africa
South Africa’s last apartheid president F. W. de Klerk dies
F.W. de Klerk, who shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Nelson Mandela and as South Africa’s last apartheid president oversaw the end of the country’s white minority rule, has died at the age of 85.
De Klerk died after a battle against cancer at his home in the Fresnaye area of Cape Town, a spokesman for the F.W. de Klerk Foundation confirmed on Thursday.
De Klerk was a controversial figure in South Africa where many blamed him for violence against Black South Africans and anti-apartheid activists during his time in power, while some whites saw his efforts to end apartheid as a betrayal.
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It was de Klerk who in a speech to South Africa’s parliament on Feb. 2, 1990, announced that Mandela would be released from prison after 27 years. The announcement electrified a country that for decades had been scorned and sanctioned by much of the world for its brutal system of racial discrimination known as apartheid.
With South Africa’s isolation deepening and its once-solid economy deteriorating, de Klerk, who had been elected president just five months earlier, also announced in the same speech the lifting of a ban on the African National Congress and other anti-apartheid political groups.
Amid gasps, several members of parliament members left the chamber as he spoke.
Nine days later, Mandela walked free.
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Four years after that, Mandela was elected the country’s first Black president as Black South Africans voted for the first time.
By then, de Klerk and Mandela had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1993 for their often-tense cooperation in moving South Africa away from institutionalized racism and toward democracy.
END/AP/UNB/FA
People fleeing Ethiopia allege attacks, forced conscription
A new round of deadly attacks and forced conscription has begun against ethnic Tigrayans in an area of Ethiopia now controlled by Amhara regional authorities in collaboration with soldiers from neighboring Eritrea, people fleeing over the border to Sudan tell The Associated Press as the yearlong war intensifies.
Urgent diplomatic meetings with Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and Tigray leader Debretsion Gebremichael in an attempt to calm the fighting have found a small “window of opportunity" as the rival sides agreed a political solution through dialogue was required, African Union envoy Olesegun Obasanjo said in briefings Monday. The State Department said U.S. envoy Jeffrey Feltman saw a window to act with Obasanjo and was meeting with him in Ethiopia's capital Monday night.
Tigray forces have been approaching Addis Ababa to press the prime minister to step aside, leading Ethiopia’s government to declare a state of emergency last week while the U.S. and other countries urged citizens to leave immediately. The war has killed thousands after political tensions with the Tigray forces who once dominated the national government turned deadly.
Those fleeing the western Tigray communities of Adebay and Humera in the past week described warnings from Amhara authorities against supporting the Tigray forces. The accounts confirm warnings by the U.S. and others that Eritrean soldiers remain in the Tigray region, and they indicate that pressure is growing on Tigrayans of mixed heritage who have tried to live quietly amid what the U.S. has alleged as ethnic cleansing in western Tigray.
Read: Urgent efforts to calm Ethiopia as war reaches one-year mark
As reports grew about the Tigray forces’ momentum, Amhara authorities at a public meeting in Adebay on Oct. 29 warned residents against supporting them, two men who fled to Sudan said.
“There are people working for (the Tigray forces). You should give them to us or we will kill you all together,” one who fled, 28-year-old Mawcha Asmelash, recalled authorities saying.
Five days later, he said, Amhara militia attacked. “I saw four people being killed on the run,” he said.
He and other men hid in the bush for two days, gathering information from local women and trying to judge whether it was safe to return. But the women estimated scores of men had been killed and residents had been forbidden to bury their bodies. The women urged them to flee.
Another man who fled Adebay, 36-year-old Berhane Gebremikael, confirmed the public meeting. He said he saw one man killed as he ran from Amhara militia and the Eritrean soldiers, who he said have a camp in the community.
“They called it revenge,” he said. He described a perilous situation for Tigrayan residents of Adebay who had remained during the war, with many changing their identity, paying bribes or using mixed heritage for a measure of protection. Berhane, whose mother is Eritrean, now fears he can’t return.
“Maybe the worst things will happen in the next days,” he said. “The international community should intervene.”
