KAMPALA: Allies of Ethiopia’s federal military are looting property and carrying out mass detentions in Tigray, according to eyewitnesses and aid workers.
The accounts raise fresh concern about alleged atrocities more than three weeks after the warring parties signed a truce that diplomats and others hoped would bring an end to suffering in the embattled region that’s home to more than 5 million people.
Tigray is still largely cut off from the rest of Ethiopia, although aid deliveries into the region resumed after the Nov. 2 cease-fire deal signed in South Africa. There’s limited or no access into the region for human rights researchers, making it difficult for journalists and others to obtain information from Tigray as Ethiopian forces continue to assert control of the region.
Eritrean troops and forces from the neighboring Ethiopian region of Amhara — who have been fighting on the side of Ethiopia’s federal military in the Tigray conflict — have looted businesses, private properties, vehicles, and health clinics in Shire, a northwestern town that was captured from Tigray forces last month, two aid workers there told The Associated Press, speaking on condition of anonymity because of safety concerns.
Several young people have been kidnapped by Eritrean troops in Shire, the aid workers said. One said he saw “more than 300” youths being rounded up by Ethiopian federal troops in several waves of mass detentions after the capture of Shire, home to a large number of internally displaced people.
“There are different detention centers around the town,” said the aid worker, who also noted that Ethiopian federal troops were arresting people believed to be “associated” with the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, or TPLF, the political party whose leaders led the war against the federal government.
Civilians accused of aiding Tigray forces are being detained in the southern town of Alamata, according to a resident there who said Amhara forces had arrested several of his friends. A former regional official said Amhara forces are also carrying out “mass” arrests in the town of Korem, around 20 kilometers (12 miles) north of Alamata, and in surrounding rural areas.
Both the Alamata resident and the former regional official, like some others who spoke to AP, requested anonymity because of safety concerns as well as fear of reprisals.
The continuing presence of Eritrean troops in Tigray remains a sore point in the ongoing peace process, and the US has called for their withdrawal from the region.
The military spokesman and government communications minister in Ethiopia didn’t respond to a request for comment. Eritrea’s embassy in Ethiopia also didn’t respond.
Eritrea, which shares a border with Tigray, was not mentioned in the text of the cease-fire deal. The absence of Eritrea from cease-fire negotiations had raised questions about whether that country’s repressive government, which has long considered Tigray authorities a threat, would respect the agreement.
A subsequent implementation accord, signed by military commanders in Kenya, states that the Tigray forces will disband their heavy weapons “concurrently with the withdrawal of foreign and non-(federal) forces from the region.”
Yet aid officials, diplomats and others inside Tigray say Eritrean forces are still active in several areas of Tigray, hurting the peace process. Eritrean troops have been blamed for some of the conflict’s worst abuses, including gang rapes.
Tigrai Television, a regional broadcaster based in the Tigrayan capital of Mekele, reported on Nov. 19 that Eritrean soldiers killed 63 civilians, including 10 children, in an area called Egela in central Tigray. That report cited witnesses including one who said affected communities were being prevented from burying their dead.
Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken discussed the importance of implementing the peace deal, “including the withdrawal of all foreign forces and the concurrent disarmament of the Tigray forces” in a phone call Monday, according to State Department spokesman Ned Price.
Four youths were killed by Eritrean forces in the northwestern Tigray town of Axum on Nov. 17, a humanitarian worker told the AP. “The killings have not stopped despite the peace deal … and it is being carried out in Axum exclusively by Eritrean forces,” the humanitarian worker said.
A statement from Tigray’s communication bureau last week said Eritrea’s military “continues committing horrific atrocities in Tigray.” That statement charged that Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki “is bringing more units into Tigray though (he is) expected to withdraw his troops” following the cease-fire deal.
The brutal fighting, which spilled into the Amhara and Afar regions as Tigray forces pressed toward the federal capital last year, was renewed in August in Tigray after months of lull.
