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EEPA Situation Report Horn of Africa No. 270, 16 September 2022

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Written by: https://martinplaut.com/2022/09/16/eepa-situation-report-horn-of-africa-no-270-16-september-2022/
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Date: 16/09/2022Author: Martin Plaut 0 Comments

Situation in Eritrea (per 16 September)

  • Eritrea is mobilising its reservists up to the age 55  to reinforce the army along the common border with the Tigray region. Sources told the BBC that the reservists were sent to the front lines on Thursday 15 September. 
  • Raids have been conducted recently in many parts of Eritrea by the security forces to round up people for the army and to check whether stragglers have valid exemptions for military conscription, says the BBC.
  • Many in the capital of Asmara  were taken to the frontline within hours. Reservists in other parts of the country were also called to report to their main offices.
  • Sources in the country indicate that the call affects all people without exception, including staff guarding UN offices, and that failing to do so may lead to family members being thrown out of their houses or family members being detained.
  • Tigray spokesperson Getachew Reda is accusing Ethiopia of sending more of its troops to Eritrea.

    Read more: EEPA Situation Report Horn of Africa No. 270, 16 September 2022

Catholic Bishops in Ethiopia “deeply saddened” By Resumption of Fighting in Tigray

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Written by: https://www.aciafrica.org/news/6598/catholic-bishops-in-ethiopia-deeply-saddened-by-resumption-of-fighting-in-tigray
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Members of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of Ethiopia (CBCE). Credit: CBCE

By Silas Isenjia

Tigray, 04 September, 2022 / 10:20 am (ACI Africa).

Members of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of Ethiopia (CBCE) have expressed their sadness in the wake of renewed violence in the Northern region of the Horn of Africa nation.

In a Friday, September 2 statement shared with ACI Africa, the Catholic Bishops make reference to their frequent appeals for peace in the region since November 2020 when the war started, and say that many lives have already been lost as a result of the resumption of fighting.  

“The Ethiopian Catholic Church, by her own and jointly with other religious institutes, has frequently called for all parties to avail for peace regarding the war in northern Ethiopia. We are deeply saddened to note that the war has resumed in the area,” CBCE members say.

They add, “Many lives have been lost, and assets destroyed in the war so far. Due to the scars left by the war, especially children, women and the elderly have been subjected to crisis.”

Media reports indicate that fighting has erupted between forces from Ethiopia’s Northern region of Tigray and those of the central government around the town of Kobo, ending a months-long ceasefire.

 

Eritrean Authorities Seize Control of Catholic-Owned School, Set to Take Over Another

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Written by: https://www.aciafrica.org/news/6556/eritrean-authorities-seize-control-of-catholic-owned-school-set-to-take-over-another
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Entrance to Hagaz Agro-Technical School (HATS) in Eritrea. Credit: Courtesy Photo

By Silas Isenjia

Asmara, 28 August, 2022 / 10:00 pm (ACI Africa).

The government of Eritrea has taken over the Hagaz Agro-Technical School (HATS), a Catholic learning institution that the Brothers of the Christian Schools (LaSalle Brothers) established and have been running, an August 24 BBC report indicates.

In the BBC report, sources who maintained anonymity told BBC that Don Bosco Technical School in Dekemhare in Eritrea is “another Catholic-owned training college to be handed over to the government in September” this year.

Read more: Eritrean Authorities Seize Control of Catholic-Owned School, Set to Take Over Another

EEPA Situation Report No. 255 – 26 August 2022

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Written by: https://martinplaut.com/2022/08/26/eepa-situation-report-no-255-26-august-2022/
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Date: 26/08/2022Author: Martin Plaut 0 Comments

Situation in Tigray (per 26 August)

  • The federal government of Ethiopia bombarded Mekelle on 26 August at 12pm, according to several sources. The airstrikes reportedly hit a kindergarten, killing and injuring civilians including children. 17 people died as of yet, and more casualties are said to be arriving.
  • Earlier on 26 August, the federal government issued a statement strongly advising the people of Tigray to keep their distance from areas where TDF military equipment is located. It accuses the TDF of continuing their attack while the federal government says it has left an “open door” for peace talks.
  • The statement says the federal government remains open to peace negotiations, but will take military action against the TDF. The federal government spokesperson did not respond to Reuters inquiries regarding the bombing.
  • Residents in the Amhara’s Kobo area told Reuters that fighting has intensified for a second day on the Southern border of the Tigray region. A farmer told reuters that “[they] are frequently hearing the sound of heavy weapons, more than the previous days,”  
  • He added that: “more troops including those from the Ethiopian National Defence Force (ENDF), local militias and Fanos (volunteer militia) are heading to the front.”
  • Leul Mesfin, Medical Director of Dessie Hospital, also told Reuters that as of Thursday the facility had not received any casualties from the fighting.
  • The World Health Organization (WHO) Chief, Tedros Adhanom said that he has relatives in Tigray he cannot communicate with or send money to amid a 22-month blockade by government forces.
  • He also said the humanitarian crisis in Tigray was exceptionally bad because the region is cut off from the world by government forces of Ethiopia and Eritrean forces. “Can you tell me any place in the same situation in the world?” Tedros said.
  • The Tigray External Affairs Office issued a statement on 25 August saying they “are profoundly disturbed by WFP Executive Director David Beasley’s unhelpful public outburst” and denounce the false allegations.
  • They urge the WFP to honour the agreements made and to publicly set the record straight. The receipt of the loan has been made public on social media.
  • Aklilu Hailemichael, representative of the Tigray regional government to Europe, says that Abiy Ahmed used the peace negotiations to gain time to launch a new offensive against Tigray.
  • He accuses Abiy of not keeping his promises, including to lift the siege of Tigray. He finds that this proves that Abiy Ahmed “never had genuine interest in peace”.

