants to know when the displaced will want to voluntarily return to the CAR.

The violence that sparked the exodus involves armed groups and has been ongoing since Austin-Archange Touadera was reelected president in December. Much of the trouble is centered on border areas. It is suspected that fleeing rebels are among the displaced persons.

Nji said Cameroon was delighted that the items will improve the living conditions of the displaced persons until they go home.

Donatien Barka, the mayor of Kentzou, however, said host communities have been reporting clashes with the displaced Central Africans and that the area is no longer secure.

Barka said between 2017 and 2020, some 32,000 people displaced by the fighting have sought refuge in Kentzou. He said the influx inundated the 28,000 inhabitants of Kentzou and that theft of food and cattle, and conflicts over lodging and farmlands were reported daily. He said Cameroon reinforced its military in Kentzou in January when rebels protesting the CAR leadership came to Kentzou illegally.

Barka said he did not have updated figures of the number of displaced people remaining in Kentzou because movement across the porous border is uncontrolled. He said when there is fighting in the CAR, people cross over to Cameroon. He said his wish is for the displaced persons to return to their country.

Martial Beti-Marace, the CAR’s ambassador to Cameroon, says peace is gradually returning to the CAR and civilians who fled fighting should agree to voluntarily return to their country.

Speaking from the CAR’s capital Bangui, he said democratic institutions are gradually being put in place after the December 27 elections in which a majority of CAR civilians chose Touadera as their president. He said a majority of civilians who fled bloody conflicts between government troops and rebels in the CAR have voluntarily returned and are living in peace in their towns and villages.

Beti-Marace said Cameroon and the CAR are both struggling to maintain a collective peace because a crisis in either country affects them both. He said Cameroon and the CAR are trying to convince displaced persons to return home and contribute to the development of their country.

Violence among armed groups since 2013 has forced close to a million Central Africans to flee to neighboring Cameroon, Chad, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Nigeria.

Cameroon shares a 900-kilometer border with the CAR. Cameroon’s Territorial Administration Ministry says Cameroon has taken in and is home to more 300,000 displaced Central Africans.

Source: Voice of America

The Adi-Keih College of Business and Social Sciences in cooperation with the National Union of Eritrean Youth and Students organized a workshop focusing on cultural heritage and national identity.

The workshop was attended by 150 staff members and students of the College.

According to report, the objective of the workshop was to raise the awareness of the staff members and students of the college on the significance of preserving cultural heritage and the noble societal values and transfer them to posterity.

At the workshop 16 topics associated with cultural and national identity were raised and extensive discussion was conducted, the report added.

Speaking at the event, Ms. Mensura Ismail, head of the NUEYS branch in Higher Education Institutions and Sawa indicating that the Eritrean youth and students have the responsibility of shouldering and preserving the noble cultural and societal values as well as fully understand the challenges and opportunities at hand as people and nation, called on the participants to upgrade the knowledge they have acquired and transfer them to fellow colleagues. Dr. Estifanos Hailemariam, Dean of the College of Business and Social Sciences on his part stated that the workshop is part of the national endeavor to raise the awareness and understanding of nationals on the significance of cultural heritage and the noble societal values.

Source: Ministry of Information Eritrea