y
r
Wednesday, March 24, 2021
Ethiopia
Ethiopia's leader on Tuesday said atrocities have been reported in Tigray, his first public acknowledgement of possible war crimes in the country's northern region where fighting persists as government troops hunt down its fugitive leaders.
Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed also admitted, after repeated denials by authorities, that troops from neighbouring Eritrea have gone into Tigray, where their presence has inflicted "damages" on the region's residents.
"Reports indicate that atrocities have been committed in Tigray region," Abiy said in an address before lawmakers in the capital, Addis Ababa.
War is "a nasty thing," he said in Amharic. "We know the destruction this war has caused." He said soldiers who raped women or committed other crimes will be held responsible, even though he cited "propaganda of exaggeration" by the Tigray People's Liberation Front, the once-dominant party whose leaders challenged Abiy's legitimacy after the postponement of elections last year.
Commenting on the reported presence of Eritrean troops in Ethiopia, Abiy said they crossed the border and moved across Tigray, "causing damages to our people ... We won't accept that."
He suggested the Eritrean soldiers are not there with his blessing. "The argument the Eritrean government presents for this is that it is a national security issue because Ethiopian troops are going after [Tigrayan] forces in other locations, so they want to keep controlling border areas," he said. "But they have told us they don't have the willingness to stay as long as we control trenches along the border."
More than 50,000 killed
Abiy spoke as concern continues to grow over the humanitarian situation in the embattled region that is home to six million of Ethiopia's more than 110 million people. Authorities haven't cited a death toll in the war, but a trio of opposition groups based in Tigray say more than 50,000 have been killed.
The United States has characterized some abuses in Tigray as "ethnic cleansing," charges dismissed by Ethiopian authorities as unfounded. The U.S. also has urged Eritrean troops, who are fighting on the side of Ethiopian government forces, to withdraw from Tigray.
Wednesday, March 17, 2021
Friday, March 12, 2021
Mozambique Rebels
Portuguese Defense Minister João Gomes Cravinho | Eric Baradat/AFP via Getty Images
PRESS PLAY TO LISTEN TO THIS ARTICLE
Voiced by Amazon Polly
The EU should consider sending a military training mission to Mozambique to battle Islamist terrorists, Portuguese Defense Minister João Gomes Cravinho told POLITICO in an interview.
Over the past few years, a growing jihadist insurgency has plunged Mozambique’s northernmost province into chaos, with violence surging in the Cabo Delgado region, home to natural gas developments worth about $60 billion. According to some estimates, the death toll has already topped 600.
Cravinho, whose country holds the Council of the EU’s rotating presidency, said that in response, a military training mission “in our view would be something that is very much worth contemplating.” Currently, the EU only provides Mozambique with development and humanitarian assistance.
Mozambique is a former Portuguese colony and the two countries maintain close ties in a number of areas.
In a video interview, Cravinho argued that the situation in Mozambique is “an extension” of the fight against Islamist terrorism taking place in Somalia, a kind of terrorism that “is now making inroads into Northern Mozambique.”
“We understand what’s going on,” he said.
Cravinho said an expanded EU presence in Africa is also what the United States wants, saying the EU ally “legitimately expects European countries to have a more active leadership role in the region.”
Cravinho proposed “a non-executive mission,” similar to the training missions the EU already has in other African countries like Mali, Somalia and the Central African Republic.
“But I would say a smaller one,” he said, because those existing missions “are about really constituting and training and building up the armed forces as a whole.”
Conversely, Cravinho said, in Mozambique, “what we need to do is to create the conditions for the Mozambican military — through special forces, commandos, marines — to establish sovereignty over their own territory. And this is what the Mozambican authorities have asked us.”
The idea has not yet been “discussed amongst the member states at the political level, but we will discuss the subject with our colleagues at the next opportunity,” Cravinho said.
Still, work at a technical level is already underway. The European External Action Service, the bloc’s diplomatic body, has prepared a paper detailing options. “I would expect over the next three, four months for the EU response to crystalize,” Cravinho said.
While the EU deliberates, Lisbon is planning to work with Mozambique on security at a bilateral level: “We will send a staff of approximately 60 trainers to Mozambique to train marines and commandos,” said a Portuguese official.
It’s unclear if the EU has the appetite for such a mission. Critics say that despite EU talk about “strategic autonomy,” member states may not want to increase the bloc’s military presence.
Already, the EU has struggled to fully maintain some of its existing military missions. The EU peacekeeping mission in Bosnia-Herzegovina had problems finding countries willing to replace a few hundred reserve troops the U.K. withdrew following Brexit. And Operation Irini, the EU naval mission in the Central Mediterranean, is continuously asking for more assets that member states are reluctant to provide.
Mozambique
United States lists DR Congo and Mozambique rebels as terrorists
-
Copyright © africanews
ALEXIS HUGUET/AFP or licensors
The United States has designated rebel groups in Mozambique and the Democratic Republic of Congo as foreign terrorist organisations.
The State Department said the DRC's Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) and Madina at Tauheed Wau Mujahedeen were affiliated to the jihadist group Islamic State (ISIS).
It also said Al Ansar al-Sunna, locally known as al-Shabaab in Mozambique, was also affiliated to the Islamic State group.
Read more: UN warns of rising violence in Mozambique's Cabo Delgado
Mozambique's health system is under triple threat
At least 25 people killed in Beni, D.R. Congo
The leaders of the organisations have been named as “specially designated global terrorists”.
As a result of the designations, they will face sanctions.
"Among other consequences, all property and interests in property of those designated that are subject to US jurisdiction are blocked, and US persons are generally prohibited from engaging in any transactions with them," the US state department said in a statement.
"The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) announced the launch of the Islamic State Central Africa Province (ISCAP) in April 2019 to promote the presence of ISISassociated elements within Central, East, and Southern Africa," the statement continued.
"Although ISIS-associated media portray ISCAP as a unified structure, ISIS-DRC and ISIS-Mozambique are distinct groups with distinct origins."
The DRC's ADF and Madina at Tauheed Wau Mujahedeen groups are just two of several rebel groups operating in the east of the country, which is responsible for attacks in North Kivu and Ituri Provinces.
The United Nations said in February at least 849 civilians were killed in ADF attacks last year in North Kivu province.
The DRC's army launched an operation against the ADF in 2019.
In Mozambique, the Ansar al-Sunna group has carried out dozens of attacks in the gas-rich Cabo Delgado province.
More than 1,300 civilians have been killed since October 2017 and almost 67,000 have been displaced, the US State Department said.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Population
Top Dozen
NEWS
HOUR
President uhuru
Commander in Chief