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Three Eritrean refugees, including two children, were killed by an air strike that hit a refugee camp in Ethiopia's Tigray region, where the government has been waging a year-long war against rebels, the United Nations said Thursday.
He replaces Debretsion Gebremichael, whose immunity from prosecution was removed Thursday.
Meanwhile, Amnesty International said Thursday that scores of civilians were killed in a \"massacre\" in the Tigray region, that witnesses blamed on forces backing the local ruling party.
The \"massacre\" is the first reported incident of large-scale civilian fatalities in a week-old conflict between the regional ruling party, the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), and the government of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, winner of last year's Nobel Peace Prize.
\"Amnesty International can today confirm... that scores, and likely hundreds, of people were stabbed or hacked to death in Mai-Kadra (May Cadera) town in the southwest of Ethiopia's Tigray Region on the night of 9 November,\" the rights group said in a report.
Amnesty said it had \"digitally verified gruesome photographs and videos of bodies strewn across the town or being carried away on stretchers.\"
The dead \"had gaping wounds that appear to have been inflicted by sharp weapons such as knives and machetes,\" Amnesty said, citing witness accounts.
Witnesses said the attack was carried out by TPLF-aligned forces after a defeat at the hands of the Ethiopian military, though Amnesty said it \"has not been able to confirm who was responsible for the killings\".
It nonetheless called on TPLF commanders and officials to \"make clear to their forces and their supporters that deliberate attacks on civilians are absolutely prohibited and constitute war crimes\".
Abiy ordered military operations in Tigray on November 4, saying they were prompted by a TPLF attack on federal military camps -- a claim the party denies.
The region has been under a communications blackout ever since, making it difficult to verify competing claims on the ground.
Abiy said Thursday his army had made major gains in western Tigray.
Thousands of Ethiopians have fled across the border into neighboring Sudan, and the UN is sounding the alarm about a humanitarian crisis in Tigray.
[UN News] The UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi has launched an appeal for $147 million to support as many as 100,000 people fleeing Ethiopia's Tigray region into neighbouring Sudan, the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, said on Monday.
Whether she is battling the heat or cold working in a refugee camp or engaged in an international conference call in her office, head of the UNHCR National Office in TT Miriam Aertker gives her all to the humanitarian work she has chosen as a career.
For over 14 years, Aertker has served in various capacities with the UNHCR in Asia, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the Americas. She has worked in Yemen, Pakistan, Jordan, Egypt, Iraq, Somalia, Myanmar, and Greece. In 2019 she came to TT as a senior field co-ordinator with the Response for Venezuela (R4V) platform, a co-ordinating effort jointly led by UNHCR and the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
She has worked closely with 26 refugee and migrant response plan partners across the Caribbean and with national platforms in Aruba, Curaçao, Guyana, TT and the Dominican Republic.
On June 1, she assumed her new position as head of the local UNHCR office.
“My role as head of office is to keep oversight of all operations – what we do at UNHCR and with our partners, to provide support and assist refugees and asylum seekers in TT,” Aertker told WMN.
In addition to her new duties, she will continue to oversee the R4V platform in the Caribbean together with sub-regional counterparts from IOM.
[caption id=\"attachment_896128\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"683\"] For over 14 years Miriam Aertker has served in various capacities with the UNHCR. On June 1, she assumed her new position as head of the TT UNHCR office. She says it’s important for the UNHCR to understand what the migrants need, what assistance the governments need, and what the gaps and the resources are. - Marvin Hamilton[/caption]
“When I first came to Trinidad it was quite an intense time,” because of the political and economic crisis that forced thousands of Venezuelans to leave their home to seek better opportunities in many Caribbean countries,\" Aertker said.
“We have national platforms (like R4V) in every country that co-ordinates and responds to migrant situations. You have UN agencies, NGOs, government counterparts on technical levels working together, and a lot of dialogue with the migrant communities.”
She said it is important for the UNHCR to understand what the migrants need, what assistance the governments need, and what the gaps and the resources are.
“Because there are lots of resources that are coming in. You have (migrants who are) doctors, nurses, teachers coming in and if they are properly managed it is a win/win situation for everyone.”
Aertker’s early days as a humanitarian worker was as a social worker at home in Germany.
In 2006 she moved to Cairo, Egypt to do a graduate diploma in Forced Migration and Refugee Studies at the American University in Cairo, and then to the UK to do a master’s degree in Refugee Studies from the University of East London.
[caption id=\"attachment_896104\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"618\"] Miriam Aertke evaluates a wreck of a smuggler's boat in Yemen in this undated photo. Photo courtesy UNHCR -[/caption]
“From there I just continue
Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said Tuesday the end of military operations in Ethiopia's north is "coming within reach", as the African Union called for an immediate ceasefire and thousands fled the violence into neighbouring Sudan.
Blog - As 2020 draws to a close, the terrible toll of the conflict in Ethiopia's Tigray region is coming into sharper focus. The human costs continue to mount; the United Nations estimates that 1.3 million people need emergency assistance as a result of the conflict, and over 50,000 people have fled to neighboring Sudan. Eritrean refugees that had fled to Ethiopia have reportedly been attacked, in some cases forcibly repatriated. UN agencies remain unable to access some areas with humanitarian relief. And despite
Many soldiers and civilians have been killed in the conflict in Ethiopia's Tigray region, a spokesman for the Ethiopian government task force for Tigray said on Wednesday.
