Day: September 20, 2021

In parts of Ethiopia’s Tigray region, people now eat only green leaves for days. At a health center last week, a mother and her newborn weighing just 1.7 pounds died from hunger. In every district of the more than 20 where one aid group works, residents have starved to death.

For months, the United Nations has warned of famine in this embattled corner of northern Ethiopia, calling it the world’s worst hunger crisis in a decade. Now internal documents and witness accounts reveal the first starvation deaths since Ethiopia’s government in June imposed what the U.N. calls “a de facto humanitarian aid blockade.”

Forced starvation is the latest chapter in a conflict where ethnic Tigrayans have been massacred, gang-raped and expelled. Months after crops were burned and communities stripped bare, a new kind of death has set in.

“You are killing people,” Hayelom Kebede, the former director of Tigray’s flagship Ayder Referral Hospital, recalled telling Ethiopia’s health ministry in a phone call this month. “They said, ‘Yeah, OK, we’ll forward it to the prime minister.’ What can I do? I just cry.”

He shared with The Associated Press photos of some of the 50 children receiving “very intensive care” because of malnutrition, the first such images to emerge from Tigray in months. In one, a small child with startled-looking eyes stares straight into the camera, a feeding tube in his nose, a protective amulet lying in the pronounced hollow of his throat.

Medicines have almost run out, and hospital staffers haven’t been paid since June, Hayelom said. Conditions elsewhere for Tigray’s 6 million people are often worse.

The blockade and the starvation that comes with it mark a new phase in the 10-month war between Tigray forces and the Ethiopian government, along with its allies. Now the United States has issued an ultimatum Take steps to stop the fighting and let aid flow freely, or a new wave of sanctions could come within weeks.

The war began as a political dispute between the prime minister, 2019 Nobel Peace Prize winner Abiy Ahmed, and the Tigrayans who had long dominated Ethiopia’s repressive national government. Since November, witnesses have said, Ethiopian forces and those from neighboring Eritrea looted food sources and destroyed health centers.

In June, the Tigray fighters retook the region, and Ethiopia’s government declared a ceasefire, citing humanitarian grounds. Instead, the government has sealed off the region tighter than ever, fearing that aid will reach the Tigray forces.

More than 350,000 metric tons of food aid are positioned in Ethiopia, but very little of it can get into Tigray. The government is so wary that humanitarian workers boarding rare flights to the region have been given an unusual list of items they cannot bring: Dental flossers. Can openers. Multivitamins. Medicines, even personal ones.

The list, obtained by the AP, also banned means of documenting the crisis, including hard drives and flash drives. Photos and video from Tigray have disappeared from social media since June as aid workers and others, facing intense searches by authorities, fear being caught with them on their devices. Tigray has returned to darkness, with no telecommunications, no internet, no banking services and very little aid.

Ethiopia’s prime minister and other senior officials have denied there is hunger in Tigray. The government has blamed the Tigray forces and insecurity for troubles with aid delivery. It also has accused humanitarian groups of supporting, even arming, the Tigray fighters.

The prime minister’s spokeswoman, Billene Seyoum, did not say when the government would allow basic services to the region. The government “has opened access to aid routes by cutting the number of checkpoints from seven to two and creating air bridges for humanitarian flights,” she said in a statement. But medical supplies on the first European Union air bridge flight were removed during government inspection, and such flights cannot carry the large-scale food aid needed.

In the most extensive account yet of the blockade’s toll, a humanitarian worker told the AP that deaths from starvation are being reported in “every single” district of the more than 20 in Tigray where one aid group operates. The group had run out of food aid and fuel. The worker, like others, spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.

“Currently, there are devastating reports coming from every corner,” the aid group wrote to a donor in August, according to documents shared with the AP. “If no urgent solution is found, we will lose many people due to hunger.”

In April, even before the current blockade was imposed, the same group wrote to the donor that “reports of malnourishment are rampant,” and that 22 people in one sub-district had starved to death.

“People’s skin color was beginning to change due to hunger; they looked emaciated with protruding skeletal bones,” the aid group wrote.

In August, another staffer visited a community in central Tigray and wrote that the number of people at risk of starvation was “exponentially increasing” in both rural and urban areas. In some cases, “people are eating only green leaves for days.”

