United Nations
Climate talks draft agreement expresses 'alarm and concern'
Negotiators at the United Nations climate talks are considering a draft decision that highlights “alarm and concern” about global warming the planet already is experiencing and continues to call on the world to cut about half of its emissions of heat-trapping gases by 2030.
The early version of the cover decision released Wednesday at the climate talks in Glasgow, Scotland, doesn’t provide specific agreements on the three major goals that the U.N. set going into the negotiations.
The draft mentions the need to cut emissions by 45% by 2030 from 2010 levels and achieve “net-zero” by mid-century. Doing so requires countries to pump only as much greenhouse gas into the atmosphere as can be absorbed again through natural or artificial means.
Read: US envoy calls for joint action to tackle climate crisis right now
It urges countries to “accelerate the phasing out of coal and subsidies for fossil fuels,” but makes no explicit reference to ending the use of oil and gas.
The draft also acknowledges “with regret” that rich nations have failed to live up to their pledge of providing $100 billion a year in financial help by 2020 to help poor nations dead with global warming.
The draft reaffirms the goals set in Paris in 2015 of limiting warming to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) since pre-industrial times, with a more stringent target of trying to keep warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) preferred.
Highlighting the challenge of meeting those goals, the document “expresses alarm and concern that human activities have caused around 1.1 C (2 F) of global warming to date and that impacts are already being felt in every region.”
Separate draft proposals were also released on other issues being debated at the talks, including rules for international carbon markets and the frequency by which countries have to report on their efforts.
The draft calls on nations that don’t have national goals that would fit with the 1.5 or 2 degree temperature rise limits to come back with stronger targets next year. Depending on the language is interpreted, the provision could apply to most countries. Analysts at the World Resources Institute counted this element of the draft as a win for vulnerable countries.“This is crucial language,’’ WRI International Climate Initiative Director David Waskow said Wednesday. “Countries really are expected and are on the hook to do something in that timeframe to adjust.’’
Read: Obama appeals to young activists to stay in climate fight
In a nod to one of the big issues for poorer countries, the draft vaguely “urges” developed nations to compensate developing countries for “loss and damage,” a phrase that some rich nations don’t like.
Whatever comes out of the meeting in Glasgow has to be unanimously approved by nearly 200 nations attending the negotiations.
A lot of negotiating and decision-making is to come in the next three or possibly four days. The deadline for the talks is Friday, but climate talks often go past planned end dates. The cover decisions provide more than anything the parameters for the issues that need to be resolved in the last few days of the annual U.N. conference, Waskow said.
Bangladesh deeply committed to human rights, fundamental freedoms: Rabab Fatima
Bangladesh is deeply committed to the principles of human rights and fundamental freedoms, which is reflected in the country's engagements with the human rights mechanisms of the United Nations, said Ambassador Rabab Fatima.
Bangladesh Permanent Representative to the UN Ambassador Fatima was speaking at the general debate on the report of the Human Rights Council (HRC) at the General Assembly Thursday.
"As a member of the Human Rights Council, Bangladesh remains actively engaged and committed to the mandate and work of the Council," Ambassador Fatima added.
She appreciated the efforts of the HRC for keeping the Rohingya issues high on its agenda and for adopting a consensus resolution in its 47th session.
Also read:Rabab Fatima calls for international solidarity against terrorism
Fatima also acknowledged the role and work of the Special Rapporteur and the Independent Investigative Mechanism on Myanmar.
She called upon the Council to continue its efforts to ensure a safe, voluntary and dignified life for the Rohingya, free from discrimination and persecution in their homeland in Myanmar.
Extinct dinosaur lectures world leaders about climate change
World leaders at the UN headquarters got a discourse from a talking dinosaur -- an extinct species -- in a creative video launched by United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to help create awareness about climate change.
The short film, launched as the centerpiece of the UN agency's new ‘Don’t Choose Extinction’ campaign, has also been tweeted by the United Nations.
Bursting into the iconic General Assembly Hall, famous for history-making speeches by leaders from around the world, the imposing dinosaur tells an audience of shocked and bewildered diplomats and dignitaries that “it’s time humans stopped making excuses and started making changes” to address the climate crisis.
“At least we had an asteroid,” the dinosaur warns, referring to the popular theory explaining dinosaurs’ extinction 70 million years ago. “What’s your excuse?”
Read: EU lauds Bangladesh’s leadership on climate front
This first-ever film to be made inside the UN General Assembly using computer-generated imagery (CGI) features global celebrities voicing the dinosaur in numerous languages, including actors Eiza González (Spanish), Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (Danish), and Aïssa Maïga (French).
The dinosaur goes on to highlight how financial support for fossil fuels through subsidies -- taxpayers’ money that helps keep the cost of coal, oil and gas low for consumers -- is irrational and illogical in the face of a changing climate.
“Think of all the other things you could do with that money. Around the world people are living in poverty. Don’t you think that helping them would make more sense than… paying for the demise of your entire species?” the dinosaur says.
"The film is fun and engaging, but the issues it speaks to could not be more serious,” said Ulrika Modéer, Head of UNDP’s Bureau for External Relations and Advocacy.