Mpumalanga police are searching for five men who allegedly robbed and attempted to rape three sisters at gunpoint on New Year's Eve.
[VOA] Hawzen -- On the outskirts of Hawzen, Ethiopia, rocks and dirt cover the bodies of war victims in shallow graves.
A FORMER refugee has been elected as New Zealand’s first ever African MP. Ibrahim Omer,...
The post Former refugee elected as New Zealand's first African MP appeared first on Voice Online.
While delivering the Thabo Mbeki lecture, Professor 'Funmi Olonisakin said the war in Ethiopia's Tigray region was evidence of the shortcomings of the African Union.
Zimbabwean, Ziggy Goredema, began making light stands while he was homeless and living in Van Riebeeck Park in Vredehoek, Cape Town. He has since been moved to the Obz Rainbow House where he designs his creations using repurposed materials.
25,000 Ethiopian refugees have fled the northern Tigray region into neighboring Sudan.
They are fleeing heavy fighting in East Africa’s most populous nation.
Facing heat and hunger, Sudan is struggling to rebuild a refugee camp to house the refugees.
\"This camp is divided into three sectors, an old camp, a middle camp, and this is a new camp. Refugees will be received and registered here in the new camp. The reception will be at the moment of arrival, and they will be transferred and settled in the middle camp.\"
One of the workers said electricity has been installed, but this will take at least 7 to 10 days of hard work to get everything in place.
\"Very remote, this area is remote from the main cities of Sudan, for example Gedaref is so far, and this area is nearest to Amhara region.\"
Fresh unrest in Tigray began when Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed ordered military operations in the region in response to an alleged attack on a federal base.
The move comes after months of growing tensions with the Tigray People’s Liberation Front.
[Ethiopian Herald] ADDIS ABABA - The House of Peoples' Representatives yesterday approved a resolution of the Council of Ministers submitted proposing Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) and \"Shene\" to be designated as terrorist groups.
David Shearer, head of the UN Mission in South Sudan, pointed to a “steeply increasing rate of infection” from the coronavirus and “a really high increase in sub-national conflict and violence.”
The country is now reporting about 2,000 cases of Covid-19 resulting in 40 deaths, Mr Shearer said at a press briefing.
Ambassador Shearer also offered a pessimistic appraisal of the political and military situations in South Sudan.
One outcome of this inaction is the failure to appoint governors of South Sudan's states, Mr Shearer said.
That may partly be due to the failure to integrate rebel fighters and “irregular forces” into the South Sudan army, Mr Shearer suggested.
\"We know that the Ethiopian government is doing its best, but we want more to be done to ensure that people do not starve,\" AU Commissioner for Political Affairs, Peace and Security Bankole Adeoye said Friday. \"Women and children (must) not continue to be victims of a conflict that is not of their..
Shops were shuttered and streets empty as Nigeria's largest city Lagos was locked down under curfew after unrest flared following the shooting of protesters.
[IPS] United Nations -- The COVID-19 pandemic has upended the lives of millions of people worldwide, accounted for over 869,000 deaths, destabilised the global economy and triggered a marked rise in poverty and hunger in the developing world.
Niamey – Thousands of people have fled a camp hosting 20 000 Malian refugees in western Niger after a deadly jihadist attack devastated the site, the United Nations said on Wednesday.
Around 50 jihadists on motorbikes killed three local leaders, abducted a guard, destroyed communication antennas and sabotaged the water supply at the Intikane site near the Malian border in a co-ordinated attack on Monday.
Intikane is home to around 20 000 Malian refugees and 15 000 internally displaced Niger citizens – all of whom previously fled their villages due to jihadist violence – as well as the local population.
The jihadists \"attacked the sensitive points of the site – they cut communication lines to isolate the population and they destroyed the sources for drinking water,\" he told the national public radio station after visiting Intikane.
Niger is home to nearly 60 000 Malian refugees who fled their country's north after it fell under the control of Al-Qaeda-linked jihadist groups in 2012, according to the UN.
The Rhode Island native was selected in the first round.
Analysis - Despite some delays, 21 June saw Ethiopia hold its sixth national elections since the downfall of the Derg regime and the reconfiguration of the state along ethno-regional lines in 1991. Although the 2005 polls had an element of competitiveness, none of the past five elections was free, fair and competitive.
Press Release - African and other world leaders must urgently speak out and do more to stem the ferocious tide of human rights and international humanitarian law violations in the armed conflict that has now raged for six months in Ethiopia's Tigray region, Amnesty International said today.
[The Conversation Africa] The head of Ethiopia's Orthodox Church, Abune Mathias, recently condemned the ongoing armed conflict in Ethiopia's Tigray region and the suffering it's causing the civilian population. In a video message he was seen saying \"genocide is being committed now\".
[VOA] Hawzen -- Shops remained shuttered, some government workers hadn't been paid and the town's main hospital was laid to waste. But the Tigrayan fighters still claimed victory, swaggering through the streets of Hawzen with their guns.
A conflict in Ethiopia's Tigray region could trigger broader destabilisation in the country, UN aid chief Mark Lowcock told the Security Council as he warned that a dire humanitarian situation in the north was set to