A man who fled to Sudan from the city of Humera, near the Eritrean border, told the AP he had stayed there because of his part-Tigrayan heritage, but last week Amhara authorities “started collecting people. Young men and boys are being forced to join the fighting.”
Again, it started with a public warning, 28-year-old Alemu Abraha said. Then Amhara authorities, along with Eritrean soldiers, started visiting homes at night to take people away. His friends were taken, he said, and he believes the men are being sent to the Amhara region, where most fighting has occurred in recent months.
Amhara regional spokesman Gizachew Muluneh did not respond to AP questions. Amhara regional officials have asserted that western Tigray is historically their land, and during the war witnesses and humanitarian workers have described scores of thousands of Tigrayans forced from communities there.
Read: UN report says Ethiopia’s war marked by ‘extreme brutality’
Meanwhile, reports of mass detentions of Tigrayans continue under the state of emergency. An Ethiopian Orthodox Church official in Addis Ababa, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of retribution, said dozens of priests, monks, deacons and others had been detained in the capital because of their ethnicity. Ethiopian authorities have said they are detaining people suspected of supporting the Tigray forces.
The government-created Ethiopian Human Rights Commission in a statement noted with concern that “arrests appeared to be based on ethnicity” and included the elderly and mothers with children.
As the war closes in, Ethiopia’s government insists that life in the capital remains normal. On Sunday, scores of thousands of people rallied in Addis Ababa in a show of support, some carrying signs criticizing the international community, including foreign media.
On Monday, AU envoy Obasanjo, a former Nigerian president, told the AU Peace and Security Council he saw a window of opportunity after meeting separately with Ethiopia's prime minister and the Tigray leader over the weekend. The rival sides agree “the differences opposing them are political and require political solution through dialogue," he said.
The envoy added, however, that “the window of opportunity we have is very little and that time is paramount for any intervention” in the critical situation facing not only Ethiopia but the Horn of Africa at large. He repeated calls for dialogue without preconditions, an immediate cease-fire and immediate and unrestricted humanitarian access.
State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters that envoy Feltman met with the prime minister Friday and then went to neighboring Kenya to meet its president before returning to Ethiopia on Monday to “urgently press the parties to de-escalate the conflict and negotiate.” There was no indication that Feltman, like Obasanjo, went to the Tigray region. Price simply said that “we have engaged with the (Tigray forces) as well.”
The prime minister's spokeswoman has called the meeting with Feltman “constructive," with no details.
Sudan forces disperse anti-coup protesters, arrest dozens
Sudan’s security forces dispersed demonstrators and rounded up more than 100 people Sunday in the capital of Khartoum, in the latest crackdown on pro-democracy protesters after last month’s military coup.
The Sudanese military seized power Oct. 25, dissolving the transitional government and arresting dozens of officials and politicians. The coup has drawn international criticism and massive protests in the streets of Khartoum and elsewhere in the country.
The takeover has upended the country’s fragile planned transition to democratic rule, more than two years after a popular uprising forced the removal of longtime autocrat Omar al-Bashir and his Islamist government.
Read:UN envoy urges Sudan paramilitary leader to show restraint
Teachers and education workers protested the coup outside the Education Ministry in Khartoum’s district of Bahri, according to the Sudanese Professionals' Association, which led the uprising against al-Bashir.
Security forces used tear gas to disperse the protesters and arrested at least 113 people, mostly teachers, said lawyer Moez Hadra. There were sporadic protests elsewhere in Khartoum, he said.
Local authorities announced the resumption of school classes in the capital for the first time since the coup.
Sunday was the first of two days of nationwide strikes called by the SPA, which vowed to continue protesting until a full civilian government is established to lead the transition. Several shops and businesses in Khartoum were seen open, according to a video journalist with The Associated Press.
The fresh crackdown has also come as mediation efforts between the military and civilian leaders have stumbled, according to a military official with knowledge of the ongoing efforts.
Mediators, including the United Nations envoy in Sudan, were still working to soften the stand of each side, as both are still stick to their pre-conditions before engaging in “meaningful, possibly direct talks,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief the media.