The staffer described speaking with one mother who said her family had been living on borrowed food since June. For the past month, they had eaten only bread with salt. She worried that without food aid in the coming days they would die.

“Finally, we stopped asking her because we could not tolerate to hear additional grim news,” the staffer wrote. “The administrator of the (sub-district) has also told us that there are many families who are living in similar conditions.”

At least 150 people starved to death in August, including in camps for displaced people, the Tigray External Affairs Office has alleged. The International Organization for Migration, the U.N. agency which supports the camps, said: “We unfortunately are not able to speak on this topic.”

Some toilets in the crowded camps are overflowing because there’s no cash to pay for their cleaning, leaving thousands of people vulnerable to outbreaks of disease, a visiting aid worker said. People who ate three meals a day now eat only one. Camp residents rely on the charity of host communities who often struggle to feed themselves.

“People have been able to get by, but barely,” the aid worker said. “It’s worse than subsistence, let’s put it that way.”

Food security experts months ago estimated that 400,000 people in Tigray face famine conditions, more than the rest of the world combined. But the blockade means experts cannot collect the needed data to make a formal declaration of famine.

Such a declaration would be deeply embarrassing for Ethiopia, which in the 1980s seized the world’s attention with a famine so severe, also driven by conflict and government neglect, that some 1 million people were killed. Since then, Africa’s second most populous country had become a success story by pulling millions from extreme poverty and developing one of the world’s fastest-growing economies.

Now the war is hollowing out the economy, and stomachs. Malnutrition rates are near 30% for children under the age of 5, the U.N. World Food Program said Wednesday, and near 80% for pregnant and breastfeeding women.

As the war spreads, so might hunger. Tigray forces have entered the neighboring regions of Amhara and Afar in recent weeks, and some residents accuse them of carrying out acts of retaliation, including closing off supply routes. The Tigray forces deny it, saying they aim to pressure Ethiopia’s government to lift the blockade.

The U.N. human rights office says abuses have been committed by all sides, although to date witness accounts indicate the most widespread atrocities have been against Tigrayan civilians.

There is little help coming. The U.N. says at least 100 trucks with food and other supplies must reach Tigray every day to meet people’s needs. But as of Sept. 8, fewer than 500 had arrived since July on the only accessible road into the region. No medical supplies or fuel have been delivered to Tigray in more than a month, the U.S. says, blaming “government harassment” and decisions, not the fighting.

In mid-September the U.N. issued the first report of its kind showing in red the number of days remaining before cash or fuel ran out for key humanitarian work like treating Tigray’s most severely malnourished. Often, that number was zero.

Some trucks carrying aid have been attacked, and drivers intimidated. In August, a U.N. team trying to pick up staff from Tigray was turned around by armed police who “ordered the drivers to drive significantly over speed limits while verbally abusing, harassing and threatening them,” a U.N. report said.

Major international aid groups like Doctors Without Borders and the Norwegian Refugee Council have had their operations suspended, accused of spreading “misinformation” about the war. Almost two dozen aid workers have been killed, some while distributing food. Some aid workers are forced to ration their own food.

“It is a day-to-day reality to see human sufferings, starvation,” the Catholic bishop of Adigrat, Abune Tesfaselassie Medhin, wrote in a Sept. 3 letter, shared with the AP, appealing to partners overseas for help and warning of catastrophe ahead.

The need for food will continue well into next year, the U.N. says, because the limited crops planted amid the fighting are likely to produce only between a quarter and at most half of the usual harvest.

Grim as they are, the reports of starvation deaths reflect only areas in Tigray that can be reached. One Tigrayan humanitarian worker pointed out that most people live or shelter in remote places such as rugged mountains. Others are in inaccessible areas bordering hostile Eritrea or in western Tigray, now controlled by authorities from the Amhara region who bar the way to neighboring Sudan, a potential route for delivering aid.

As food and the means to find it run out, the humanitarian worker said, “I am sure the people that are dying out of this man-made hunger are way more than this.”

