APRIL 27, 2021 ERITREA HUB ETHIOPIA, NEWS, TIGRAY

(Certain individuals from within the Eritrean opposition are, unfortunately, once more indulging into expressing negative views against what they wish to call “the others”. This harmful PFDJ-kind of “don’t attend their meeting” attitude should not be allowed to re-visit the opposition. It is to be recalled that Mr. Amanuel Eyasu of the Assenna Foundation sent personal messages to several people, including EPDP members, asking them to attend a preliminary zoom discussion on what can be done to create a common platform in the struggle against the regime in Eritrea. For the benefit of anyone interested on the matter, below is an English translation of the full text of a clarification statement issued by EPDP Chairman, Mr. Tesfai Woldemichael (Degiga), on 25 April 2021. Good reading.)

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EPDP Chairman’s Clarification Statement

It is an open secret that members of the Eritrean People’s Democratic Party (EPDP) have been attending all kinds of meetings and initiatives calling for a common struggle against the dictatorship in Eritrea. Examples of such meetings at which EPDP members actively attended and expressed their views included various Yiakl/Enough meetings, women’s initiatives, Snit panels, government in exile discussions and what have you. Therefore, those EPDP members who attended the 14 April meeting called by the Assenna Foundation did so for the same aims, and of course had no hidden agenda to promote. The invitations were sent on individual basis and not for representation of parties; nor were the attendees at the meeting assigned by their leaderships. Furthermore, it must be clear that EPDP members have the right and the liberty of attending any Eritrean meeting to which they are invited, and sometimes to attend meeting to which they are not invited in person.  

Per the EPDP Constitution, any party member has the right to be a member of a civil society or a popular movement of his/her choice. But no EPDP member can be a member of another political organization. That is why the EPDP side at the Assenna Foundation head-on asked if the meeting was intending to create a new organization. [To be fair], the response by the Assenna Foundation was that their initiative was simply to coordinate forces willing to work together and that their move was in no way opposed to other opposition forces.   

To be clear enough [for those who did not know], EPDP is the Eritrean party that has actually and repeatedly shown its steadfast position in defending its independent political decision. For that, it has been paying dearly. These truths have been very well recorded in the archives of the Eritrean opposition camp.

At the present, the EPDP is devoting all its potential and resources to promote the creation of an all-inclusive national umbrella that can bring together the political organizations, popular movements and civil societies. For the EPDP, this is the top priority and it has no ulterior agenda [as insinuated by certain quarters]. 

Regarding the war in Tigray, the EPDP is guided by the Political Statement issued at the extraordinary meeting of its Central Council on 21 November 2020 which partly reads as follows: 

1. The EPDP condemns in the strongest terms possible this Abiy-isaias on the people and the regional government of Tigray. We know causes of the war to be political and constitutional in nature and we call upon both sides to stop the armed hostilities and find an appropriate political solution.
2. The EPDP supports the calls by international and regional organizations, governments, religious and human rights bodies for ending the war, and we in particular urge warring parties to accept the initiative of the African Union for peace mediation. In the meantime, we call upon the international community to give serious attention to the plight of all refugees and internally displaced persons in the region.
3. Justifiable fears of Eritreans are that one of the objectives of this war is to damage and compromise the hard-won sovereignty of the Eritrean people. We thus renew the call on the Eritrean armed forces and people to redouble their efforts to remove the treacherous dictatorship of Isaias Afeworki before it gets too late.
4. The territorial integrity and sovereignty of Eritrea is already endangered by Dictator Isaias Afeworki’s decision to turn Eritrea into a military base for Ethiopian land, air and naval forces. That is why we say it high time for the entire Eritrean nation to rise up against the one-man dictatorship and in the meantime ask for the most immediate withdrawal of Ethiopian forces from Eritrean land.
5. The treacherous one-man dictatorship in Eritrea did not only allow the entry of foreign armed forces to Eritrea, but it also reportedly forced Eritrean army units to be exposed to the risks of the war in Tigray forgetting that their sole responsibility isf being the guardians of Eritrean sovereignty and the safety of its people.This emergency meeting of the Central Council therefore calls on the Eritrean armed forces to abandon their unjustified involvement in the war that does not concern them. We reiterate our urge to our own people to help in finding ways for safe return of its sons and daughters forced to join this war.
6. Likewise, our Party calls for an end of the ongoing ethnic killings in Ethiopia and condemns the massive attacks of the Ethiopian Government in Tigray region.
7. We forcefully reject any abuses on civilians and theft of their properties. As such, the reported seizure of people’s property under the cover of war is a criminal act not to be condoned, whoever the actor; it must also be clear to all that such illegal seizures will have consequences.
8. The world is well aware that many Eritreans have long been forced to live in exile due to the 30-year liberation war and, since 1991, because of the intolerable situation under the one-man dictatorship. Ethiopia and the Sudan have been among the generous benefactors supporting our exiled people. To this day, Ethiopia hosts a large number of Eritrean refugees, many of them in camps in the Tigray region. Because of this, the total membership in our party and many Eritreans are deeply concerned about the precarious situation of Eritrean refugees in the war zone.
9. The EPDP Central Council therefore wishes to draw the attention of all concerned bodies including the international community to provide the necessary protection and support the tens of thousands of Eritrean refugees in the region.