Tigray is in the grip of a dire humanitarian crisis after two years of restrictions on aid. These restrictions prompted a UN panel of experts to conclude that Ethiopia’s government probably used “starvation as a method of warfare” against the region.
Ethiopian authorities have long denied targeting civilians in Tigray, saying their goal is to apprehend the region’s rebellious leaders.
Despite the African Union-led cease-fire, basic services such as phone, electricity and banking are still switched off in most parts of Tigray. The US estimates hundreds of thousands of people could have been killed in the war marked by abuses on all sides.
The cease-fire deal requires federal authorities to facilitate “unhindered humanitarian access” to Tigray. The World Food Program said Friday it had sent 96 trucks of food and fuel to Tigray since the agreement although access to parts of central and eastern Tigray remains “constrained.”
Unhindered access into Tigray has not yet been granted despite the number of trucks going into the region, with several restrictions remaining in place, an aid worker said Friday. There are limits on the amount of cash humanitarian organizations can take into Tigray, while checkpoints and military commanders impede the movements of aid workers within the region, the aid worker said.
Kidnappings, looting cited in Ethiopia’s Tigray after truce
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Kidnappings, looting cited in Ethiopia’s Tigray after truce
A resort entirely staffed and run by women in Sri Lanka seeks to break gender barriers
She has since worked in different hotels in a career spanning over two decades. Now 42, she is in charge of Sri Lanka’s first resort fully operated and managed by women. It’s an attempt to address gender disparities in a male-dominated tourism sector crucial for the country’s economic recovery after a major crisis.
“This is a place where women can realize their potential. They will not be inside the shell. Instead, they will come out and try to perform better,” said Adikari, who oversees the daily operations of Amba Yaalu, a resort located in Dambulla city that serves as a gateway to most of Sri Lanka’s tourist attractions.
Most Sri Lankan women don’t get a chance to work in the tourism industry, earn money and own a career. In a country where 52 percent of the 22 million people are women, they account for only about 10 percent of the 200,000-strong workforce in the hospitality sector.
Amba Yaalu wants to be the driver of change
Some 160 kilometers (100 miles) northeast of Colombo, the resort is nestled in a mango plantation and all work is managed by 75 women staff who garden, work in the kitchens, clean the facility, address the guests and provide security in form of seven ex-military members. The resort’s facilities also include training programs for women to develop their skills in different areas of hospitality.
The resort opened in January and has been seen as a move unlocking women’s potential and driving the tourism economy in the debt-stricken nation.
The idea was conceived by seasoned hotelier Chandra Wickramasinghe, who said he was “inspired by the power of women,” especially that of his mother who raised him and and his seven siblings as a single parent.
“I knew what these ladies can do. I got the idea and put my team to work on it. We got a strong team to run it and it worked very well,” said Wickramasinghe, adding that the resort would enable women to thrive as leaders.
Social stigma, language barrier, work-life balance, lack of training facilities and low salaries have long kept majority of Sri Lankan women away from the hospitality industry, especially those in the rural areas, said Suranga Silva, professor of tourism economics in the University of Colombo.
Much of this stems from a patriarchal structure and traditional gender roles deeply embedded in Sri Lanka’s society, even though many women have made their mark in the country’s politics and have held key positions in the government. The island nation’s current prime minister, Harini Amarasuriya, is a woman.
“Tourism industry can’t be isolated from women,” said Silva, adding that women employment in Sri Lanka’s tourism is very low compared to the global and regional levels.
Lack of women professionals
Sri Lanka’s tourism and hospitality sector contributed 2.3 percent to the country’s economy in 2023 — down from 5 percent in 2018 — and the industry has traditionally been the country’s third largest foreign exchange earner. But the shortage of skilled women and some of them leaving jobs after getting married have challenges faced by the industry since the 2019 Easter Sunday bombings and the coronavirus pandemic.