The deposed Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok, who is still under house arrest in his residence in Khartoum, insists on releasing government officials and politicians detained in connection with the coup. He also wants “guarantees” that military would return to the pre-coup power-sharing arrangements, the official said.
The military, on the other hand, insists that the Oct. 25 events did not amount to a “coup,” and that it stepped in to “correct the course” of the transitional period, the official said.
Part of mediation efforts, an Arab League delegation, meanwhile, met Sunday with Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, the military leader, and Hamdok, the pan-Arab organization said.
Read: Sudan arrests 3 coup critics as pressure mounts on military
It said the delegation, headed by Deputy Secretary General Hossam Zaki, held talks with Hamdok on the challenges of the transition and “ongoing efforts to support constructive dialogue" to re-establish a path to democracy.
The military has given mixed signals. It allowed four ministers to return to their homes under house arrest, according to Hadra, the lawyer. The four included Hamza Baloul, minister of information and culture, Hashim Hasabel-Rasoul, minister of communications, Ali Gedou, minister of trade and international cooperation, and Youssef Adam, minister of youth and sports. They were among more than 100 government officials and politicians detained following the coup.
The military also arrested three leaders from the Forces for Freedom and Change, a coalition that was born out of the 2019 protest movement, shortly after they met with U.N. officials in Khartoum. The meeting was part of U.N.-led mediation efforts.
Oil tanker explodes in Sierra Leone, killing at least 92
An oil tanker exploded near Sierra Leone’s capital, killing at least 92 people and severely injuring dozens of others after large crowds gathered to collect leaking fuel, officials and witnesses said Saturday.
The explosion took place late Friday after a bus struck the tanker in Wellington, a suburb just to the east of Freetown.
The mortuary at Connaught Hospital reported 92 bodies had been brought in by Saturday morning. About 30 severely burned victims were not expected to survive, according to staff member Foday Musa.
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Injured people whose clothes had burned off in the fire that followed the explosion lay naked on stretchers as nurses attended to them Saturday.
Video obtained by The Associated Press of the explosion’s aftermath showed a giant fireball burning in the night sky as some survivors with severe burns cried out in pain. Charred remains of the victims lay strewn at the scene awaiting transport to mortuaries.
President Julius Maada Bio, who was in Scotland attending the United Nations climate talks Saturday, deplored the “horrendous loss of life.”
“My profound sympathies with families who have lost loved ones and those who have been maimed as a result,” he tweeted.
Vice President Mohamed Juldeh Jalloh visited two hospitals overnight and said Sierra Leone’s National Disaster Management Agency and others would “work tirelessly” in the wake of the emergency.
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“We are all deeply saddened by this national tragedy, and it is indeed a difficult time for our country,” he said on his Facebook page.
UN investigator: Crimes against humanity under Myanmar junta
The head of the U.N. body investigating the most serious crimes in Myanmar said Friday that preliminary evidence collected since the military seized power on Feb. 1 shows a widespread and systematic attack on civilians “amounting to crimes against humanity.”
Nicholas Koumjian told U.N. reporters that the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar, which he heads, has received over 200,000 communications since the army takeover and has collected over 1.5 million items of evidence that are being analyzed “so that one day those most responsible for the serious international crimes in Myanmar will be brought to account.”
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In determining that the crimes against civilians appear to be widespread and systematic, he said investigators saw patterns of violence -- a measured response by security forces to demonstrations in the first six weeks or so after the military takeover followed by “an uptick in violence and much more violent methods used to suppress the demonstrators.”
“This was happening in different places at the same time, indicating to us it would be logical to conclude this was from a central policy,” Koumjian said. “And, also, we saw that particular groups were targeted, especially for arrests and detentions that appear to be without due process of law. And this includes, of course, journalists, medical workers and political opponents.”
Myanmar for five decades had languished under strict military rule that led to international isolation and sanctions. As the generals loosened their grip, culminating in Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi’s rise to leadership in 2015 elections, the international community responded by lifting most sanctions and pouring investment into the country.