    Read more: EEPA Situation Report No. 255 – 26 August 2022

Appeal to the Swiss Authorities to cancel PFDJ festival

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Written by: https://eritreahub.org/appeal-to-the-swiss-authorities-to-cancel-pfdj-festival
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From: Collective of the Eritrean Community in Switzerland Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

To: Conference of Cantonal Directors for Justice and Police (KKJPD) Haus der Kantone

Speichergasse 6, P.O. Box CH-3001 Berne

Bern, 22 August 2022

Subject: Planned propaganda event of the Eritrean regime in Switzerland Honourable members of the Conference of Directors for Justice and Police

Honourable members of the Conference of Directors for Justice and Police.

By this letter, we would like to draw your attention to the so-called “Eritrea Festival”, which is being organised every summer under the guise of a “cultural event” at the behest of the Eritrean regime not only in Switzerland, but in numerous other European countries as well.

By organising concerts with musicians who enjoy a certain degree of fame among the Eritrean public, the regime of President Isaias Afewerki manages to attract the members of the diaspora; the main aim is, however, to be able to spread its political messages of war and hatred. Anti-Western and, more recently, pro-Russian propaganda are also part of the repertoire of the various speakers, who include not only high-ranking representatives of the YPFDJ, but also members of President Isaias Afewerki’s cabinet. In 2018, for example, Foreign Minister Osman Saleh incited government supporters with anti-Western propaganda.[1]

Read more: Appeal to the Swiss Authorities to cancel PFDJ festival

UN Report: Human Rights Situation in Eritrea Dips to New Low

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By NDT Bureau

 

A U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in Eritrea has issued a report critical of the deteriorating situation there, noting forced military conscription, arbitrary arrests, disappearances and torture among the violations recorded.

In a report submitted to the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva, Mohamed Abdelsalam Babiker said Eritrea’s involvement in the armed conflict in neighboring Ethiopia shines a light on the impact of the Eritrean government’s system of indefinite national military service. He described the rights situation as dire.

Those who attempt to evade the draft, he said, are imprisoned in inhuman and degrading conditions for indefinite periods of time.

Read more: UN Report: Human Rights Situation in Eritrea Dips to New Low

Men are marched out of prison camps. Then corpses float down the river

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Written by: CNN
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By Nima Elbagir, Katie Polglase, Barbara Arvanitidis, Gianluca Mezzofiore and Laura Smith-Spark, CNN

Updated 1320 GMT (2120 HKT) September 5, 2021

A body recovered from the Setit River is carried by stretcher to a boat.

Wad El Hilou, Sudan (CNN)The ghostly outlines of limbs emerge through the mist along the Setit River in eastern Sudan. As the river's path narrows, the drifting bodies become wedged on the silty clay bank and their forms appear more clearly; men, women, teenagers and even children. 

The marks of torture are easily visible on some, their arms held tightly behind their backs.
On a trip to Wad El Hilou, a Sudanese town near the border with Ethiopia, a CNN team counted three bodies in one day. Witnesses and local authorities in Sudan confirmed that in the days after the team's departure, 11 more bodies arrived downstream.
Evidence indicates the dead are Tigrayans. Witnesses on the ground say the bodies tell a dark story of mass detentions and mass executions across the border in Humera, a town in Ethiopia's Tigray region.
CNN has spoken with dozens of witnesses collecting the bodies in Sudan, as well as international and local forensic experts and people trapped and hiding in Humera, to reveal what appears to be a new phase of ethnic cleansing in Ethiopia's war.

Read more: Men are marched out of prison camps. Then corpses float down the river

'Practically this has been a genocide'

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Doctors say rape is being used as a weapon of war in Ethiopia's conflict

By Bethlehem Feleke, Eliza Mackintosh, Gianluca Mezzofiore, Katie Polglase, Nima Elbagir, Barbara Arvanitidis and Alex Platt, CNN

Updated 1100 GMT (1900 HKT) March 20, 2021

 Hamdayet, Sudan -- More evidence of sexual violence being used as a deliberate weapon of war is emerging from Ethiopia's northern Tigray region, where an armed conflict has been raging for months.
Women are being gang-raped, drugged and held hostage, according to medical records and testimonies from survivors shared with CNN. In one case a woman's vagina was stuffed with stones, nails and plastic, according to a video seen by CNN and testimony from one of the doctors who treated her.
CNN has spoken with nine doctors in Ethiopia and one in a Sudanese refugee camp who say they've seen an alarming increase in sexual assault and rape cases since Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed launched a military operation against leaders in Tigray, sending in national troops and fighters from the country's Amhara region. Forces from neighboring Eritrea are participating in the military campaign on the side of Ethiopia's government, as CNN has previously reported.

Read more: 'Practically this has been a genocide'

  1. The Eritrean Political Forces Towards Crafting Grand Strategy
  2. Ethiopia’s War Leads to Ethnic Cleansing in Tigray Region, U.S. Report Says
  3. Urgent call to protect and save Eritrean refugees in the Tigray Region and other Parts of Ethiopia from abduction, killing, and forced repatriation to the war zone
  4. Ethiopian Forces Battle Tigrayans as Refugees Head to Sudan

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