My
@BW
investigation based on court documents, interviews with runners, coaches, managers and police found dozens of cases of alleged domestic abuse, violence and property theft involving female athletes in Iten, a training ground for elite runners.
The Ethiopian govt on Thursday expelled me after nearly two years in the country where I reported on the dizzying hopes from the moment
@AbiyAhmedAli
won his Peace prize to the horrors of the war in Tigray. 1/5
At Bole Airport this morning in Addis Ababa, three local reporters, myself, and other members of the public boarding a flight to Mekele were prevented from traveling by National Intelligence and Security Service. Phones and laptops confiscated, social media accounts scrutinized.
Today around lunch, an airstrike hit Shire in Tigray. Two civilians died, two staff members working for
@RESCUEorg
and four civilians were injured, according to people aware of the strike.
It’s been one week since Ethiopia announced Eritrean troops would leave Tigray. Yet multiple credible sources have confirmed sitings of Eritrean soldiers in Abiy Addi, Idaga Hamus and Adigrat.
Interesting snippet from the upcoming UN rights report on Eritrea. The UN rapporteur says he received information that Somali troops were indeed moved from military camps in Eritrea to Tigray and were present around Axum city.
Before fighting erupted, Abiy moved troops toward Tigray and sent military planes to Eritrea. His advisers and generals debated the merits of a conflict. Those who disagreed were fired, interrogated at gunpoint or forced to leave. Via
@declanwalsh
“This is a man who is profoundly comfortable with taking extraordinary risks."
Eritrea goes for broke in Ethiopian civil war to crush old foe with a massive forced conscription campaign underway and continuous shelling of towns and villages across Tigray.
Fresh armed raids in Ethiopia’s northwest are filling camps. Thousands of males, aged 15 to 50, are held in makeshift detention centers in western Tigray, while trucks carrying Tigrayans, mostly women, children and the elderly, continue to be deported.
1: In June, 2021
@MSF_EastAfrica
denounced the killings of three of its employees as a “brutal murder,” but did not identify any culprit. Now, one is coming into view. Read our months-long investigation with
@declanwalsh
1: Hundreds of Ethiopian troops have converged on Kobo town near the border of the northern Tigray province, days after the gov and rebels from the region agreed on a humanitarian truce, Addisu Wedajo, the town’s mayor, said.
In a call with U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres on Friday, PM Abiy said Ethiopia wouldn’t ease up humanitarian access for the U.N unless the TPLF withdrew forces that crossed Tigray’s borders into neighboring states.
Ethiopia conducted airstrikes on Mekelle, the capital of the dissident Tigray region, on Monday as federal forces continue their attempt to take back ground lost to rebel fighters
Paula Gil, President of
@MSF
Spain tried to visit Ethiopia’s Tigray region in recent days to meet the grieving families of colleagues killed last year. She was not granted permission from the authorities to visit them and was unable to meet any representatives from the government
With peace talks underway, Tigray govt has announced its demands:
1. Immediate cessation of hostilities
2. Unimpeded and unfettered humanitarian assistance to the entire people of Tigray
3. Access to independent international media
4. Withdrawal of Eritrean forces from Tigray
1: Eritrean and Ethiopian forces have began an offensive in four areas in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region, a senior member of the dissident Tigray People’s Liberation Front said Thursday.
The U.N. has updates pointing the finger at Amhara Special Forces for destroying a vital bridge connecting a supply route from Gondar with Shire in northern Tigray over the Tekeze River.
#Shire
has between 400-600k IDPs in vital need of supplies.
Sisay Hagos, a 36-year-old who was celebrating in Mekelle on Monday, said: “They invaded us. Abiy is a liar and a dictator, but he is defeated already. Tigray will be an independent country!”
Adding to the bulk of evidence of deadly drone warfare used in Tigray, the UN said there were mass civilian causalities, including dozens of people reportedly killed between Dec 19-24 including in Alamata.
1: At least 143 people have been killed and 213 wounded in air strikes in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region since October last year, according to aid agencies.
‘I Didn’t Expect to Make It Back Alive’: Debretsion Gebremichael in his 1st interview since Tigray forces took back Mekelle
“We have to be realistic,” he said. “Yes, we would like to remove Isaias. But at the end of the day, Eritreans have to remove him.”
With the UN and others now alerting world to famine in Tigray, let’s not forget the interim government had been sounding the alarm since at least Feb. This doc signed and stamped by a local administrator confirms that 21 people have died from “lack of food” in a single district.
1: At least 143 people have been killed and 213 wounded in air strikes in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region since October last year, according to aid agencies.