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The Feb. 1 military takeover followed November elections which Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party won overwhelmingly and the military rejects as fraudulent. Since the takeover, Myanmar has been wracked by unrest, with peaceful demonstrations against the ruling generals morphing first into a low-level insurgency in many urban areas after security forces used deadly force and then into more serious combat in rural areas, especially in border regions where ethnic minority militias have been engaging in heavy clashes with government troops.
Christine Schraner Burgener told The Associated Press shortly before her 3 ½ year term as the U.N. special envoy for Myanmar ended on Oct. 31 that “civil war” has spread throughout the country.
The U.N. investigative body was established by the Geneva-based Human Rights Council in September 2018 with a mandate to collect, consolidate, preserve and analyze evidence of the most serious international crimes and violations of international law committed in Myanmar.
Koumjian, an American lawyer who served as an international prosecutor of serious crimes committed in Cambodia, East Timor and Bosnia, was appointed by U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres as its head in 2019 with instructions to prepare files that can facilitate criminal prosecutions in national, regional or international tribunals to prosecute genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.
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Koumjian said his team has been collecting evidence from a wide variety of sources including individuals, organizations, businesses and governments, and the evidence includes photographs, videos, testimonies and social media posts “that could be relevant to show that crimes happened and who is responsible for those crimes.”
The investigative body has received information from social media companies, which he wouldn't name except for Facebook because it had made its cooperation public.
“We began engaging with Facebook as soon as we were created in 2019, and they have been meeting with us regularly,” Koumjian said. “We have received some, but certainly not all, that we have requested. We continue to negotiate with them and actually I am hopeful that we are going to receive more information.”
He said the Human Rights Council specifically instructed the investigators to cooperate with the International Criminal Court's probe into crimes committed against Myanmar’s Rohingya Muslim minority and the case at the International Court of Justice brought by Gambia on behalf of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation accusing Myanmar of genocide against the Rohingya.
“So we are sharing documents with those proceedings,” Koumjian said.
The court actions stem from the Myanmar military’s harsh counterinsurgency campaign against the Rohingya in August 2017 in response to an insurgent attack. More than 700,000 Rohingya fled to neighboring Bangladesh to escape what has been called an ethnic cleansing campaign involving mass rapes, killings and the torching of homes.
Koujian said: “All we’re doing is collecting evidence of the very worst violence, hopefully sending a message to perpetrators: `If you commit this, you run the risk that you will be held to account.’”
Nigeria building collapse deaths climb to 36, dozens missing
The number of bodies recovered from a collapsed high-rise apartment building in Nigeria’s most populous city has risen to 36, an emergency official told The Associated Press Thursday.
Ibrahim Farinloye of Nigeria’s National Emergency Management Agency said 15 bodies more bodies have been recovered from the site in Lagos since Wednesday afternoon, including two earlier reported by AP.
As the rescue effort entered day four Thursday, hopes started to grow thin for dozens of families and residents who lined up at the entrance of the premises and begged to join in the rescue effort, ignoring warnings by gun-wielding soldiers that they should stay away from the scene.
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“They couldn’t allow me to check whether my son is alive or dead,” said Abel Godwin, who traveled 722 kilometers (448 miles) from the nation’s capital, Abuja, to check the hospital where victims are being treated in search of his 18-year-old son who had been employed at the site.
No survivors have been rescued from the pile of debris since Tuesday, with nine of those brought out alive earlier in stable condition.
The 21-story luxury apartment building that was being built toppled Monday while construction workers were on the site, some of whom were artisans who started work that day.
It’s unknown how many people could still be trapped inside the rubble, but one construction worker at the scene had estimated that 100 people were working there when it collapsed, meaning that 55 people could still be missing.
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Segun Akande of the Nigerian Red Cross has told The AP that though rescue efforts continue, “the chances are very slim; very, very slim,” that survivors remain.
When the building collapsed, it took about 3 hours for officials to launch the rescue effort. That angered families and residents who further complained that the search for survivors is not fast enough, despite the use of four excavators, life-detecting tools, water and oxygen. Rescue workers are fatigued.
The governor of Lagos has given an independent panel 30 days to unravel the cause of the accident and whether the project developers had fully complied with building laws. The six-member panel is also to examine whether there were any lapses by state regulators in overseeing the project.
