Media Roll-up: August 30th-September 7th
Famine
Report: 150 starved to death in Ethiopia's Tigray in August
Cara Anna, September 7th, 2021, The Associated Press
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — A least 150 people starved to death last month in Ethiopia’s embattled Tigray region amid a near-complete blockade of food aid by federal and allied authorities, the Tigray forces say, while close to half a million people face famine conditions.
In Ethiopia, Rebels Stole U.S. Food Aid
Declan Walsh, September 2nd, 2021, The New York Times
The top American aid official in Ethiopia accused forces from Tigray of taking food supplies as Ethiopia's ruinous civil war spills into new areas and a famine threatens.
Politics
From Nobel laureate to global pariah: How the world got Abiy Ahmed and Ethiopia so wrong
Eliza Mackintosh, September 7th, 2021, CNN
"Abiy, Abiy," the crowd chanted, waving Ethiopia's tricolor flag and cheering as the country's new prime minister, dressed in a white blazer with gold trim and smiling broadly, waved to a packed basketball arena at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, part of a whirlwind three-city tour of the United States to woo the diaspora.
Following the Tigray conflict, the rocky road to peace in Ethiopia
The Conversation, September 2nd, 2021
All wars end. So will the Tigray conflict. But when and how will peace come, and will it be sustained? What can we learn from other experiences of war and peace?
Dyer: Without a deal with Tigray, Ethiopia could splinter
Gwynne Dyer, September 7th, 2021, The London Free Press
“We have to deal with anyone who’s still shooting,” said Getachew Reda, spokesperson for the Tigrayan forces, said last month. “If it takes marching to Addis to silence the guns, we will.” In fact, Tigray’s army has already covered about a third of the distance to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital, since it took back its own provincial capital, Mekelle, in late June.
Conflict & Arms
UPDATE 2-Arms flown to Sudan from Ethiopia were legal, says ministry
Reuters, September 6th, 2021
KHARTOUM, Sept 5 (Reuters) - Sudan's interior ministry said on Monday that more than 70 boxes of weapons seized by authorities had turned out to be part of a legal cargo imported by a licensed arms trader.
Men are marched out of prison camps. Then corpses float down the river
Nima Elbagir, Katie Polglase, Barbara Arvanitidis, Gianluca Mezzofiore and Laura Smith-Spark, September 5th, 2021, 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.
'Very brutal': In Ethiopia, Tigray forces accused of abuses
September 3rd. 2021, Associated Press
DEBARK, Ethiopia (AP) — As they bring war to other parts of Ethiopia, resurgent Tigray fighters face growing allegations that they are retaliating for the abuses their people suffered back home.
Ethiopia’s Tigray crisis ‘set to worsen dramatically’: UN
Al Jazeera, September 2nd, 2021
War-hit region facing severe shortage of aid, cash and fuel due to ‘de facto humanitarian aid blockade’, UN says.
Ethiopia's Tigray conflict: Thousands reported killed in clashes
BBC News, September 5th, 2021
Thousands have been reported killed in clashes in northern Ethiopia, as fighting between the military and Tigray rebels continues.
Humanitarian Aid
Ethiopian church says emergency aid to Tigray is disrupted, not suspended
Fredrick Nzwili, September 2nd, 2021, National Catholic Report
NAIROBI, KENYA — The Catholic church in Ethiopia says its operations in the northern state of Tigray have been severely affected, as the war between regional and federal forces disrupts money flow, banking services, fuel and telecommunication.