Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on October 20, 2021
💭 A regional conflict is now becoming a national crisis which the country’s leaders seem unable to solve, and the lives of millions of Ethiopians are at stake.
➡ „Crow (Oromo) Making Two Cats (Northerners: Tigrayan & Ahmara & Afar) Fight„
💭 The Gallas had little to contribute to the Semitized civilization of Ethiopia; they possessed no significant material or intellectual culture, and their social organization differed considerably from that of the population among whom they settled. They were not only the cause of the depressed state into which the country now sank, but they helped to prolong a situation fromwhich even a physically and spiritually exhausted Ethiopia might otherwise have been able to recover far more quickly
➡ Edward Ullendorff – “The Ethiopians: An Introduction to Country and People.” Oxford University Press, 1960
✈️New air strikes hit capital of Ethiopia’s Tigray region Mekelle.✈️
New air strikes have hit the capital of Ethiopia’s Tigray region, residents said Wednesday, as video showed injured people with bloodied faces being helped into ambulances and thick black smoke rising into the sky. Ethiopia’s government said it was targeting facilities to make and repair weapons, which a spokesman for the rival Tigray forces denied.
Meanwhile, the United Nations told The Associated Press it is slashing by more than half its Tigray presence as an Ethiopian government blockade halts humanitarian aid efforts and people die from lack of food.
The war in Africa’s second-most populous country has ground on for nearly a year between Ethiopian and allied forces and the Tigray ones who long dominated the national government before a falling-out with Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize winner.
There were no immediate details of deaths from the new air strikes in Mekelle, reported by Kindeya Gebrehiwot of the Tigray external affairs office and confirmed by a resident and a humanitarian worker.
“Indeed there have been air strikes in Mekelle today,” Ethiopian government spokesperson Legesse Tulu told the AP, saying they targeted facilities at the Mesfin Industrial Engineering site that Tigray forces use to make and repair heavy weapons. Legesse said the air strikes had “no intended harm to civilians.”
“Not at all,” Kindeya with the Tigray forces told the AP, calling the site a garage “with many old tires. That is why it is still blazing.”
The attack came two days after Ethiopia’s air force confirmed air strikes in Mekelle that a witness said killed three children. The air force said communications towers and equipment were attacked. Mekelle hadn’t seen fighting since June, when Tigray forces retook much of the region in a dramatic turn in the war.
The air strikes have caused fresh panic in a city under siege, where doctors and others have described running out of medicines and other basic needs.
Despite pleas from the UN and others to allow basic services and humanitarian aid to Tigray’s 6 million people, Ethiopia’s government this week called those expectations “absurd” while the Tigray forces now fight in the neighbouring regions of Amhara and Afar. Hundreds of thousands of people have been displaced there, widening the deadly crisis.
“Although not all movements have yet taken place, there will probably be a reduction from nearly 530 to around 220 UN staff on the ground in Tigray,” UN humanitarian spokesman Saviano Abreu told the AP. The decision is “directly linked to the operation constraints we have been faced with over the last months” along with the volatile security situation, he said.
The lack of fuel and cash because of the government’s blockade on Tigray “has made it extremely challenging for humanitarians to sustain life-saving activities” at the time they’re needed most, Abreu added.
Some 1,200 humanitarian workers including the reduced UN presence will remain in Tigray, he said.
The AP in recent weeks has confirmed the first starvation deaths in Tigray under the government blockade.