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By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK, 20 March 2023 (IDN) — The United States has promised Ethiopia $331 million in humanitarian aid to help heal the war-torn Horn of Africa country.
The funds were announced during a visit by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to Ethiopia on March 15.
The funding will provide life-saving support to those displaced and affected by conflict, drought, and food insecurity in Ethiopia,” he said.
By Reinhard Jacobsen
BRUSSELS (IDN) — Eritrean refugees are trafficked and enslaved in Libya, where they are tortured, abused and raped by slave traders to force family members to pay ransom for their release. If they escape and make it to the Mediterranean Sea, they risk being intercepted and sent back to Libya or dying at sea.
Independent Experts Were on Fact-Finding Mission
By Reinhardt Jacobsen
BRUSSELS | TRIPOLI (IDN) — Libyan authorities must take decisive steps to provide justice and redress to the vast number of victims suffering from longstanding violations of human rights and international humanitarian law, the UN Independent Fact-Finding Mission (FFM) on Libya said after its final visit to the country.
By Karen Smith
BRUSSELS (IDN) — Three months after the two-year Ethiopian civil war came to an end, displacing millions, the Orthodox Church is facing a split. Three bishops have announced that they will form a separate church with its own decision-making body.
Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Ali has criticised "bigotry by religion and place of origin" focused on divisions", according to Europe External Programme with Africa (EEPA), a Belgium-based Centre of Expertise with in-depth knowledge, publications and networks, specialised in issues of peacebuilding, refugee protection, and resilience in the Horn of Africa.
Catastrophic Consequences Feared
By J Nastranis
NEW YORK (IDN) — The United Nations has warned that the Horn of Africa is facing an unprecedented drought emergency, which will unleash catastrophic consequences. Communities in the region are in the midst of a likely fifth consecutive failed rainy season. They may face a sixth failed season in March-May 2023.
Across the Horn of Africa, at least 36.4 million people will be affected by the most prolonged and severe drought in recent history in the last months of 2022, including 24.1 million in Ethiopia, 7.8 million in Somalia and 4.5 million in Kenya.
UNICEF Warns of Funding Shortfall in The Face of Drought
By Devendra Kamarajan
NAIROBI (IDN) — UN Children's Agency UNICEF has urged the international community to "commit to responding now for what might hit the Horn of Africa" in 2023, "and in the years to come".
UNICEF Deputy Regional Director for Eastern and Southern Africa Lieke van de Weil said on December 22: “We need a global effort to mobilize resources urgently to reduce further devastating and irreversible damage to children in the Horn of Africa. We must act now to save children’s lives, preserve their dignity and protect their futures.”
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK (IDN) — The disastrous war in the Horn of Africa is being guided secretly by the US, according to briefings reported by the World Peace Foundation (WPF), a philanthropic foundation for research into peace processes affiliated with Massachusetts-based Fletcher School of Law.
The year-long conflict in Ethiopia pitting the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) and its allies against the Ethiopian government has caused thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of battlefield casualties.
By Lisa Vives, Global Information Network
NEW YORK (IDN) — Hundreds of demonstrators took to the streets of Nairobi on September 24 to demand that wealthy countries pay more in the fight against climate change.
"We need the Global North to pay for the damages they are causing," said Duncan Omwami, an activist who joined the protest.
Viewpoint by René Wadlow, President, Association of World Citizens
GENEVA (IDN) — On August 26, 2022, there was the bombing by Ethiopian federal troops of a primary school in Mekelle—the capital city of the Tigray province, which had a population of about 500,000 before the fighting began. It is not clear if the attack brings to an end some five months of relative calm in the war-torn Tigray or not.
By Radwan Jakeem
NEW YORK (IDN) — UN Secretary-General António Guterres oversaw on August 20 the departure of two ships involved in the Black Sea Grain Initiative, a UN-brokered operation to bring urgently needed hunger relief to the Horn of Africa.
Mr. Guterres flew into Istanbul on August 20 from Chisinau, Moldova—where he was hosted for a working dinner with President Maia Sandu the previous evening—and boarded a pilot boat in the Sea of Marmara.
