The World Health Organisation (WHO) has begun investigating the deaths of almost 100 people in South Sudan. The deaths occurred in Fangak and Jonglei State in South Sudan.
The BBC noted that initial samples collected in the area returned negative for cholera, and spoke to the WHO’s Sheila Baya who explained the ongoing concerns. She said so far there had been 89 deaths and an investigation was ongoing.
Baya told the BBC: “We decided to send a rapid response team to go and do risk assessment and an investigation.
“That is when they will be able to collect samples from the sick people but provisionally the figure that we got was that there were 89 deaths.”
She also noted that it has become increasingly difficult to reach the Fangak area due to flooding that has made it inaccessible by land. She and her team subsequently waited for a helicopter.
The flooding in the area has been so severe it has caused over 200,000 people to flee their homes. Humanitarian agency Concern Worldwide has said it has been the worst flooding in almost 60 years.
Concern’s County Director in South Sudan, Shumon Sengupta, explained the dire situation.
He said: “The magnitude of the flooding this year has been immense. Over 200,000 people, more than a quarter of the local population in Unity State have been forced to leave their homes as a result of rising floodwaters.
“There has not been flooding on this scale in the region since 1962, according to local records, and despite agencies like Concern Worldwide working tirelessly to respond to the escalating humanitarian crisis, (with financial assistance of donors such as BHA/USAID, ECHO, GAC, EFP and UNICEF) the needs far exceed the current scale of the humanitarian response, both within and outside the camps for internally displaced people.
“Families have been displaced and are sheltering on higher ground, in public buildings or with neighbours or family. Access to basic services including health and nutrition support has been disrupted as clinics have been damaged, submerged in floodwaters, or are inaccessible.”
International charity Médecins Sans Frontières has also previously commented on how the flooding has put pressure on health facilities.
They said: “We are extremely concerned about malnutrition, with severe acute malnutrition levels two times the WHO threshold, and the number of children admitted to our hospital with severe malnutrition doubling since the start of the floods.”
Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on December 14, 2021
There Has Been Little To No Action Taken To Address The Ethiopian Government’s Ethnically-Based Expulsion And Arrest Of Tigrayan Peacekeepers.
When Tigrayan members of the Ethiopian National Defense Forces. ENDF were deployed to UN peacekeeping missions, they did so under the banner of “Together for Peace”.
Respecting and honouring the brave few who put their own lives at risk in the service of their country and for the cause of world peace is a cherished norm. However, Tigrayan members of UN peacekeeping missions are getting the opposite treatment.
When the Ethiopian government launched an armed offensive against the Tigray region in November 2020, it withdrew troops from international peacekeeping missions to bolster its offensive. Citing fears over their loyalty to the federal government and ENDF, Tigrayan members of this contingent were also purged from their ranks without cause. Other Tigrayans were left with no choice but to seek asylum in order to escape abduction and internment.
Evidence of this purge was first attested to in a leaked video published by The Associated Press in which an Ethiopian military leader speaks of the need to ‘clean out our insides’ in a reference to the removal of Tigrayan service members.
Soon after, an article published in Foreign Policy on 23 November revealed an internal UN document that detailed concerns that these troops were likely to face torture or execution.
The UN’s fears were confirmed after it was revealed that military tribunals are being held to sentence Tigrayan security officers to death. The Ethiopian government is seemingly using the judicial system to make a show of passing judgment on defendants who were in fact criminalised by virtue of ethnic profiling alone. The risk to the lives of these service members, including those who served under the auspices of the UN peacekeeping missions, is real.
In such a context, where identity is being used as evidence of guilt, Tigrayans require protection and open legal proceedings that are monitored and corroborated by independent organisations. The international community’s inaction and silence regarding the horrible reality of these Tigrayans have allowed the Ethiopian government to prolong their suffering.
This same government expelled seven UN officials who were operating in Ethiopia, accusing them of ‘meddling’, and arbitrarily arrested 16 local UN staff members.
The UN Secretary-General stated that “Ethiopia has no legal right to expel” the UN officials. However, the institution has not taken any steps to protect its representatives, who are crucial to address the enormous humanitarian needs in northern Ethiopia.
The UN entrusts peacekeepers to uphold its broader mission of maintaining peace and security around the world, and, in return, these servicemen and women bravely put their lives on the line for this noble cause. Accordingly, the UN has a contractual and moral obligation to protect these brave men and women. However, when it comes to Tigrayan peacekeepers, the UN and the rest of the international community have turned a blind eye.
The UN’s unwillingness to address the imminent threat faced by Tigrayans who served in peacekeeping missions – and lack of persistence in demanding protection for humanitarian workers and respect for international humanitarian law – is emboldening Ethiopia’s violations.
To the honourable men and women inside of the UN peacekeeping apparatus, as well as those in donor and member countries, I ask: If you are unable to protect the bravest who have worn the uniform to promote world peace, then how can you ever realise the dream of standing “Together for Peace”?
While silence or disengagement is to be expected at a certain level from diplomatic actors and entities, given their prerogative to not fuel further division in a space as polarized as Ethiopia’s, the case of Tigrayan peacekeepers exceeds the demands of neutrality and political sensitivity.