This self-evident statement tells all about the EPDP position on the matter. Likewise, the party’s relations in cooperation with all forces that support our struggle against the dictatorship in Eritrea have been clear for a very long time. We once more underline that the EPDP shall never be stopped from promoting principled relations with:

• Forces that respect Eritrean sovereignty;
• Forces that shall desist from violating our independent political decision;
• Forces that accept relations on the basis of mutual respect;
• Forces willing to refrain from interference in one’s internal affairs; and
• Forces willing to promote peace and common interests.

On Eritrean-Ethiopian relations, the Party’s Third and Unity Congress [of 2019] has adopted the EPDP’s position on relations guaranteed by institutional instruments and not to be based on the whims of individual leaders. The relations with Ethiopia must be based on non-interference on each other’s internal affairs, and aim to promote peace and basic interests of the two countries/peoples. 

We in the EPDP thus reiterate [to all concerned] that we shall continue to struggle on the bases of our declared objectives and that the attendance of some party members at the meeting called by Assenna Foundation was not a new occurrence. Therefore, even though there cannot be any wild distortion that can win over the truth, we anyway felt to alert the public against certain quarters of ill-will bent at repeating the un-wanted and mutually harmful history of negative campaigns with falsehoods against the EPDP.   

Let’s Unify Our Ranks to Protect Eritrean Sovereignty!!

Office of the EPDP Chairman

25 April, 2021

APRIL 26, 2021 ERITREA HUB ETHIOPIA, NEWS, TIGRAY

24 APRIL 2021

Read more: http://www.digitaljournal.com/news/world/us-names-envoy-as-concern-grows-over-ethiopia-s-tigray/article/588880#ixzz6sz7hqFaM

Source=US names envoy as concern grows over Ethiopia's Tigray (digitaljournal.com)

APRIL 24, 2021 ERITREA HUB ETHIOPIA, NEWS
Source: Devex

The European Commission plans to “de-commit” more than €100 million ($120 million) away from Eritrea in the clearest sign yet that Brussels’ “dual-track” attempt to mix development assistance and political dialogue with the oppressive East African nation has reached the end of the line.
By Vince Chadwick // 23 April 2021

The European Commission plans to “de-commit” more than €100 million ($120 million) away from Eritrea in the clearest sign yet that Brussels’ “dual-track” attempt to mix development assistance and political dialogue with the oppressive East African nation has reached the end of the line.
Jutta Urpilainen, the European Union commissioner for international partnerships, wrote to the European Parliament’s development committee chair and political group coordinators this week to outline the move, which affects funding under the EU Emergency Trust Fund for Africa, or EUTF for Africa.

The Finnish commissioner noted that since the 2018 rapprochement between Eritrea and Ethiopia, the EU “has invested significant political and financial capital to seize the opportunity,” while “ensuring the EU’s fundamental values were respected.”

Yet the letter, obtained by Devex, explained that of the nine projects — worth €141.3 million — approved for Eritrea through the trust fund, just one has begun implementation. Some €80 million was approved for procurement through the United Nations Office for Project Services for roadwork, but only around €19 million has been disbursed amid fierce criticism from European Parliament members and human rights activists over the risk that conscripted labor would be used on the roads.

“Engagement with Eritrea should not endanger the rights of the country’s population.”

