Calling attention to Tigray, again
and the African Union Summit
Hi there,
I’m sending out this week’s edition of Sifter from Nairobi, Kenya, where the Africa Media Festival is taking place. I’ll be talking about Sifter - this newsletter on Ethiopia - and get to hear about the journey of other innovators and professionals in the media space. I’m desperately looking forward to some dose of inspiration, and I’ll include highlights from the festival in next week’s edition. If you’re attending, come say hi : )
For new subscribers, welcome, I’m Maya Misikir, and I’m the freelance reporter who writes this newsletter.
Now, to the news.
Food: nearing a catastrophe
Over the past few months, I have been writing updates on the precarious food security in Ethiopia’s Tigray region. There are many reasons behind the current crisis in Tigray; a two-year war, humanitarian aid blockades, drought, and then an eight-month freeze on all food aid following an investigation by aid agencies that revealed food was being stolen.
I went to Tigray in January and wrote a story on how food aid has restarted in the region (after new mechanisms were put in place) but that there were still millions who were not receiving much-needed support.
So what’s the news system in place? Here’s an excerpt from the story:
So-called “vulnerability-based targeting”, the new food distribution system, replaces the old beneficiary lists historically controlled by the federal and regional governments. It’s a community-driven approach, wholly overseen by the aid agencies, with GPS tracking on food trucks among the additional measures aimed at enhancing security.
So, is this new system working? A senior UN manager says that it’s ‘complex’, and that ‘it is taking longer than anticipated.’
How does that translate for the people of the region who need food urgently? Here’s another excerpt on what’s happening in the town of Indaba Ts’ahma, in central Tigray:
“The number of deaths is increasing because people’s resistance has been worn down after two years of war,” local administrator Zemkel Gebreselassie told The New Humanitarian. “They were able to resist for so long, but they can’t go on much longer.”
The full story, which goes into detail about the reform that came after the food theft, why it’s not working as smoothly as intended, and what farmers are doing to cope in this difficult time (including selling their cattle), here.
AU Summit: some highlights
The 37th African Union Summit took place last weekend in Addis Abeba, Ethiopia at the African Union headquarters with African heads of state present.
One in particular, the president of Somalia, President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud said that Ethiopian security personnel tried to bar him and his delegation from entering the grounds, in what he called a, ‘growing list of erratic actions by the Ethiopian government’.
Here’s an excerpt from the story on VOA:
Ethiopia hosts the African Union headquarters, and Mohamud — leading a delegation from the Somalia government — went there to attend the AU summit at a time when both countries already are at odds over a controversial maritime pact between Ethiopia and Somaliland.
"Given that Ethiopia hosts the African Union headquarters, its leadership and government have an obligation to treat all African leaders equally," the Somali government statement said.
If you aren’t up to date on the deterioration of relations between Ethiopia and Somalia, following the ‘controversial maritime pact’ between Ethiopia and Somaliland, go here for a full breakdown.
Also present at the summit was Palestinian Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh. He addressed the leaders, who in turn have, ‘condemned Israel’s offensive in Gaza and called for its immediate end’, according to a story by the Associated Press.
The full story on VOA here and AP here.
Security: we don’t know her (XVII)
In this seventeenth-part series on the security situation in Ethiopia’s Amhara region, I have included a follow-up report on the reported killings in the town of Merawi from last week.
The Ethiopian Human Rights Commission says that it has launched an investigation into this, and in its findings so far, 45 people have been killed by government security forces (they were accused of being Fano supporters).
The report says that 18 of these people killed were identified as daily laborers who were on their way to work and who had taken shelter in the same place when they heard gunshots. In East and West Gojam, government security forces have gone around conducting house-to-house searches and killing 21 people including women, it adds.
An unknown number of people suspected of being Fano fighters have also been taken away and later killed said the Commission. It prefaced its report by saying that it was not a full investigation as it was difficult to get all the necessary information.
The Ethiopian government, on its part, says that the military acted in “self-defense” according to a story in Addis Standard.
The compiled list of updates on security in the Amhara region here, the full report by the Commission in Amharic here, and the story on Addis Standard here.
Finance: let’s talk Bitcoin, again
In last week’s edition, I included a major update on how Bitcoin miners were flocking to Ethiopia (‘cheap’ electricity and a forex crunch, a deadly combo). You can read the full update here.
Since then, the Ethiopian government announced that it had ‘signed a preliminary agreement to develop infrastructure for data mining and artificial intelligence training operation’ according to a story on Reuter.
Here’s an excerpt:
Ethiopian Investment Holdings (EIH) initially said in a social media post on Thursday that a memorandum of understanding for a $250 million project had been signed with a subsidiary of Hong Kong-based West Data Group, but it later removed references to the value of the deal and the identity of the company.
I’m keeping this update relatively brief, but I think it’s worth following developments in this space very closely.
The full story on Reuters here.
Health: more reshuffles
A lot of you already know by now that there is a new health minister for Ethiopia. Dr. Mekdes Daba replaced the former minister of health, Dr. Lia Tadesse on February 8 after parliament approved her appointment by the Prime Minister.
During that same parliamentary session, the deputy prime minister (Temesgen Tiruneh) and foreign minister (Taye Atske Selassie) were also approved. I wrote an update earlier on the stark differences between the new and outgoing deputy prime minister. You can read more on that here.
Political opposition parties say that these appointments are for ‘consolidating loyalty’, according to a story by The Reporter.
Here’s an excerpt from that story on other new posts:
“The reshuffle also included the appointment of Redwan Hussein, security advisor to the Prime Minister, as the new head of the NISS, and Tigist Hamid, former deputy director of the Information Network Security Agency (INSA), was promoted to lead the government’s cybersecurity agency.”
The story of the appointments here and a breakdown of the reshuffles here, both on The Reporter.
Was this forwarded to you by someone? Then hit the button below to subscribe and get free weekly updates.
That’s all for this week. I’ll be back next week with more updates!
In the meantime, you can help support my work by forwarding this to friends and family (and help them keep up with what’s going on).
Thank you Maya.