“We feel a lot of concerns of family members. People are indeed upset,” Governor Sanwo-Olu told those present at the site on Wednesday. “I can assure you we are doing everything,” he said, promising that criminal charges will be filed against those indicted in the disaster.
Building collapses in Nigeria are frequent, including in Lagos which recorded four such accidents last year, resulting in five casualties including three children. Authorities continued to face immense pressure over the latest incident amid accusations that they failed to heed previous warnings and adopt past recommendations.
“I think there is only one material testing laboratory in Lagos today. Recommendations were made over 10 years ago, let’s have other certified laboratory testing places,” said David Majekodunmi, chairman of the Lagos chapter of the Nigerian Institute of Architects.
Urgent efforts to calm Ethiopia as war reaches one-year mark
Urgent new efforts to calm Ethiopia’s escalating war are unfolding Thursday as a U.S. special envoy visits and the president of neighboring Kenya calls for an immediate cease-fire while the country marks a year of conflict.
The lack of dialogue “has been particularly disturbing,” Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta said in a statement, as the war that has killed thousands of people and displaced millions since November 2020 threatens to engulf the capital, Addis Ababa. Rival Tigray forces seized key cities in recent days and linked up with another armed group, leading the government of Africa’s second most populous country to declare a national state of emergency.
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The spokesperson for Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, Billene Seyoum, did not immediately respond Thursday when asked whether he would meet with U.S. special envoy Jeffrey Feltman, who this week insisted that “there are many, many ways to initiate discreet talks.”
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Wednesday said he had spoken with Abiy “to offer my good offices to create the conditions for a dialogue so the fighting stops.” East African regional leaders also called for a cease-fire, and the European Union warned of “fragmentation and widespread armed conflict.”
But so far, efforts for discussions have failed. Last week a congressional aide told The Associated Press that “there have been talks of talks with officials, but when it gets to the Abiy level and the senior (Tigray forces) level, the demands are wide, and Abiy doesn’t want to talk.”
Also Read: UN report says Ethiopia’s war marked by ‘extreme brutality’
Instead, the prime minister has again called citizens to rise up and “bury” the Tigray forces who long dominated the national government before he came to power. On Wednesday, Facebook said it had removed a post by Abiy with that language, saying it violated policies against inciting violence. It was a rare action against a head of state or government.
Kenya’s foreign ministry separately said that statements inciting ordinary citizens into the conflict “must be shunned.” Kenya also has increased security along its borders amid fears of a wave of Ethiopians fleeing the war as one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises spreads.
Tigray forces spokesman Getachew Reda in a tweet late Wednesday claimed they had “joined hands” with another armed group, the Oromo Liberation Army, to seize the city of Kemisse even closer to the capital.
“Joint operations will continue in the days and weeks ahead,” he said.
A security source confirmed that the two armed groups had linked up to control Kemisse and said Tigray forces were pushing east as well as south toward the capital. The source spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to journalists.
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All sides in the war have committed abuses, a joint U.N. human rights investigation announced Wednesday, while millions of people in the government-blockaded Tigray region are no longer able to receive humanitarian aid. The U.N. has said no aid has entered Tigray since Ethiopian military airstrikes resumed there on Oct. 18. Meanwhile, it says insecurity as the Tigray forces push south through the neighboring Amhara region has hampered aid delivery to hundreds of thousands of hungry people.
With the new state of emergency’s sweeping powers of detention, ethnic Tigrayans in the capital told the AP they were hiding in their homes in fear as authorities carried out house-to-house searches and stopped people on the streets to check identity cards, which everyone must now carry.
One lawyer, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation, estimated that thousands of people had been detained this week, citing conversations with “many people from the four corners of the city.” He said Tigrayan lawyers like him were now powerless to help because of their ethnicity.
“Our only hope now is the (Tigray forces),” said one young woman, Rahel, whose husband was detained on Tuesday while going to work as a merchant but has not been charged. “They might not save us, to be honest. I’ve already given up on my life, but if our families can be saved, I think that’s enough.”
