Media Roll-up: June 7th-June 13th
Elections
US ‘gravely concerned’ ahead of elections in Ethiopia
Al Jazeera, June 12th, 2021
Washington says ethnic violence and detentions of opposition figures will raise doubts about the vote’s credibility.
Ethiopia postpones vote in two regions citing irregularities
Reuters, June 11th, 2021
Ethiopia’s electoral board announced on Thursday that elections in two regional states would be postponed, citing irregularities and problems with the printing of ballot papers.
Ethiopia election: Will delayed polls mirror those of the past?
Zecharias Zelalem, June 8th, 2021, Al Jazeera
Gov’t says June 21 vote will be a break away from previous polls but critics say process is not free and fair.
Famine
Famine Hits 350,000 in Ethiopia, Worst-Hit Country in a Decade
Rick Gladstone, June 10th, 2021, The New York Times
United Nations agencies said the crisis in Ethiopia's conflict-ravaged Tigray region had plunged it into famine. ''This is going to get a lot worse,'' a top aid official said.
Similar Articles:
UPDATE 4-About 350,000 people in Ethiopia's Tigray in famine -U.N. analysis (Reuters)
350,000 people in famine conditions in Ethiopia’s Tigray (Al Jazeera)
Over 30,000 children risk death in Tigray due to famine: UN
Al Jazeera, June 11th, 2021
The children are in hard-to-reach areas of the conflict-wracked northern region in Ethiopia, according to the UN.
Ethiopia heading for repeat of its historic famine of 1980s, diplomats warn
Geoffrey York, June 11th, 2021, The Globe and Mail
A new analysis by United Nations agencies and other aid groups has estimated that 350,000 people in northern Ethiopia have fallen into famine conditions because of the prolonged Tigray war.
'There is famine in Ethiopia right now,' says UN aid chief
Nima Elbagir & Eleanor Pickston, June 10th, 2021, CNN
Over 350,000 people in Ethiopia's conflict-ravaged Tigray region are experiencing dire hunger, finds a new report by the United Nations and other aid groups.
Ethiopia's Tigray crisis: Tragedy of the man-made famine
Alex de Waal, June 11th, 2021, BBC News
"There's famine now in Tigray." The world's most senior humanitarian official, UN emergency relief coordinator Mark Lowcock, said these frank words on the situation in the northern Ethiopian region on Thursday.
In Tigray, food is often a weapon of war as famine looms
Rodney Muhumuza, June 11th, 2021, Associated Press
ABI ADI, Ethiopia (AP) — First the Eritrean soldiers stole the pregnant woman’s food as she hid in the bush. Then they turned her away from a checkpoint when she was on the verge of labor.
Eritrea
EXCLUSIVE-UN official accuses Eritrean forces of deliberately starving Tigray
Katharine Houreld & Giulia Paravinci, June 11th, 2021, Reuters
ADIGRAT/ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia, June 11 (Reuters) - The northern highlands of Ethiopia became a global byword for famine in the mid-1980s, when drought and conflict combined to create a disaster that killed as many as one million people. Now hunger is stalking the Tigray region again, and a senior UN official alleges that starvation is being used as a weapon of war.
Eritrea blames the US for ‘destabilization’ in Ethiopia’s Tigray
Al Jazeera, June 8th, 2021
Eritrean foreign minister accuses Biden administration of ‘stoking… conflict and destabilisation’ in Ethiopia’s north.
United States
UPDATE 2-U.S. pushes U.N. Security Council to publicly address Ethiopia's Tigray
Michelle Nichols & Daphne Psaledakis, June 10th, 2021, Reuters
June 10 (Reuters) - U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield on Thursday pushed for the U.N. Security Council to meet publicly on Ethiopia's conflict-torn Tigray region, where hundreds of thousands of people are suffering from famine.
UPDATE 1-U.S. provides over $181 million to avert famine in Tigray, Ethiopia
Reuters, June 9th, 2021
WASHINGTON, June 9 (Reuters) - The United States is providing more than $181 million to deliver food, water and aid to feed more than three million people it said were facing famine in the Tigray region of Ethiopia, where thousands have been killed since conflict erupted in November.
Politics
Ethiopia tries to pre-empt G7 criticism over Tigray
David M. Herszenhorn, June 12th, 2021, POLITICO
FALMOUTH, England — As G7 leaders prepared to rebuke the Ethiopian government over its handling of a military conflict in the Tigray region, the country’s foreign minister on Saturday landed a preemptive blow.
Pope demands food aid reach starving people of Tigray
Independent, June 13th, 2021, Associated Press
Pope Francis is demanding that humanitarian aid reach hungry people in the war-torn Tigray region of northern Ethiopia, where Ethiopian and Eritrean soldiers are blocking food and other assistance
EU and US call on humanitarian access to Ethiopia’s Tigray region
The Brussels Times, June 13th, 2021
In a joint statement ahead of US president Joe Biden’s visit in Brussels this week (13 – 15 June), the EU and the US draw attention to the humanitarian crisis in Tigray where hostilities between the central government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) erupted last year.
Tigray: The Weeknd takes part in US government meeting on ‘devastating’ Ethiopia crisis
Peony Hirwani, June 10th, 2021, Independent
Pop artist The Weeknd participated in a USAID government meeting where he was briefed about emergency response to the “devastating” crisis in Tigray, Ethiopia.
NGOs Call for UN Human Rights Council Resolution on Tigray
Human Rights Watch, June 11th, 2021
To Permanent Representatives of Member and Observer States of the United Nations Human Rights Council (Geneva, Switzerland).
Crimes Against Humanity
SPECIAL REPORT-How ethnic killings exploded from an Ethiopian town
Reuters, June 7th, 2021
June 7 (Reuters) - The screams of the dying gradually fell silent as the sky darkened. Around midnight, Berhane Gebrezigher, an ethnic Tigrayan, remembers lying in a ditch full of men who, like himself, had been shot and left for dead. He called out: "Is there anyone breathing?"
GRAPHIC-Witnesses to slaughter: The conflict in Ethiopia
Reuters, June 7th, 2021
June 7 (Reuters) - In November last year, fighting erupted in Ethiopia's Tigray region between the rebellious Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) and the army. Within days, reports emerged of communal killings in a farming town called Mai Kadra, in western Tigray.