I plan to keep on reporting on Ethiopia and cover other countries in the Horn. Ethiopia is grappling with civil war, will hold an all important election next month amid a climate of fear and intimidation in many parts and needs as many independent reporters as possible. 5/5
“Humanitarian workers are reporting that it is more difficult to reach desperate people in Tigray now than it was just a week ago. Such acts, if verified, are not an indication of a humanitarian ceasefire, but of a siege,”
@USAmbUN
tells the UN Security Council.
.
@MadaMasr
adds weight to claims UAE used its Eritrean military base to send drones into Tigray. “According to three Egyptian officials and a European diplomat briefed on affairs in the Horn of Africa, the UAE has used the base to launch drones.”
EU says two drone airstrikes that hit Mekelle in recent days as well as the role played by Eritrea "endanger, once again, the very fragile hope for peace in Ethiopia."
THREAD: In
#Ethiopia
, authorities have detained journalists and after a recent reporting trip to the Tigray region revoked my accreditation registered with The New York Times.
The death of a spy in Somalia has exposed how Eritrean intelligence officers were stationed in Somalia and Ethiopia, giving its President Isias Afwerki an important foothold in the region.
Tigray releases its terms for a lasting ceasefire. They include motions to hold PM Abiy Ahmed and Eritrean President Isaias Afewerki accountable for crimes and returning all land that has been annexed by the neighboring Amhara region.
1: Newly obtained photographs of missile fragments provide the first material evidence that Ethiopia used a Turkish drone this month in an attack that killed 58 civilians sheltering in a school.
UPDATE: Ahead of talks in S Africa btw Ethiopia and Tigray regional govt, the Ethiopian and Eritrean army have now advanced to occupy Adwa, humanitarian sources say. Tigray forces retreated. On Friday, the town was also the target of an airstrike, which caused civilian casualties
Bloomberg has uncovered a secret plot against the head of the WHO. A cache of previously undisclosed documents show Ethiopia tried to discredit the global health leader, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus - who's also Ethiopian - ahead of his 2022 reappointment.
Médecins Sans Frontières has confirmed it received a letter from Ethiopia that all activities run by its Dutch section in Tigray, Gambella, Amhara and Somali regions are to be suspended for three months, effective from July 28th.
Tedros Gebremariam, 31, ran a small taxi business in Tigray before snagging a coveted job with an international relief agency. His wife had just given birth to their second child, a girl.
.
@BBCNewshour
on my expulsion from Ethiopia."It's perfectly normal for any journalist to reach out to all sides in a conflict. Quoting them or having links or relationships with people involved in a conflict does not mean you're tacitly supporting them."
Eritrean forces have left Shire in northern Tigray and have pulled out of Adwa and Adigrat, according to officials briefed on matters. Tigray forces not yet believed to have entered Shire.
The leader of dissident Tigrayan fighters who’ve been battling Ethiopian federal troops and allied forces for the past 13 months said he’d ordered a strategic withdrawal in a bid to end the nation’s civil war.
Air strikes, mobilization of troops in towns on either side of the border with neighboring Eritrea, and tens of thousands of newly displaced in Tigray. War is still raging in N Ethiopia where the
@PMEthiopia
has granted no access to journalists.
Latest
@OCHA_Ethiopia
report: 18 people died in Mekelle due to lack of catheters.
Elsewhere, 5 women died during delivery from post-partum hemorrhage.
Hospitals in Hawzen, Axum + Adigrat have no supplies to treat severe malnutrition in children.
Prices in Tigray have risen sharply. These data from an international aid org show a litre of cooking oil in the town of Shire at 400 birr, or nearly $9. That’s compared to just 120 birr in Addis.
To all those I did not say good bye to, a big hug. I hope to come back one day. And to Ethiopia, it’s people, it’s incredible landscapes, culture and many complexities, thank you! 4/5
Reports now emerging that several dozen were killed after an airstrike hit a busy market in northern Ethiopia on Tuesday.
Ambulances operated by the Ethiopian Red Cross have been denied access to the scene of the bombing by troops in Mekelle.
Gen. Tsadkan, commander of the Tigray forces, tells
@declanwalsh
Ethiopian troops have been met by a Tigrayan counteroffensive.
“The ramifications will be military, political and diplomatic…I don’t think this will be a protracted fight — a matter of days, most probably weeks.”
Internet is back in Sudan after a court today threatened to arrest the CEOs of the country’s telco companies, according to a lawyer in the case. Social media service still require a VPN.
At least 56 people were killed in air strikes in northern Ethiopia’s Tigray region on Friday. The strikes, which happened just before midnight, hit a school that was turned into a displaced persons’ center in Dedebit town in northwest Tigray.