Another Tigrayan in the capital, Yared, said his brother, a businessman, was detained on Monday, and when he went to the police station to visit him he saw dozens of other Tigrayans.
“It’s crazy, my friends in Addis, non-Tigrayans, are calling me and telling me not to leave the house,” Yared said, adding that police came to his house on Wednesday, the latest of several such visits since the war began.
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“They go through your phone and if you have some material about the Tigray war that would be suggesting supporting the war, they would just detain you,” he said. “The past four days have been the worst by far, the scope at which they’re detaining people, it’s just terrorizing. We don’t feel safe in our homes anymore.”
UN report says Ethiopia’s war marked by ‘extreme brutality’
The U.N. human rights chief said Wednesday that Ethiopia’s yearlong war has been marked by “extreme brutality” as a joint investigation into alleged atrocities faulted all sides for committing abuses, and “the big numbers of violations” are linked to Ethiopian forces and those from neighboring Eritrea.
The investigation was hampered by authorities’ intimidation and restrictions and didn’t visit some of the war’s worst-affected locations.
The report, a rare collaboration by the U.N. human rights office with the government-created Ethiopian Human Rights Commission, was released a day before the war’s one-year mark and as Africa’s second most populous country enters a new state of emergency with rival Tigray forces threatening the capital.
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The U.N. told The Associated Press that the collaboration was necessary for its team to gain access to a troubled region that Ethiopian authorities have largely prevented journalists, rights groups and other outside observers from entering.
The conflict that erupted in Ethiopia’s Tigray region has killed thousands of people since the government of Nobel Peace Prize-winning Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed allowed soldiers from Eritrea to invade Tigray and join Ethiopian forces in fighting the Tigray forces who long dominated the national government before Abiy took office. Ethnic Tigrayans across the country have since reported being targeted with arbitrary detentions, while civilians in Tigray have described gang rapes, famine and mass expulsions.
“In western Tigray, it was apparent that the Tigrayans had left most of the areas, as it was difficult to find Tigrayans to interview,” the new report says.
The joint investigation covers events until late June when the Tigray forces regained much of their region, but it failed to visit some of the deadliest sites of the war, including the city of Axum, because of security and other obstacles. Notably, the report says, those obstacles included the Ethiopian government’s failure to release satellite phones procured for the investigation.
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The investigation says all sides, including forces from the neighboring Amhara region that have claimed western Tigray, have committed abuses, which may amount to crimes against humanity and war crimes. It breaks little new ground and confirms in general the abuses described by witnesses throughout the war. But it gives little sense of scale, saying only that the more than 1,300 rapes reported to authorities are likely far fewer than the real number.
Despite the report’s shortcomings, the prime minister’s office said in a statement that it “clearly
established the claim of genocide as false and utterly lacking of any factual basis.” The statement noted “serious reservations” about the report but claimed it laid “sinister allegations to rest.” And it acknowledged the need to “redouble our efforts” to hold perpetrators accountable. A high-level task force will be formed, it said.
Among the investigation’s findings: Several Ethiopian military camps were used to torture captured Tigray forces or civilians suspected of supporting them. Others were detained in “secret locations” and military camps across the country, with arbitrary detentions in many cases. Tigray forces detained some ethnic Amhara civilians in western Tigray in the early days of the war on suspicion of supporting the military, and in some cases tortured them.
“The Tigray conflict has been marked by extreme brutality. The gravity and seriousness of the violations and abuses we have documented underscore the need to hold perpetrators accountable on all sides,” said Michelle Bachelet, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights. Reports of abuses such as summary executions in Tigray continue, she said.
And yet the report gives little sign that Eritrean soldiers were responsible for many of the atrocities, as witnesses have alleged from the earliest days of the war. Until March, Ethiopia’s prime minister denied they were even in the country.
Bachelet told reporters that while the report doesn’t explicitly mention that Ethiopian and Eritrean forces were responsible for the majority of the violations, “I would say that the big numbers of violations of human rights are linked to the Ethiopian and Eritrean defense forces.” She also noted “disturbing suggestions of ethnically motivated violence” that warrant further investigation. She denied the probe came under government pressure.
