Eritrea Wire

Somalia’s opposition politicians and the public have welcomed a deal to hold delayed indirect presidential elections in October, with lawmakers chosen in July and August.  But analysts note unrest and terrorist attacks are still a risk.

Somalia’s opposition politicians welcomed the new election schedule reached Tuesday in Mogadishu after a meeting of federal and state leaders.

Lawmaker Mohamed Hassan Idris said the opposition was looking forward to a quick implementation to avoid further delays and unrest.

“So far, we have no concerns,” Hassan said. “It is on a very welcoming stage; the schedule has been agreed by the leaders and the electoral committees, both from the federal and member states levels.” He said leaders would need to continue discussions, “and we hope they continue to solve any likely obstacles.”

Process stalled

Somalia’s indirect elections were to take place in February, but the process was stalled over opposition concerns about free elections.

The opposition accused President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, known as Farmajo, of stacking poll committees with his allies.

Farmajo denied the allegation but raised international eyebrows in April when he signed into law a two-year extension of terms in office, including his.

The move sparked days of street clashes in April in Mogadishu between split loyalty security forces, renewing fears of a return to clan violence.

Under international pressure, Farmajo nullified the extension and returned to talks with the opposition for holding elections.

The deal reached Tuesday was largely applauded by Mogadishu residents like university student Hassan Ahmed, 27.

He said he was happy and excited about the new election schedule. Some worried about the previous timeline, he said, and the disagreements between the leadership of the federal government and the regional states.

Election schedule

The indirect elections will begin in July with delegates chosen by clans selecting members of the lower house of parliament.

State governments will select senators beginning in August. The chosen lawmakers will then vote for the next president on October 10.

Despite the breakthrough, there is still a threat from al-Shabab militants, said independent security analyst Dahir Korow.

“Al-Shabab is trying to disrupt the Somali election process through suicide bombings and IED [improvised explosive device] attacks, mainly the venues of the process across the regions,” Korow said. “However, it is also very significant to note that the democratic process will attract high-security alert both from Somali security agencies and their international peacekeeping partners such as AMISOM. Remember, the training and capacity building for Somali security agencies have been improving in recent years while al-Shabab’s have been decreasing.”

The U.S. Embassy in Somalia urged continued constructive dialogue among Somali leaders to achieve peaceful and transparent elections.

Somalia originally planned to hold direct, one-person-one-vote elections, which would have been the first in decades. But the plan was scrapped in September because of a lack of infrastructure and concerns about security.

Source: Voice of America

A separatist leader wanted by Nigeria is in custody in Abuja, awaiting trial on terrorism and treason charges. Authorities say Nnamdi Kanu, head of the Indigenous People of Biafra or IPOB, was arrested Tuesday.

Authorities say Nnamdi Kanu’s arrest was aided by Interpol but did not say where he was intercepted. Local news sources say he was apprehended in the United Kingdom, but the British High Commission refutes the claim.

Kanu was in court for a brief hearing in Abuja Tuesday ahead of a trial set for July 26. He faces charges that include acts of terrorism, treasonable felony, possession of firearms and managing an unlawful society, according to Attorney General and Justice Minister Abubakar Malami.

“Kanu was also accused of instigating violence especially in southeastern Nigeria that resulted in the loss of lives and property of civilians, military, paramilitary, police force, and destruction of civil institutions and symbols of civil authority,” he said.

In 2014, Kanu founded the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, which seeks an independent state in Nigeria’s southeast. He rebranded a movement which seceded from Nigeria in 1967, leading to a bloody civil war and the defeat of the Biafran movement.

Kanu was first arrested in late 2015 but two years later fled the country and remained at large, often promoting his separatist agenda on social media and through radio broadcasts from unknown locations.

Human rights lawyer Martin Obono questions the Nigerian government’s position on Kanu’s arrest.

“He didn’t state what extradition document was used to bring him back to Nigeria so the entire arrest to me feels like an abduction because if you’re going to move someone from a country, you need certain legal procedures. Was there mutual legal assistance that was used? So all these are kind of very vague. It raises a lot of questions,” said the lawyer.

In June, the separatists announced an alliance with Cameroon’s Anglophone rebels, who seek to create an independent, English-speaking state known as Ambazonia.

Political analyst Jibrin Ibrahim said IPOB’s demands are legitimate, provided they are pursued lawfully.

“When a political group or an identity group believes it’s significantly marginalized, it’s legitimate for them to make demands for separation,” he said.

This year, IPOB formed an armed security unit, the Eastern Security Network (ESN) in the southeast.

The government’s crackdown on the unit has led to a recent rise in tensions. More than 100 security officials reportedly have been killed. Police stations and election offices have also been attacked.

Source: Voice of America

An Ethiopian government spokesman said Wednesday that the Ethiopian army could reenter Tigray’s regional capital of Mekelle within weeks, if necessary.

Redwan Hussein, spokesman for Ethiopia’s task force for Tigray, made the announcement to reporters in the government’s first public remarks since the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) seized control of Mekelle earlier this week.

“If it is required, we can easily enter to Mekelle, and we can enter in less than three weeks,” Redwan said.