— Laetitia Bader, Horn of Africa director, Human Rights Watch

Commission officials initially defended the road project, and Josep Borrell, the EU’s foreign affairs chief, told journalists in March 2020 that the EU should continue to pursue both development and diplomacy “to change structures and change the way in which the political system works.”

“I don’t think we can always be playing the Good Samaritan and handing out donations but not getting into the political evolution of a country,” Borrell said last year. “Eritrea is one of the main sources of migrants to Europe after all, so we are going to continue this work and expect success, although we know that this won’t necessarily happen tomorrow.”

However, this “dual-track approach” had been under review in recent months, in the lead-up to this week’s shift.

Urpilainen wrote that the eight other trust fund projects are still awaiting clearance from the Eritrean government. “Implementation … has remained highly challenging,” the commissioner wrote. “This situation reflects the lack of interest expressed by the Government of Eritrea on EUTF-funded projects and, more generally, on development co-operation with the EU.”

The letter noted that Eritrean troops’ involvement in the Tigray conflict in northern Ethiopia had “further compounded” the situation. Discussing Tigray on Monday, Borrell said that “Eritrean troops are not withdrawing, and human rights violations continue.”

The Eritrean Embassy in Brussels did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday.
With a December 2021 deadline to recommit the money, Urpilainen wrote that she would propose that it go to other priorities in the Horn of Africa, including €62 million for Sudan’s democratic transition, €18 million for refugees in Sudan fleeing Tigray, €20 million to combat famine in South Sudan, and €20 million for displaced people and migrants across the region. The commission will present its new proposal to the fund’s operational committee by the end of this month.

French Greens MEP Michèle Rivasi, who was among the main opponents of EU support to the road project, welcomed the commission’s move. “The money meant for Eritrea will now serve much more valuable humanitarian purposes,” she told Devex on Friday.

EU foreign chief defends aid for Eritrea amid human rights concerns

Josep Borrell says the EU’s dual-track development and diplomacy approach to government reform in Eritrea is showing some results, though experts beg to differ.

“This makes much more sense than building a highway for a dictator — Eritrean President [Isaias] Afwerki — who does not hesitate to order the army to attack civilians and to raze the Eritrean refugee camps in Tigray to the ground,” Rivasi added.

Laetitia Bader, Horn of Africa director at Human Rights Watch, told Devex on Friday that the EU’s attempted dual-track engagement with Eritrea “has unfortunately failed to bring about greatly needed rights reforms.”

“Trying to fund projects without proper monitoring mechanisms and due diligence in a context marred by pervasive forced labor, the EU risked to contribute to the government’s abuses,” Bader added. “Engagement with Eritrea should not endanger the rights of the country’s population.”

APRIL 23, 2021 ERITREA HUB ETHIOPIA, NEWS, TIGRAY

Source: Reuters

U.N. Security Council, for first time, declares concern about Ethiopia’s Tigray

ReutersMichelle Nichols

Ethiopians, who fled the ongoing fighting in Tigray region, carry their belongings after crossing the Setit River on the Sudan-Ethiopia border, in the eastern Kassala state, Sudan December 16, 2020. REUTERS/Mohamed Nureldin Abdallah/File Photo

The U.N. Security Council expressed concern on Thursday about the humanitarian situation in Ethiopia’s Tigray region, particularly abuse of women and girls, a week after the U.N. aid chief said sexual violence was being used as a weapon of war.

It was the first public statement by the 15-member council, which has been briefed five times privately on the conflict, since fighting between Ethiopia’s federal government troops and Tigray’s former ruling party began in November.

“The members of the Security Council expressed their deep concern about allegations of human rights violations and abuses, including reports of sexual violence against women and girls in the Tigray region, and called for investigations to find those responsible and bring them to justice,” it said in the statement, drafted by Ireland and agreed by consensus.

The council was unable to agree language last month with Western countries pitted against Russia and China, whose diplomats questioned whether the body – charged with maintaining international peace and security – should be involved.

U.N. aid chief Mark Lowcock last week told the council the humanitarian crisis in Tigray had deteriorated with challenges to aid access, people dying of hunger and many reports of “gang rape, with multiple men assaulting the victim; in some cases, women have been repeatedly raped over a period of days.” He said girls as young as eight had also been targeted.