Ethiopia’s government imposed a blockade on Tigray since the Tigray forces regained control in June, cutting off almost all access for commercial goods and humanitarian aid. That followed large-scale looting and destruction of food and crops across the region that “has had a severe socioeconomic impact on the civilian population,” the report says. In addition, some camps for displaced people who fled the war didn’t receive food rations for months.
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The joint investigation, however, “could not confirm deliberate or willful denial of humanitarian assistance to the civilian population in Tigray or the use of starvation as a weapon of war.” It did call for further investigation.
The new report, based on more than 260 interviews with victims and witnesses, said it had received no response from Eritrea’s government or from Amhara regional officials, and the Tigray forces expressed its opposition to the involvement of the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission. The report acknowledged that the presence of EHRC staffers at times inhibited interviews.
The investigation says the Ethiopian government should “consider” setting up a court to ensure accountability and the international community should “support” the government in restoring stability. It also expresses concern that “investigations conducted by Ethiopian national institutions do not match the scope and breadth of the violations it has identified.”
“We don’t have enough transparency,” Bachelet said.
At least 3 dead after high rise in Nigeria collapses
A 21-story apartment building under construction collapsed in an upscale area of Nigeria's largest city, killing at least three people and leaving dozens more missing, officials and witnesses said on Monday.
Lagos Police Commissioner Hakeem Odumosu confirmed the deaths, but added that three survivors had been pulled from the rubble in Ikoyi by Monday evening. Officials arriving at the scene were confronted by crowds of people venting their anger that rescue efforts started several hours after the collapse.
Read: 30 killed as gunmen attack rural area in Nigeria's northwest
Olayemi Bello told The Associated Press that five of his friends were trapped in the building and he feared the worst.
“When they work finish, they will come outside and they will play with us and talk about the work,” he said. “Now, nobody. All of them are dead.”
Construction worker Eric Tetteh said that he and his brother had managed to escape. But he estimated that more than 100 people were inside the building at the time it crumbled into a pile of debris.
Workers said the high rise apartment building had been under construction for about two years, and it was not immediately known what had caused the collapse.
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However, such incidents are relatively common in Lagos because enforcement of building code regulations is weak. Other observers blame shoddy work by private developers eager to meet demand for housing in the megacity.
Sudan arrests 3 coup critics as pressure mounts on military
Sudanese security forces detained three prominent pro-democracy figures overnight, their relatives and other activists said Wednesday, as internal and international pressure mounted on the country's military following its coup.
The arrests came as protests denouncing Monday’s takeover continued in the capital of Khartoum and elsewhere, and many businesses shut in response to calls for strikes. The coup threatens to halt Sudan’s fitful transition to democracy, which began after the 2019 ouster of longtime ruler Omar al-Bashir in a popular uprising.
Groups of protesters — in some places, dozens, in others, hundreds — set up barricades of stones on main roads throughout the day. Security forces waded in, chasing demonstrators and dismantling the barriers.
“It looks like a hit-and-run process, they remove, and we build,” activist Nazim Sirag said.
Some protesters were shot and wounded, activists said, though they did not have exact figures. Security forces confronting demonstrators have killed at least six people since Monday and wounded over 140 others, many in critical condition, according to physicians with the Sudan Doctors’ Committee.
Read: Sudan's military takes power in coup, arrests prime minister
Prominent rights defender Tahani Abbas said the pro-democracy movement would continue street protests despite the crackdown.
“We are frustrated,” she said, “but we have no other option but the street.”
In a nod to deteriorating security conditions, the State Department authorized nonessential personnel and the families of all government employees at the U.S Embassy in Khartoum to leave Sudan “due to civil unrest and possible supply shortages.”
The coup came after weeks of mounting tensions between military and civilian leaders over the course and pace of Sudan's moves toward democracy.
The African Union suspended Sudan — an expected move typically taken in the wake of coups. The AU Peace and Security Council said via Twitter on Wednesday that the suspension would remain in place “until the effective restoration of the civilian-led Transitional Authority,” as the deposed government is known.
The AU plans to send a mission to Sudan to hold talks with rival parties.