The Ethiopian government announced a cease-fire on state media late Monday, saying it would take effect immediately after nearly eight months of conflict in the region and as troops of Tigray’s former governing party entered Mekelle, prompting cheers from residents.

However, Tigray forces spokesman Getachew Reda said in an interview with The Associated Press on Wednesday that the cease-fire was a “sick joke” and promised to push out Ethiopian and Eritrean forces.

Getachew said Ethiopian troops were still battling to recapture territory and that Eritrean forces continued to control a “significant part” of the area.

Getachew also told AP that the TPLF would not negotiate with Ethiopia until vital services such as communications and transportation, which were damaged or destroyed in the war, were restored.

“We have to make sure that every inch of our territory is returned to us, the rightful owners,” Getachew said.

Rebels in Ethiopia’s Tigray region warned Tuesday that their troops would seek to destroy the capabilities of Ethiopian and Eritrean forces, despite the Ethiopian government’s unilateral cease-fire.

Later Tuesday, a senior member of Tigray’s regional government told The New York Times that Tigray’s leadership was committed to “weaken or destroy” the capabilities of the Ethiopian and Eritrean armies “wherever they are.”

But during the Ethiopian government’s news conference in Addis Ababa on Wednesday, Lieutenant General Bacha Debele warned that troops could quickly return.

“If they try to provoke, our response will be huge, and it will be more than the previous one,” said Bacha, who added that the pullout was meant to “give relief” to residents.

Famine concerns

At a U.S. congressional hearing Tuesday on the conflict, Sarah Charles of the U.S. Agency for International Development told lawmakers the “U.S. believes famine is likely already occurring” in the region. She said the U.S. estimated that between 3.5 million and 4.5 million people needed “urgent humanitarian food assistance” and that up to 900,000 of them were “already experiencing catastrophic conditions.”

State Department official Robert Godec said at the hearing that Eritrea “should anticipate further actions” if the announced cease-fire did not improve the situation in the region. “We will not stand by in the face of horrors in Tigray,” Godec said.

An Ethiopian government statement carried by state media said the cease-fire would allow farmers to till their land and aid groups to operate without the presence of military troops. It said the cease-fire would last until the end of the farming season but did not give a specific date. The country’s main planting season lasts through September.

The United Nations said the nearly eight-month-old conflict in Tigray has pushed 350,000 people to the brink of famine and that 5 million others need immediate food aid. The famine is the world’s worst in a decade, the U.N. said.

Ethiopia and authorities on the scene have been accused of blocking deliveries of aid, also endangering the lives of more than 1 million Tigrayans who live in remote areas.

Significant loss, meetings urged

Several U.N. Security Council members, including the United States, Britain and Ireland, have called for an urgent public meeting to discuss the developments. Diplomats said no date had yet been fixed for the meeting, and it had not been decided whether it would be a public or private session.

On Monday, the U.N. children’s agency said Ethiopian soldiers had entered its office in Mekelle and dismantled satellite communications equipment.

UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore said in a statement, “This act violates U.N. privileges and immunities. … We are not, and should never be, a target.”

Violence in the Tigray region intensified last week after a military airstrike on a town north of Mekelle killed more than 60 people.

World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus accused Ethiopian authorities of blocking ambulances from reaching victims of the strike.

An Ethiopian military spokesman said only combatants, not civilians, were hit in the strike.

Judd Devermont, director of the Africa program at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, told VOA the loss of Mekelle was one of several reasons the Ethiopian government announced the cease-fire after resisting months of global pressure.

“That was a pretty significant defeat for the Ethiopians and probably a further sign that they were not winning the war. So, I think that compelled them to ask for a pause or to call for a pause for a cease-fire,” he said.

Other factors are the loss of global financial support, sanctions from the European Union and the U.S., a weakening economy and issues with elections, Devermont said.

Marina Ottaway, a political scientist with the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars based in Washington, echoed Devermont’s assessment of Ethiopia’s economy.

“It’s still a very poor country, don’t misunderstand me. But there were clear signs of improvement, of new policies, of new directions … and now, it’s back to square one,” Ottaway said in an interview with VOA.

Fighting between the Ethiopian government and the TPLF broke out in November, leaving thousands of civilians dead and forcing more than 2 million people from their homes. Troops from Eritrea, Ethiopia’s neighbor to the north, and Amhara, a neighboring region to the south of Tigray, also entered the conflict in support of the Ethiopian government.

Source: Voice of America

The plea arrived from a remote area that had so far produced only rumors and residents fleeing for their lives. Help us, the letter said, stamped and signed by a local official. At least 125 people already have starved to death.

Trapped in one of the most inaccessible areas of Ethiopia’s conflict-torn Tigray region, beyond the reach of aid, people “are falling like leaves,” the official said.

The letter dated June 16, obtained by The Associated Press and confirmed by a Tigray regional health official, is a rare insight into the most urgent unknown of the war between Ethiopian forces backed by Eritrea and Tigray’s former leaders: What’s the fate of hundreds of thousands of people cut off from the world for months?