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, then challenged the body’s silence, according to diplomats familiar with her remarks during the closed briefing, asking: “Do African lives not matter as much as those experiencing conflict in other countries?” read more

Ethiopia’s mission to the United Nations in New York said in a statement on Thursday that the “law enforcement operation in Ethiopia is an internal affair regulated by the laws of the country, including human rights laws.”

It said that Ethiopia had committed to investigate and ensure accountability for violations of human rights, including sexual violence, and that Ethiopia was providing humanitarian aid in Tigray.

The conflict has killed thousands of people and forced hundreds of thousands more from their homes in the region of about 5 million. Eritrean troops – accused of massacres and killings in Tigray – have been helping Ethiopian troops.

Lowcock said the world body had not seen any proof that soldiers from neighboring Eritrea have withdrawn, despite demands from U.N. officials and the United States. The Security Council statement made no mention of Eritrean troops.

Eritrea told the Security Council on Friday that it has agreed to start withdrawing its troops from Tigray, acknowledging publicly for the first time its involvement in the conflict.

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Source: ABC

UN Security Council: ‘Deep concern’ about Ethiopia’s Tigray

The U.N. Security Council is expressing concern about humanitarian conditions and human rights in Ethiopia’s wartorn Tigray region

ByThe Associated Press

23 April 2021, 00:09

• 2 min read

UNITED NATIONS — The U.N. Security Council expressed concern Thursday about humanitarian conditions and human rights in Ethiopia‘s Tigray region, marking the council’s first collective comment on the conflict that has raged in the region for six months.

The statement made no mention of Eritrean soldiers in Tigray, though U.N. humanitarian chief Mark Lowcock and Amnesty International said last week that the troops remain weeks after Ethiopia said they would leave. U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters Wednesday that “we haven’t seen any evidence that Eritrean troops are withdrawing from Tigray.”

In November, political tensions between Ethiopian President Abiy Ahmed’s government and Tigray leaders exploded into war. Eritrea teamed up with neighboring Ethiopia in the conflict. Thousands of people have been killed.

The United States has alleged ethnic cleansing in the western part of Tigray, a claim that Ethiopian authorities dismiss as unfounded. The term refers to forcing a population from a region through expulsions and other violence, often including killings and rapes.

Ethiopia has said that life in Tigray is returning to normal.

Lowcock, meanwhile, told the council last week that some 4.5 million of Tigray’s 6 million need humanitarian aid and that “there is no doubt that sexual violence is being used in this conflict as a weapon of war.” He cited alarmingly numerous reports of rape and other sexual attacks, mainly by men wearing the uniforms of various forces.

In Thursday’s statement, the council conveyed “deep concern about allegations of human rights violations and abuses, including reports of sexual violence.” It welcomed an agreement by the U.N. and an Ethiopian rights agency to conduct a joint investigation into reported abuses.

The council also acknowledged Ethiopia’s humanitarian efforts but called for a bigger response, unfettered humanitarian access to everyone in need and “a restoration of normalcy.”

APRIL 23, 2021 MARTIN PLAUT ETHIOPIA, NEWS, TIGRAY

Source: Economist

Evidence is growing that starvation is being used as a weapon of war in Ethiopia

Graphic detail

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Apr 22nd 2021

PEOPLE FLEEING war are often driven by a fear of bullets and shells. But in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region, where fighting broke out in November between government forces and the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), a former ruling party that reverted to being a guerrilla movement, guns are not the only weapons of war. The United Nations has received reports of rape by soldiers. Millions face the threat of starvation, owing in part to the actions of the Ethiopian government’s forces and its allies.

The suffering is widespread. Central and eastern Tigray, as well as parts of the north-west, are facing “crisis”or “emergency” hunger levels, according to the UN’s Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), meaning that households are suffering from acute malnutrition (see map). The next and final phase on the IPC scale is “famine” marked by an extreme lack of food, resulting in starvation or death.

Before the conflict broke out, Tigray was largely free from hunger; now the UN estimates that 4.5m need food aid.

Such food shortages are not simply a case of collateral damage. Ethiopian and Eritrean forces have been looting shops and farms, burning food that they cannot take with them. Water tanks and reservoirs have also been targeted.