Their silence is even more worrying as the decision of the Ethiopian government has created a security vacuum in those areas where they were deployed, such as Darfur and Abyei in Sudan and Somalia, undermining the peacekeeping efforts. These actions also overstretched the capacity of UN peacekeeping troops that are present in these areas, leaving vulnerable communities at risk of immediate violence.
Moreover, since most peacekeeping troops operate under UN contracts, their treatment is a direct violation of the UN’s policy and commitment to world peace. The UN’s inaction may cause other countries to lose trust in future missions, given that there is no guarantee for the safety of their soldiers. Any atrocity committed against Tigrayan peacekeeping troops due to an internal political conflict is, by extension, an attack against peacekeepers around the world.
How the UN handles the case of Tigrayan peacekeepers in Ethiopia – many of whom have been incommunicado for over a year – will be a testament to how much the intergovernmental organisation values those it entrusts to uphold its mission.
Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on December 14, 2021
💭 My Note: In other words, Mr. Borrell is telling us: “As long as war criminals Abiy Ahmed Ali, Isaias Afewerki, the Oromo & Amhara special forces continue blocking Tigrayans (potential migrants to Europe heading for EU) from crossing the Ethio-Sudanese border in whatever possible form: By rounding them up, mutilating & dismembering — at the border within Africa – and throwing their dead bodies to the Tekeze river across the border, EU won’t issue sanctions against Abiy Ahmed, Isaias Afewerki and their partners in crime. The are doing a good job in preventing undesired ancient Christian Ethiopian migrants (We saw that when the UN The US and EU all blocked ancient Christians of Syria. Read this: No Christians Allowed: Muslim UN Officials Block Syrian Christian Refugees from Getting Help.
Mr. Borrell said it clearly, albeit concerning Belarus and Ukraine: “We cut the flowing of migrants to Europe…for me this is a source of satisfaction”
May be now The EU is giving money to the dictators of Ethiopia and Eritrea as a reward, instead of sanctioning them?!
After all, EU countries have awarded and honored to those evil monsters with the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019, and just two months ago, one of the enablers of the #TigrayGenocide, Daniel Bekele with the German Africa Prize. Just unbelievably cruel – the world upside down, isn’t it?!
💭 EU top diplomat Josep Borrell criticised EU member states on Monday (13 December) for failing to agree on sanctions against those suspected of war crimes in Ethiopia’s civil war, expressing frustration over Europe’s failure to give an effective policy response to “large scale human rights violations” there.
The EU’s response to the civil war in Ethiopia was “one of my biggest frustrations” of the year, said Borrell, the EU’s foreign affairs high representative. He said the EU had not been able to stop “mass rapes using sexual violence as a war aim, killings and concentration camps based on ethnic belonging,” pointing to the lack of unanimity among EU governments.
It is understood that Germany is one of the leading countries reluctant to impose sanctions, though Borrell told reporters that “many countries felt that it (sanctions) wasn’t an adequate solution.”
While the Biden administration in the United States has imposed sanctions under its human rights Magnitsky Act, the EU has not followed suit beyond freezing $107 million in budget support to Ethiopia.
Last month, EU officials told EURACTIV that sanctions were being discussed within the context of the bloc’s Human Rights Sanctions regime, but little progress has been made.
EU prepared to issue sanctions over Tigray war, officials confirm
The European Union is prepared to issue sanctions against those responsible for the war and humanitarian crisis in Ethiopia’s Tigray province, EU officials confirmed to EURACTIV on Thursday (5 November).
In the meantime, the EU has continued to supply humanitarian aid, despite continued difficulties in aid reaching those in need. Aid experts in Ethiopia say that only around 10% of aid reaches those who need it most.
Borrell acknowledged that while sanctions would not have halted the conflict, they “would have, in my view, influenced the behaviour of the actors.”
Alongside multiple reports of human rights abuses by both sides in the conflict, the fighting has had devastating humanitarian consequences. According to the UN’s World Food Programme, more than 400,000 people are estimated to be living in famine conditions in Tigray. Around 9.4 million people in Ethiopia are now in dire need of food aid, it said.
The war has derailed the economic and political reform agenda, which had earned wide international praise to Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed.
The civil war started last November when federal forces entered the country’s northern province after rebels from the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front launched an attack on a government military base.
The Abiy government subsequently cracked down mercilessly on the insurgents and ignored all demands by the international community for a ceasefire and peace settlement with the TPLF. Instead, Abiy has stated that nothing short of total military victory will be sufficient.
African Union mediator Olesegun Obasanjo and Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta have been leading regional efforts to broker peace.
Earlier this week, local media reported that TPLF forces had retaken the historic town of Lalibela, in the neighbouring Amhara province, though government forces are also reported to have recaptured towns in Tigray in recent weeks.
Slovenia, in its capacity as head of the EU’s Council presidency, on Monday requested a special session of the UN Human Rights Council on the situation in Ethiopia.
More than 50 countries supported the call, Slovenia’s Permanent Mission to the UN Office in Geneva announced.
The United Nations Human Rights Council will hold a special session on Friday on the “grave” situation in Ethiopia at the request of the EU, according to a UN statement issued on Monday.
The Ethiopian government has reacted furiously to the calling of the special session, and described it as an “unjust and counterproductive attempt by some to exert political pressure”.
The UN Council had ignored calls to investigate human rights violations and atrocities by the TPLF in Amhara and Afar province, said Ethiopia’s foreign ministry.
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