As the United States warns that up to 900,000 people in Tigray face famine conditions in the world’s worst hunger crisis in a decade, little is known about vast areas of Tigray that have been under the control of combatants from all sides since November. With blocked roads and ongoing fighting, humanitarian groups have been left without access.

A possible opening emerged this week when Ethiopia’s government announced an immediate, unilateral cease-fire after Tigray fighters re-entered the regional capital and government soldiers fled. An official for the United States Agency for International Development told U.S. lawmakers on Tuesday that some aid groups were expected to test the cease-fire immediately in an effort to reach remote areas.

However, it isn’t clear whether other parties in the conflict, including troops from neighboring Eritrea accused of some of the war’s worst atrocities, will respect the cease-fire. A Tigray spokesman rejected it as a “sick joke” and vowed to fully liberate the region.

The letter that reached the regional capital, Mekelle, this month from the cut-off central district of Mai Kinetal was just the second plea of its kind, the health official who confirmed it said. The first had been a message from Ofla district reporting 150 deaths from starvation, which the United Nations humanitarian chief shared in a closed-door session of the U.N. Security Council in April, bringing an angry response from Ethiopia’s government.

But the letter from Mai Kinetal is different, the health official said, offering badly needed, well-compiled data that lay out the devastation line by line: At least 440 people have died, and at least 558 have been victims of sexual violence. More than 5,000 homes have been looted. Thousands of livestock have been taken. Tons of crops have been burned.

“There is no access to clean water; electricity, phone communication, banking, health care, and access to humanitarian aid are blocked,” district leader Berhe Desta Gebremariam wrote. “People are unable to move around to save their lives because Eritrean troops completely put us under siege with no transportation, and people are condemned to suffer and die.”

Looted farmers in the largely agricultural district have been left without the seeds to grow food, Berhe wrote, warning that without aid 2021 and 2022 will be catastrophic. The one aid delivery to Mai Kinetal that wasn’t blocked was based on a badly outdated 1995 census, meaning half the district’s residents were left out. The aid was later looted by Eritrean troops.

Residents had been coming by foot from Mai Kinetal with word that people were starving, the Tigray regional health official said, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation. But the letter confirms the details and extent of the crisis.

“It’s so terrible. It’s so terrible,” he said. “We know that people are dying everywhere.”

Other unreachable districts remain silent, he said, as phone services are cut in much of Tigray.

Asked about Mai Kinetal, a senior U.N. humanitarian official called it “an especially critical area for us to reach” and confirmed to the AP that aid had not made it into the district, and a number of others, since the conflict began.

Overall, the U.N. estimates that 1.6 million people remain in Tigray’s hard-to-reach areas, and the U.N. children’s agency last week warned that at least 33,000 severely malnourished children in hard-to-reach areas face the “imminent risk of death” without more aid. But humanitarian workers warn that the situation is especially fluid now amid some of the fiercest fighting yet.

Even the unilateral cease-fire announced this week is designed not to last. Ethiopia’s government says it will end once the farming season in Tigray is over, which means September. How needed seeds and other supplies will reach farmers across the region in time is not clear.

For Tigrayans with loved ones trapped inside inaccessible areas, the lack of information has meant months of fear and despair.

“Every time I get to talk to someone who managed to flee from the area, it’s like a round of pain and shock again and again,” said Teklehaymanot G. Weldemichel, a diaspora Tigrayan from Mai Kinetal. He said his family home there had been shelled at the beginning of the war, and his parents later returned to find every item in the house taken by Eritrean soldiers, even photo albums and frames.

One resident who fled to Sudan, Kibreab Fisseha, told the AP that a cousin with diabetes who stayed in Mai Kinetal had died because of lack of food. “Both my parents are still there,” Kibreab said. “They are hiding in the house and I hope they are fine until help comes.”

Another Mai Kinetal resident told the AP he has been able to speak with his mother just once since the war began, in a short conversation about a month ago before phone service disappeared again.

“I have been calling ever since the war started,” he said, giving only his first name, Tsige, to protect his family. He said his mother described fierce fighting as Eritreans took control of their village and many people fled.

Tsige’s father, in his 70s, was among those too old to leave. Eritrean soldiers one day came to the house and asked him to bring them water. He did, and the soldiers later spared him. But other residents who were found during house-to-house searches and suspected of links to the Tigray fighters were killed, Tsige said. Homes abandoned by fleeing families were burned.

When another relative refused to hand over his cattle to Eritrean soldiers, they slaughtered him in front of his grandson, Tsige said. In all, he knows at least 11 people in Mai Kinetal who have been killed, including a deaf man in his 70s.

“Every day could change the lives of my family,” said Tsige, who is studying in Japan and feels helplessly far away. “I have to prepare for the worst. Every few minutes you think about your family, are they alive?”

Tsige is too young to know the famine that ravaged Ethiopia, especially the Tigray region, amid conflict in the 1980s and shocked the world, but he grew up hearing about it from his family. He pleaded for the international community to act and for Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed to “be a human person” and end the war.

“It’s happening now again, and we’re just watching it happen,” Tsige said. “I don’t want to see a documentary filmed after my family has died. I want action now.”

Source: Voice of America