Kaushalya Batagoda, the executive chef at the resort, said the industry faces a shortage of female professionals to serve in the kitchen and as a result, most the staff recruited to the resort’s kitchen were freshers who are still in training.
“But, the new generation has a passion for working in the kitchen,” she said, adding that she gets a lot of applications from women seeking jobs in the kitchen.
The resort has been lauded by women rights activists who have long been concerned about limited career choices of women and their mobility in Sri Lanka.
Women rights activist Sepali Kottegoda said such business enterprises can “open up more safe employment opportunities for women.”
Silva, the professor, said that “a dramatic change” is taking place as more young women are eager to join the industry, but suggested that the government and the sector must jointly provide training programs for women to improve their skills and employability.
At Amba Yaalu resort, some of these concerns are already being tackled.
“This is purely to empower women,” Adikari said. “We invite women to come and join us, see whether they can perform better in the career, sharpen their capacities and skills and contribute to the industry.”
Shooting at Toronto pub wounds 11 people, police say
- Suspect remained at large and police said they did not have a description shortly after the shooting
TORONTO: A shooting at a pub in east Toronto left 11 people wounded, police said.
A city spokesperson said 11 adults suffered injuries ranging from minor to critical in the shooting Friday night near the Scarborough Town Center mall.
A suspect remained at large and police said they did not have a description shortly after the shooting.
Congo refugees pour into Burundi, conditions dire, says UN
- Conditions extremely harsh at Rugombo stadium, UN says
- Pro-government fighters in Congo Pro-govt fighters kill 35 civilians
GENEVA: Conflict in Congo has sent 63,000 refugees fleeing to neighboring Burundi in its largest such influx in decades, with conditions dire at a crammed stadium camp and many stuck in fields outside, the UN said on Friday.
About 45,000 displaced people are sheltering in a crowded open-air stadium in Rugombo, a few km (miles) from the border with Democratic Republic of Congo where the Congolese army and M23 rebel group are fighting.
“The situation is absolutely dire. Conditions are extremely harsh,” Faith Kasina, the regional spokesperson for East and Horn of Africa and Great Lakes, told reporters in Geneva.
“The stadium is literally bursting at its seams and there is no additional space for shelter.”
Sanitary conditions inside the stadium are said to be poor with only 10 to 15 stalls of latrines for tens of thousands of people. Many families are being forced to camp in open fields nearby, according to the agency.
“Numbers keep swelling, it’s a race against time to try and save lives,” said Kasina, adding that the needs are fast outpacing the aid being provided.
The refugees include a large number of unaccompanied children separated from their families, the agency says.
On 21 February, UNHCR told a press briefing in Geneva that it would seek to move people from the stadium. However logistical challenges mean it takes six to eight hours to move large numbers of people to the Musenyi refugee site in southern Burundi. That site, which can host 10,000 people, is now 60 percent full, according to the agency.
The agency has urged countries to contribute to its emergency appeal for $40.4 million for lifesaving help to support the potential influx of 258,000 refugees into Burundi, Tanzania and Zambia.
The M23 advance is the gravest escalation in more than a decade of the long-running conflict in eastern Congo, rooted in the spillover of Rwanda’s 1994 genocide into Congo and the struggle for control of Congo’s vast mineral resources.
Rwanda rejects allegations by Congo, the United Nations and Western powers that it supports M23 with arms and troops. It says it is defending itself against the threat from a Hutu militia, which it says is fighting with the Congolese military.
Burundi has had its own soldiers in eastern Congo for years, initially to hunt down Burundian rebels there, but more recently, to aid in the fight against M23.
Pro-govt fighters kill 35 civilians
Meanwhile, at least 35 people were killed when pro-government militia attacked a village in the restive eastern DRC, local and security sources said on Friday.
The attack happened at about 3:00 am (0100 GMT) Thursday in the village of Tambi, in the Masisi area of North Kivu province controlled by the M23 armed group.