The World Bank also suspended disbursements for its operations in Sudan, whose economy has been battered by years of mismanagement and sanctions and was dealt a blow when the oil-rich south seceded in 2011 after decades of war, taking with it more than half of public revenues and 95% of oil exports.
“We hope that peace and the integrity of the transition process will be restored, so that Sudan can restart its path of economic development and can take its rightful place in the international financial community,” bank President David Malpass said in a statement.
Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok's now-deposed government had embarked on a series of reforms meant to transform the country’s economy and have the nation rejoin the international community after over two decades of isolation under al-Bashir.
In May, the World Bank said it had allocated $2 billion to Sudan to finance big infrastructure projects along with others over the next 12 months, after the U.S. provided bridge financing of $1.15 billion to Cleese Sudan’s overdue payments to the global financing body.
Following widespread international condemnation, the military allowed Hamdok and his wife to return home on Tuesday night. Hamdok, a former U.N. economist, was detained along with other government officials when the military seized power.
Several Western embassies in Khartoum said Wednesday they will continue to recognize Hamdok and his Cabinet as “the constitutional leaders of the transitional government” of Sudan.
In a joint statement, the embassies of the European Union, the U.S., the U.K., France and several other European countries called for the release of other detained officials and for talks between the military and the pro-democracy movement.
EU foreign affairs chief Joseph Borrell tweeted that he spoke with Hamdok on Wednesday to voice his support for the return of a civilian-led transitional government as “the only way forward.”
Read: PM, officials detained, internet down in apparent Sudan coup
“We don’t want Sudan to go back to dark hours of its history,” he said.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken also spoke with Sudanese Foreign Minister Mariam al-Mahdi about how to support the civilian-led transition to democracy, and condemned the military takeover.
The general leading the coup, Abdel-Fattah Burhan, has pledged to hold elections, as planned, in July 2023, and to appoint a technocrat government in the meantime.
Burhan met Wednesday with Saudi Ambassador Ali Hassan bin Ghafar to discuss “efforts to resolve the crisis through consultations with all concerned parties,” the Sudanese military said.
But critics doubt the military is serious about eventually ceding control, noting that the coup came just weeks before Burhan was supposed to hand over the leadership of the top ruling body, the Sovereign Council, to a civilian. The council, which was made up of both civilian and military leaders but led by a general, was the ultimate authority in the country, while Hamdok’s transitional government ran day-to-day affairs. Both were dissolved in the coup.
Volker Perthes, the U.N. special envoy for Sudan, met Wednesday with Burhan and reiterated the U.N.’s call for a return to the transition process under the constitutional document and the immediate release of all those arbitrarily detained.
Perthes also met Hamdok in his residence “where he remains under guard,” U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.
The activists taken overnight were Ismail al-Taj, a leader of the Sudanese Professionals’ Association, the group at the forefront of the protests that brought down al-Bashir; Sediq al-Sadiq al-Mahdi, a leader in Sudan’s largest political party, known as Umma and brother of Foreign Minister Mariam al-Mahdi; and Khalid al-Silaik, a former media adviser to the prime minister.
The three have been outspoken critics of the military takeover and have called for protests. Already, tens of thousands of Sudanese have taken to the streets, and activists are planning a mass demonstration on Saturday.
Al-Silaik was detained moments after he gave an interview to broadcaster Al-Jazeera, according to his wife, Marwa Kamel. In the interview, he criticized the military’s takeover, calling Hamdok and his government the legitimate administration of Sudan.
“What Gen. Burhan did is a complete coup. ... People will respond to this in the coming days,” al-Silaik said.
Activists Nazim Siraj and Nazik Awad and the Umma party confirmed the arrests of the other two figures.
When Burhan dissolved the Sovereign Council and the transitional government on Monday, he alleged that the military was forced to step in to prevent the country from sliding into civil war. But he had repeatedly warned he wanted to delay the transition to civilian leadership of the council.
Meanwhile, flights in and out of Khartoum’s international airport resumed Wednesday, a day after the country’s Civil Aviation Authority said they would be suspended until Oct. 30.