In April the World Peace Foundation (WPF), a research organisation based at Tufts University in Massachusetts, published a report alleging systematic “starvation crimes” perpetrated by belligerents. Ethiopia’s government has also been accused of blocking food deliveries to civilians. Between 700,000 and 2.2m people are estimated to be displaced within Tigray, separated from their homes and livelihoods. More than 60,000 have fled into neighbouring Sudan.

Meanwhile, the death toll from the conflict continues to climb. A paper published last month by researchers at Ghent University in Belgium identified 1,942 people killed in the fighting, though the true number may be much higher. Nearly a third of the victims documented by the researchers were killed in point-blank murders or civilian massacres. In most cases, the perpetrators were believed to be Ethiopian or Eritrean soldiers, although in 16% of the deaths identified by the researchers, the killers’ affiliation was unclear. Inadequate health care and food shortages could cause the number of casualties to soar even higher.

The WPF reckons that in central and eastern Tigray alone, between 50 and 100 people are dying every day from causes directly related to hunger. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has promised to investigate allegations of human-rights abuses in Tigray “as soon as possible”. For the families of the many who have already died, that is already too late.

APRIL 23, 2021 ERITREA HUB ETHIOPIA, NEWS, TIGRAY

Robert Mardini, director-general of the Geneva-based International Committee of the Red Cross, said: “I haven’t heard such terrible accounts for more than two decades in the humanitarian sector.” Mardini, among other things, closely followed the civil wars in Syria and Yemen when he headed ICRC’s Near and Middle East division from 2012 to 2018. “Many of my humanitarian colleagues are testifying the same,” he said.

Source: AFP

Posted By: Anya Ayenion: April 22, 2021In:

The Red Cross voiced alarm Thursday over “horrific” accounts of sexual violence in Ethiopia’s conflict-hit Tigray region, amid fears that rape was being used as a weapon of war.

Robert Mardini, director-general of the Geneva-based International Committee of the Red Cross, said the organisation’s staff in hospitals and clinics in the region were hearing first-hand of extreme sexual violence.

“Those reports are extremely horrific, very shocking,” he told AFP in an interview, adding that this was a “matter of grave concern”.

“I haven’t heard such terrible accounts for more than two decades in the humanitarian sector,” said Mardini, who among other things closely followed the civil wars in Syria and Yemen when he headed ICRC’s Near and Middle East division from 2012 to 2018.

“Many of my humanitarian colleagues are testifying the same,” he said.

“This is a top priority for us – to prevent this from happening again and, of course, to do everything we can to support the victims and help them overcome these extremely devastating experiences.”

Five months into the Tigray war, stories of rape have become common, with doctors and nurses in Ethiopia’s northernmost region speaking of treating numerous women after gang rapes by Ethiopian and Eritrean soldiers.

The United Nations’ humanitarian chief Mark Lowcock warned earlier this month that sexual violence was being used in the Tigray conflict as “a weapon of war, as a means to humiliate, terrorise and traumatise an entire population today and into the next generation”.

– Over one million displaced –

Mardini said he did not want to speculate on whether rape was systematically being used as a weapon of war, saying the ICRC was simply “trying to gather the scope and the magnitude of this problem”.

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed sent troops into Tigray in November to disarm and detain leaders of the region’s once-dominant political party, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF).

For months, the Ethiopian and Eritrean governments denied Eritrean troops were also involved, contradicting testimony from residents, rights groups, aid workers, diplomats and even some Ethiopian civilian and military officials.

Abiy finally acknowledged the Eritreans’ presence in March, while Eritrea did so earlier this month, pledging to pull out its forces amid mounting international pressure.

However, so far there is little sign of that happening.

The international community is meanwhile pressing for Ethiopia to allow greater access for aid agencies to Tigray as the humanitarian situation has deteriorated.

“Displacement is still happening,” Mardini said, pointing out that “more than a million people were displaced over the five past months”.

He also voiced concern at the large-scale destruction in the region, pointing to “a lot of attacks against civilians, properties but also individuals, which of course is a matter of great concern”.

ICRC has been working alongside the Ethiopian Red Cross Society to deliver aid to those affected by the Tigray conflict.

The organisation is also working to help track down the numerous people who have gone missing, and to reunite separated families.

“We don’t have reliable figures and statistics, but the humanitarian concerns are unfortunately on the rise, and it is a very worrying situation,” Mardini said.