A security source told AFP that at least 35 people were killed in the attack, while local sources and an eyewitness put the death toll at more than 40.
A community leader and a medical source said villagers had recently returned to the area after having fled fighting between the M23 and the Congolese army and local militia.
“The ‘wazalendo’ (patriots in Swahili) militia went to attack Tambi where residents had started to return... they opened fire and civilians were killed,” said one community leader, who said 43 people died.
“They put some victims in a church and then shot them. Those who were in the fields were killed there.”
The community leader, a local health worker and a local resident said another group of civilians sought refuge in a house and died when the militia set it on fire.
“We counted 47 bodies in the morning,” the resident said, adding that they were buried in a communal grave.
Some of the victims were unable to be identified because of their burns, he added.
Different groups make up the militia, which has fought alongside the Congolese army against the M23. Their fighters are often accused of attacking civilians.
The M23, which according to UN experts is backed by some 4,000 Rwandan soldiers, is also accused of abuses.
The armed group resumed its fight against the government in Kinshasa in 2021 and has since seized swathes of territory in North Kivu, which borders Rwanda.
A lightning offensive in recent weeks has seen it capture the provincial capital, Goma, and Bukavu, the main city in the neighboring province of South Kivu.
The DRC’s mineral-rich east has been ravaged for three decades by conflict and atrocities.
Scientists rally in US cities to protest Trump cuts and attack on science
WASHINGTON: Scientists rallied in cities across the United States on Friday to denounce efforts by the administration of US President Donald Trump to eliminate key staff across multiple agencies and curb life-saving research.
Since Trump returned to the White House, his government has cut federal research funding, withdrawn from the World Health Organization and the Paris Climate Agreement, and sought to dismiss hundreds of federal workers working on health and climate research.
In response, researchers, doctors, students, engineers and elected officials took to the streets in New York, Washington, Boston, Chicago and Madison, Wisconsin to vent their fury at what they see as an unprecedented attack on science.
“I have never been so angry,” said Jesse Heitner, a researcher at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, who joined more than 1,000 people demonstrating in the US capital.
“They’re lighting everything on fire,” Heitner told AFP at the Lincoln Memorial.
He felt particularly incensed about the appointment of noted vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr as the head of the Department of Health and Human Services.
“If you put someone in charge of NASA who’s a ‘Flat Earther,’ that’s not okay,” he said.
“Fund science, not billionaires” and “America was built on science,” read some of the signs brandished at the Washington protest.
“What’s happening now is unprecedented,” said Grover, a university researcher in his 50s who declined to provide further personal details due to professional constraints.
Dressed in a white lab coat and wielding a pink sign that read “Stand Up for Science,” he told AFP his employer had urged staff to keep a low profile, fearing financial retribution in the form of suspended or canceled federal grants.
“I’ve been around research over 30 years, and what’s going on has never happened,” he said, adding that the “inexcusable” actions by the federal government would have “long-term repercussions.”
Many researchers told AFP about their fears about the future of their grants and other funding.
The suspension of some grants has already led some universities to reduce the number of students accepted into doctoral programs or research positions.
For those just getting started in their careers, the concern is palpable.
“I should be at home studying, instead of having to be here defending my right to have a job,” said Rebecca Glisson, a 28-year-old doctoral student in neuroscience.
Glisson is due to defend her thesis at her program in Maryland next week, but feels apprehensive about her future beyond that, as funding for the laboratory she had planned to work for has been cut.
Chelsea Gray, a 34-year-old environmental scientist working on shark preservation, had dreamed of working for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, one of the federal agencies under particular threat over its climate research.
Instead, she has begun the process of obtaining an Irish passport.
“I did everything right and set myself up for success, and I’ve watched my entire career path crumble before my eyes,” Gray told AFP.
“I want to stay and serve the United States as a United States citizen,” she said.
“But if that option is not available to me, I need to keep all doors open.”