A group of roughly 100 international NGOs say the deadly attack on
@MSF_EastAfrica
staff amounts to a war crime under international humanitarian law. These brave souls were working tirelessly to help those in need.
Ethiopia suspended the activities of two major humanitarian organizations working in the war-torn Tigray region as the conflict in the north of the country rumbles on.
Not only did Immigration officers prevent me from going home to collect my belongings but also from kissing goodbye to my beautiful 2-year-old son and two dogs, despite my polite requests. At least I could give my partner a kiss at the airport. 3/5
-Almost all civilians in Tigray need life-saving aid and millions are “on the brink,” U.K.’s envoy for famine prevention said in a doc seen by Bloomberg.
-A regional official in Tigray has admitted “famine has started,” the memo marked “sensitive” said.
3. It's been almost four days since warring sides in Ethiopia agreed to a conditional truce in the northern Tigray region, yet no aid has been delivered yet by land.
THREAD: 1.
@MSF_EastAfrica
has recorded alarming levels of malnutrition in some of the areas it runs mobile clinics specifically in the rural parts of the North West zone of Tigray. Children under five years of age, pregnant women and lactating women are particularly at risk.
2:
@WFP_Ethiopia
has now confirmed reports of an explosion near where
@RESCUE_EU
was distributing nutritionally fortified foods to WFP beneficiaries, including vulnerable mothers and children, in Shire. An IRC staff member has now died as a result of the attack.
The unending conflict in Tigray has resulted in a famine-like situation, says senior US official.
At least 1,246 women have been recorded as victims of serious gender-based violence in Tigray, documents show.
And 3 million people still need shelter.
After weeks of silence the former leader of Ethiopia’s Tigray region resurfaced vowing to continue a months-long battle with the federal government. A senior TPLF member speaking on the condition of anonymity for security reasons confirmed it was him.
“It is alarming that the government of Ethiopia treated the journalist, Simon Marks, like a criminal, expelling him from the country without even letting him go home to get a change of clothing or his passport,” said Michael Slackman, The Times’s international editor. 2/5
Tigray leaders have demanded the withdrawal of Eritrean troops before agreeing to a cease-fire and talks to end almost eight months of conflict. Other conditions include restoring power and telecommunications, justice for war crimes.
#Ethiopia
declared a “humanitarian truce” but some aid officials and diplomats expressed skepticism the truce would hold. Aid flights into Tigray are still hindered, and it wasn’t clear whether militias in Afar would allow aid relief to travel by road.
The Oromo Liberation Army and the TPLF have agreed to form an alliance in a partnership that was agreed after talks over the past six weeks, OLA leader Kumsa Dirriba said. Both groups have not discounted the possibility of pushing toward Addis.
Strong statement from
@JoeBiden
administration. All soldiers from Eritrea should leave Tigray region “immediately” amid “credible reports of looting, sexual violence, assaults in refugee camps and other human rights abuses.”
Sudan summoned Ethiopia’s ambassador to inform him that 29 bodies of ethnic Tigrayans have been retrieved from a river close to the two nations’ border.
On 24 August, Afar Special Police blocked a UN mission traveling from Semera to Abala. Armed police forcefully entered the UN-marked vehicles, ordered drivers to drive significantly over speed limits while verbally abusing, harassing, and threatening them.
Information compiled on Dec 8 by the Tigray regional government shows there are still non-Tigray forces present in ten locations across the region, including major towns such as Adwa, Shire and Sheraro.
“In our lifetime, or even in our history, we have not seen such wickedness.” Great story by
@AndresSchipani
from the village of Dengelat in Tigray.
The U.S. called for the immediate withdrawal of Eritrean troops from neighboring Ethiopia’s Tigray region, following “credible” reports of their involvement in a civil conflict
Updates: Tigrayan forces have seized control of the airport and telecommunications network.
Unilateral ceasefire announced by ET gov came after Ethiopia’s deputy PM, Demeke Mekonnen, met with diplomats from Britain, Germany, the United States and Spain.
1: The recent spate of arrests in Addis Ababa and beyond of Tigrayan civilians included Lisanewerk Desta, who is the head of the library and museum department at the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, according to his lawyer and daughter.
G7 nations say they are “deeply concerned” by the ongoing conflict in Tigray and “reports of an unfolding major humanitarian tragedy, including potentially hundreds of thousands in famine conditions.”
Calls on Ethiopia to advance “a broader inclusive political process.”
