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By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK (IDN) — A UN-chartered vessel has been loaded with humanitarian food grain for Africa, in a first step toward releasing much needed food aid that had been trapped in the Ukraine.
The vessel will carry 23,000 tons of grain for Ethiopia, Somalia and Kenya as part of a UN-backed plan to move the grain trapped by Russia's war on Ukraine and help relieve a global food crisis.
UN Health Agency Calls for USD 123.7 million Until December 2022
By Jaya Ramachandran
GENEVA | NAIROBI (IDN) — The UN health agency, World Health Organization (WHO), has launched a funding appeal for USD 123.7 million to carry out urgent life-saving work in the greater Horn of Africa. The region also faces an unprecedented food crisis.
More than 80 million people in the seven countries spanning the region—Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan and Uganda—are estimated to be food insecure. Over 37.5 million people are classified as being in IPC phase 3, a stage of crisis where people have to sell their possessions in order to feed themselves and their families, and where malnutrition is rife.
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK (IDN) — The war in Ukraine is draining millions of dollars away from crises in Africa as funds are being redirected to Europe.
Somalia, facing a food shortage largely driven by the war, could be the most vulnerable. Its aid funding is less than half of last year’s level, while Western donors have sent more than $1.7 billion to respond to the war in Europe.
Viewpoint by Daniel Haile*
COLLEGE STATION, Texas | USA (IDN) — Eritrea is a very small country in East Africa along the Red Sea. Second to North Korea, the Eritrean regime is the most isolated, secretive, and repressive authoritarian regime globally, and the last remaining Marxist state on the African continent. The Kim Jong-un of Africa, Isaias Afewerki, has been in power since Eritrea's independence de jure in 1991 and de facto in 1993. Subsequently, Eritrea is infamously known in Africa as the North Korea of Africa for a good reason.
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK (IDN) — European countries have generously offered shelter to some of the 5.5 million people who fled the war in Ukraine launched on Feb. 24 with an unprovoked attack by Russia.
More than 50,000 have been welcomed by France and granted a temporary status that enables them to work and receive social and medical assistance.
By Robert Johnson
BRUSSELS (IDN) — The Foundation Human Rights for Eritreans, a Netherlands based organization, has decided to sue the European Union and international bodies for failing to respond to human rights abuses by the Eritrean President Isaias Afewerki and his associates.
At the press conference on May 10, the Foundation’s lawyer, Emiel Jurjens from Kennedy van der Laan made the announcement of legal action by the Foundation on the Responsibility of Eritrea for Grave Human Rights Violations, the details of which can be found here.
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK (IDN) — A World Heritage Site and Ethiopia’s holy city of Lalibela is welcoming pilgrims once again. Throngs of Ethiopians recently flooded the streets of the town caught up in the fighting between the government and the Tigray People's Liberation Front.
Ethiopia’s Orthodox Christians celebrate the birth of Christ on January 7.
By Caroline Mwanga
NEW YORK (IDN) — The UN Secretary-General António Guterres is deeply concerned about the impact the conflict continues to have on civilians in Ethiopia. He said he was deeply saddened by reports that more than 50 civilians were killed and injured in an airstrike in northern Ethiopia, on January 7.
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK (IDN) — At a large pro-war rally held recently in Meskel Square in the heart of the capital city, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, surrounded by thousands of his supporters, made clear that the battle against Tigrayan rebel fighters would continue unabated, despite mounting fatalities and famine.
Residents of the capital were told to arm themselves to repel the rebel forces if they managed to reach the city. To some analysts, this suggested that Abiy’s own Ethiopian National Defence Force (ENDF) was not up to the challenge of defending the capital.
By Radwan Jakeem
NEW YORK (IDN) — UN has "serious concerns" for the safety of staff working on the ground in Ethiopia's Tigray region. A UN humanitarian aid flight destined for the capital of the Tigray region in northern Ethiopia, was forced to return to Addis Ababa due to airstrikes on October 22, the UN’s Emergency Relief Coordinator said in a statement.