Faced with Russia, EU’s defense must include Turkiye
- “Sales to European countries, particularly EU members, add credibility to Turkiye’s argument it is an important player in European security,” said IISS expert Tom Waldyn
- For Nebahat Tanriverdi Yasar, an independent researcher and policy analyst who works in Ankara and Berlin, Turkiye’s careful management of its ties with both Kyiv and Moscow has left it in a unique position
ISTANBUL: Turkiye, with NATO’s second-largest army and a Black Sea coastline, is looking to play a key role in Europe’s security after Washington’s pivot away from the region.
After two rounds of crisis talks on Ukraine and security following Washington’s change of policy, Ankara has been quick to warn that European defenses cannot be ensured without its involvement.
“It is inconceivable to establish European security without Turkiye,” President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said after Sunday’s London summit.
Without Turkiye, “it is becoming increasingly impossible for Europe to continue its role as a global actor,” he added.
A senior Turkish defense ministry returned to the issue on Thursday.
“With the security parameters being reshaped due to recent developments, it is impossible to ensure European security without Turkiye,” he said.
Even so, he said Turkiye would be ready to deploy troops to Ukraine as part of a peacekeeping mission “if deemed necessary.”
Ankara has consistently defended Ukraine’s territorial integrity since Russia’s 2022 invasion and supplied it with combat drones and naval vessels.
But it has also maintained good ties with Russia and remains the only NATO member not to have joined the sanctions against Moscow.
With its unique position between the two warring parties, Turkiye has repeatedly offered to host peace talks.
Erdogan and Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan have often received visitors such as Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky.
In recent years, Turkiye has considerably developed its defense industries, with exports growing by 29 percent to reach $7.1 billion in 2024, placing it 11th in global defense exports, Erdogan said in January.
Driving its success are the Bayraktar TB2 drones which have been sold to more than 25 nations, among them Poland and Romania, according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies’ Military Balance survey.
“Sales to European countries, particularly EU members, add credibility to Turkiye’s argument it is an important player in European security,” said IISS expert Tom Waldyn.
Its military, strategically located on the eastern flank of the Atlantic Alliance and south of the Black Sea — to which it controls access via the Bosphorus — counts 373,200 active troops and another 378,700 reservists, IISS figures show.
And these troops have been engaged in regular combat in northeastern Syria and northern Iraq fighting Kurdish insurgents, according to a Western diplomat.
“Turkiye has maintained a consistent attitude in line with the UN Charter on the sovereignty and territorial integrity” of Ukraine, he told AFP.
“It has the second largest military in NATO but also the most effective as it’s been in combat for decades,” he explained.
But EU cooperation with Ankara has been hampered by the Cyprus dispute, he said with a trace of exasperation.
“How long can we afford to continue this stance?“
For Nebahat Tanriverdi Yasar, an independent researcher and policy analyst who works in Ankara and Berlin, Turkiye’s careful management of its ties with both Kyiv and Moscow has left it in a unique position.
“Turkiye aims to carefully navigate its relations with Russia and its strategic defense support to Ukraine — potentially with EU backing — to reshape the balance of power in the region amid the emergence of a ‘new order’ where the EU seeks to assume greater responsibility for its security amid shifting US policies,” she told AFP.
Given the challenges that entailed, Ankara was “likely to pursue a pragmatic approach in the short term, focusing on expanding its mediation efforts, deepening defense cooperation with select European states, and leveraging its defense industry to address emerging gaps in military support,” she added.
But Sumbul Kaya, a political scientist in France argued that Turkiye was “above all, driven by a desire to defend its own interests.
“It only intervenes in neighboring countries for internal security reasons, such as in Syria and Iraq,” she said.
“But there’s no question of sending troops to fight wars everywhere — that would not go down well with the population.
“This crisis is an opportunity to stress that Turkiye is both a NATO member and a candidate for membership in the EU.”