#Tigray
More than 90% of Tigray’s population in need of emergency food assistance due to the conflict, says
@wfp
. “Almost a quarter of all children who were screened were found to be malnourished”.
An investigation by
@BBCAfrica
reveals evidence that a massacre in Tigray’s Mahbere Dego was carried out by members of the Ethiopian military by uncovering the precise location of the atrocity, in which at least 15 men were killed.
The Amhara regions’s chief, Agegnehu Teshager, has told Amharas over 18 years old to join the war for the “existence of the region,” after the fighting in Tigray spilled over into towns on the border with the Amhara and Afar regions earlier this month.
Efforts to restore peace in Ethiopia after two years of fighting between government and rebel forces are being undermined by Eritrea, whose troops continue to attack civilians across its southern border, according to people with knowledge of the situation.
Thousands of Ethiopian prisoners of war were paraded through the regional capital of Tigray on Friday as jubilant crowds lined the streets to jeer the captives and cheer the Tigrayan forces.
@declanwalsh
in Mekelle.
THREAD: At least 40 bodies have washed up on a riverbank in eastern Sudan in the past week — bloated and bearing knife or gunshot wounds — in some cases just a few hundred yards from the border with Ethiopia.
The UN Security Council, as requested by Ireland in its rotating seat, is set to discuss the humanitarian situation in
#Tigray
. A3 (Kenya, Niger, Tunisia), China and Russia are less keen: sources.
Eye witnesses in Tigray say Eritrean troops could still be seen slowly leaving their posts around Adwa on Friday. But their is still uncertainty surrounding Eritrea’s long term plans and if they will leave Tigray all together.
The remaining WFP fuel tanker in Mekelle, which other agencies had been relying on, was depleted on Sep 17. Nine tankers are pending approval to enter Tigray, UN says.
Ahead of AU Summit, the only member of Abiy’s cabinet 2 resign,
@1_filsan
, says:“I want to send a msg to the AU, who has been irrelevant in this conflict…I hope when African countries come together they will put 4ward pressure to say there needs 2 be a cessation of hostilities.”
EXCLUSIVE: "The Ethiopian system of governance is not reformable from within. I had to step out and speak out."
Filsan Ahmed
@1_filsan
resigned from Abiy Ahmed's government in protest. Now she tells me the PM can't heal a country divided by the Tigray conflict
After a long wait, a UN convoy including food, fuel and other items is on its way into the Tigray region from the Afar region, one of the only routes left into the war-ravaged region.
And we're rolling! 🚚🚚🚚🚚
A
@WFP
convoy of 50 trucks is on its way to
#Tigray
bringing 900 metric tons of life-saving food & fuel, nutrition, health, WASH & shelter items on behalf of humanitarian community.
Long journey ahead but
@WFPLogistics
is working non-stop to deliver.
“We know what you eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner."
The BBC’s Girmay Gebru describes his detention at the hands of Ethiopian intelligence and military officers in Tigray.
Ethiopia’s government said it plans to take control of airports and other federal government facilities in the northern Tigray region to safeguard the nation’s territorial integrity.
Rebel forces entered the capital of Tigray in northern Ethiopia on Monday, dealing a setback to Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s effort to bring the region under federal control, according to people familiar with the matter.
The head of the
@WHO
,
@DrTedros
, said Eritrean troops murdered his uncle at his home in Ethiopia's Tigray region. "It is another painful loss for my family due to the ongoing violence in
#Tigray
," he said.
Last weekend, I found out that my uncle was murdered by
#Eritrean
army in his own house. It is another painful loss for my family due to the ongoing violence in
#Tigray
, Ethiopia. Peace is all the people and families need.
The UN’s
@grant_leaity
says the Tigray region “remains under a de facto humanitarian aid blockade, where access to bring life-saving humanitarian relief continues to be extremely restricted.” Food stocks already ran out on 20 August.
Sudan says it’s investigating a shipment of arms originally from Russia that arrived in Khartoum on an Ethiopian Airlines flight from Addis Ababa on Sat. Investigators suspect the weapons were destined for loyalists close to former dictator Omar al-Bashir.
Ethiopia has launched a major offensive against rebel forces in the Tigray region, carrying out air strikes in its latest bid to gain the upper hand in an almost yearlong civil war.
Huge troop build up reported in Hara, Wergesa and Wegel Tena.
Rape is being used as a weapon as fighting rages in remote parts of Tigray region. “Even if we had shouted,” one woman said, “there was no one to listen.”
Thousands of Tigrayans deported from Saudi Arabia after months of inhumane detention have on their return to Ethiopia been arbitrarily detained, mistreated and forcibly disappeared.