Source: Voice of America

More than 850 former Boko Haram fighters and their family members who escaped from the jihadist group to Cameroon have left northern Cameroon for Nigeria. Nigerian authorities say they are taking the former militants to Nigerian disarmament centers after complaints that such centers in Cameroon were overwhelmed by the number of former jihadists defecting since the terrorist group’s leader was declared killed in May.

Hundreds of people Saturday gathered along streets, watching and waving as 20 buses transporting former Boko Haram militants and their families left Mora, a town on Cameroon’s northern border with Nigeria, for Banki, a town in Nigeria’s Borno state.

The governor of Cameroon’s Far North region, Midjiyawa Bakari, said the former militants agreed to voluntarily return to Nigeria.

Bakari said the ex-Boko Haram militants who have agreed to return to Nigeria’s Borno state are Nigerian citizens, 854 of them which also include their families. He said they told Cameroonian government officials that they were either fighters or slaves on plantations controlled by the jihadist group. Bakari said the Nigerian ex-fighters promised to be good citizens of Borno state.

Bakari said about 150 more former militants who are of Nigerian nationality will return to their country in the weeks ahead, but he did not explain why they are not returning now.

A majority of the ex-militants are women and children. Cameroon said more about 320 males [including young boys among them] are former fighters of the jihadist group. 80 are females the terrorist group used as spies in localities they attacked, authorities said. 454 others are their family members.

34-year-old Kadir Hassan said he is spokesperson of the former Boko Haram militants who agreed to return to Nigeria. He escaped from the Sambisa Forest, a Boko Haram stronghold on the Cameroon-Nigeria border in August. The former fighter said he is looking forward to meeting his relatives in Kukawa, a town in Nigeria’s Borno state.

Hassan said he left Kukawa to join the jihadist group in March 2020.

Hassan said many Cameroonians and Nigerians he saw in the Sambisa Forest want to leave Boko Haram but are afraid that fighters will kill them. He said he is pleading with the Multinational Joint Task Force of the Lake Chad Basin that is fighting the jihadist group to help people who are still under Boko Haram captivity and want to leave. He said the ex-combatants pledge to contribute to the development of their communities when they return to Nigeria.

The task force made up of troops from Niger, Cameroon, Chad and Nigeria said it took the surrendered Boko Haram militants to demobilization centers called DDRs in Meri and Meme, Cameroonian towns on the border with Nigeria.

In August, Cameroon said it was negotiating to return the ex-militants to Nigeria as the DDR centers were becoming overcrowded.

Lawan Aba Wakilbe, Nigeria’s Borno state Commissioner for Education, represented the government of Nigeria at the ceremony to hand over the former militants. He said the former militants will be kept at rehabilitation centers in Banki, Nigeria.

“We are going to rehabilitate them, and we will reintegrate them into society. You see taking this number away from Boko Haram has given them a shortage in manpower. We are happy and we would like to use this opportunity to thank the Cameroonian government for keeping and handing them over to us,” he said.

Cameroon says former militants still at the demobilization centers on its northern border with Nigeria and Chad include Chadians, Cameroonians and Nigerians.

Bakari said DDR centers in Cameroon’s northern border will continue to receive militants and fighters who surrender and drop their weapons.

Source: Voice of America

Rwanda’s High Court has sentenced Paul Rusesabagina of “Hotel Rwanda” fame to 25 years in prison after finding him guilty on terrorism-related charges.

Rusesabagina, 67, has denied the charges. He has 30 days to appeal the sentence.

The court convicted and sentenced the hotelier-turned-activist Monday following a trial that critics say was unfair with a pre-determined outcome.

Rusesabagina and 20 others were charged with offenses for their alleged connections to the National Forces of Liberation, or the FLN, a militia group the government accuses of carrying out terrorist attacks in Rwanda.

In announcing the sentence, presiding Judge Antoine Muhima told a Kigali courtroom that Rusesabagina was guilty of creating and being a member of a terrorist organization.

Rwandan Government Spokeswoman Yolande Makolo said on Twitter that evidence against the defendants was “indisputable.”

A state-controlled newspaper had earlier reported that prosecutors were seeking a life sentence for Rusesabagina, a prominent critic of President Paul Kagame and his government.

Family and advocates say Rusesabagina, who left his home country in 1996 and is a Belgian citizen and a U.S. resident, was effectively tricked into returning to Rwanda in August 2020. After flying to the United Arab Emirates city of Dubai, Rusesabagina boarded a private plane and was flown to Kigali, where he was arrested.

Rusesabagina said in interviews after his detention that he believed he was flying to Burundi to speak in churches at the invitation of a friend.

Kate Gibson, one of Rusesabagina’s lawyers, spoke to VOA English to Africa’s Daybreak Africa radio program from Geneva and said Rusesabagina never stood a chance in court.

“It’s our opinion that this is the end of a story that was scripted and written even before Mr. Rusesabagina was kidnapped,” she said. “But there was always a deliberate and decided plan in place that he would be put on trial and convicted by the Rwandan judicial authorities.”

Gibson said Rusesabagina did not receive a fair trial, saying lawyers weren’t allowed to bring documents to him and when documents got through for discussion, they were confiscated. The trial, she said, was “so far below internationally recognized standards for a fair trial that the verdict itself is of no particular consequence.”

Independent observers seem to agree. Representatives from the American Bar Association’s (ABA) Center for Human Rights, who have been monitoring the trial as part of the Clooney Foundation for Justice’s TrialWatch, echoed Gibson’s sentiment.

“This so-called trial is not a real adversarial proceeding: it has become a spectacle in which the state’s version of events is not allowed to be challenged. Any conviction that emerges from it cannot be considered credible as it will be based on evidence that has not been properly examined.” Geoffrey Robertson QC, the TrialWatch Expert said.

“It’s an empty verdict because the proceedings that went before it was so manifestly unfair,” Gibson said. Basic rights such as legal assistance, the right to adequate time and facilities to prepare and the right to be presumed innocent, were denied, she added.

“Days after Paul’s [Rusesabagina] arrest, high ranking members of the Rwandan authorities including the president [Paul Kagame] came out and said that Paul was guilty,” she said.

The United States also issued a statement of concern about the trial and doubt over the verdict, noting in particular Rusesabagina's complaints about the lack of access to his lawyers and documents.

“We urge the Government of Rwanda to take steps to examine these shortcomings in Mr. Rusesabagina's case and establish safeguards to prevent similar outcomes in the future,” U.S. State Department spokesperson Ned Price said in a statement.

Source: Voice of America

BloLab, a startup in Benin is turning plastic jerricans into computers using recycled components and distributing them to the public at a low cost.

Arthur Dadjo is a student in Cotonou, Benin, where innovation and recycling meet. For the past year, he has been using a computer he built himself. It is made from a plastic jerrycan, recycled materials and parts from an old or broken computer to build what would become the computer’s motherboard and hard drive.

Locals call it “Jerry” after the name of the containers. With royalty-free software installed, it is as good as new. And most importantly, cheaper.

"You can find a complete office computer between 300 and 350,000 in West African CFA franc, the local currency," he said. "But with the components we bought with the help of the startup, we spent about 100 to 150,000 (CFA franc) to have this computer."

BloLab, a digital innovation lab working in the fields of education and digital technology, makes these “Jerry” computers. The startup regularly organizes workshops to teach people how to make their own computers for free.

Medard Agbayazon, the founder of BloLab, says in addition to giving people access to cost effective products, the trainers want to help develop skills in innovation.

The second objective is to stimulate creativity in children. He says when they learn to do these “Jerrys,” they also learn how to solve problems they are confronted with in their environment, using the material or the means they have at their disposal.

Experts believe that the computer is increasingly an indispensable working tool and that initiatives such as BloLab’s should be encouraged.

Ali Shadai, is with Open Nsi, an organization focusing on digital transformation of companies.

"A computer is a door to a world of opportunities,mand making it accessible to the greatest number of people is beneficial for these people and for society in general," he said. "BloLab’s effort is positive."

The training to learn how to build a “Jerry” is offered for free. But participants must find the components to build their own computers themselves.

BloLab has been in operation for 4 years and founders say that hundreds of people have already taken advantage of the training sessions and built their computer.

The startup is now working to make these self-built computers available to schools located in remote areas. With that, BloLab says, it would bridge the digital gap one “Jerry” at a time.

Source: Voice of America