“The UN Secretary-General has called the climate crisis a ‘code red for humanity'. We want the film to entertain, but we also want to raise awareness of just how critical the situation is. The world must step up on climate action if we are to succeed in keeping our planet safe for future generations.”
Read: Australia to keep supporting Bangladesh in combating climate change: Envoy
UNDP’s ‘Don’t Choose Extinction’ campaign and film aim to shine a spotlight on fossil fuel subsidies and how they are cancelling out significant progress towards ending climate change and are driving inequality by benefitting the rich, the agency said in a statement released Thursday.
UNDP research released as part of the campaign shows that the world spends an astounding USD 423 billion annually to subsidise fossil fuels for consumers -- oil, electricity generated by the burning of other fossil fuels, gas, and coal.
This could cover the cost of Covid-19 vaccinations for every person in the world, or pay for three times the annual amount needed to eradicate global extreme poverty.
The ‘Don’t Choose Extinction’ film was created in partnership with Activista Los Angeles (a multiple award-winning creative agency), David Litt (US President Barack Obama’s speechwriter) and Framestore (the creative studio behind James Bond, Guardians of the Galaxy, Avengers End Game).
UN envoy blames Syria for failure of constitution talks
The U.N. special envoy for Syria said Wednesday the Syrian government’s refusal to negotiate on revisions to the country’s constitution is a key reason for the failure of talks last week that left the road map to peace in the conflict-torn country in question..
Geir Pedersen expressed his disappointment to the U.N. Security Council, saying the parties also failed to agree to meet again before the end of the year. But he said he will continue to engage with all “to address the challenges that have arisen,” saying it is urgent to produce results.
Pedersen said the government delegation presented a proposed constitutional text on Syria’s sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity on Oct. 18, representatives of the exiled opposition presented a text on the armed forces, security and intelligence agencies on Oct. 19, while civil society groups submitted a section on the rule of law on Oct. 20. The government submitted a second text on terrorism and extremism on Oct. 21, he said.
Read:US airstrikes target Iran-backed militias in Syria, Iraq
Pedersen said the government and opposition co-chairs were unable to agree on how discussions should progress further at a plenary meeting Oct. 22, but they did agree that the parties, which include civil society representatives, could present further material.
“In that meeting, the delegation nominated by the government stated that it had no revisions to present of its draft constitutional texts and that it did not see any common ground,” the U.N. envoy said.
He said the opposition presented proposed amendments to all the proposals to try to build common ground, and some civil society representatives also presented revised versions.
The end result, Pedersen said, is that the 45-member drafting committee was “not able to move from submitting and discussing initial draft constitutional texts to developing a productive textual drafting process.”
Despite the failure, Pedersen said he remains convinced “that progress on the constitutional committee could, if done the right way, help to build some trust and confidence.”
“But let me stress that this requires real determination and the political will to try to build some common ground,” he said.
The talks last week followed a nine-month hiatus in the U.N.-led meetings of the Syrian constitutional committee.
Syria’s 10-year conflict has killed between 350,000 and 450,000 people and displaced half the country’s pre-war population of 23 million, including more than 5 million refugees mostly in neighboring countries. Even though the fighting has subsided in recent months, there are still pockets controlled by Syrian opposition, where millions of people live.
Pedersen said that while the talks were under way, violence continued, including terrorist attacks, airstrikes and heavy artillery shelling that caused casualties, including dozens of civilians. He said some incidents “also underlined the constant risks of regional escalation” and again called for a nationwide cease-fire.
Read:Syria’s last aid crossing in balance as Biden to meet Putin
The U.N. envoy said more than 12 million Syrians remain displaced, either inside the country or as refugees elsewhere, and the level of poverty is around 90%.
At a Russia-hosted Syrian peace conference in January 2018, an agreement was reached to form a 150-member committee to draft a new constitution, with a smaller 45-member body to do the actual drafting including 15 members each from the government, opposition and civil society. It took until September 2019 for the committee to be formed.
A 2012 U.N. road map to peace in Syria approved by representatives of the United Nations, Arab League, European Union, Turkey and all five permanent Security Council members calls for the drafting of a new constitution and ends with U.N.-supervised elections with all Syrians, including members of the diaspora, eligible to participate. A Security Council resolution adopted in December 2015 unanimously endorsed the road map.
The United States and several Western allies have accused Syrian President Bashar Assad of deliberately stalling and delaying the drafting of a new constitution until after a presidential election in late May to avoid a U.N.-supervised vote, as called for by the Security Council. Assad was re-elected in what the government called a landslide for a fourth seven-year term, but the West and the Syrian opposition called it an illegitimate and sham election.
UN must reflect the voice of every nation, not just a few: FM
Foreign Minister Dr AK Abdul Momen has said the United Nations (UN) is a great institution to help humanity and no one should abuse the advantage of its universality and acceptability.
"Let the rays of hope that our forefathers kindled 76 years ago brighten our path and guide us towards a peaceful and prosperous future we want," he said.
The Foreign Minister was addressing a commemorative event on Monday in celebration of the UN Day.
Dr Momen said they need to strengthen the organization to cater to the needs of all peoples and to reflect the voice of every country, not only of a few.
"As we are reeling with the pandemic, more than ever before we share a common destiny. More than ever before we need to unite as 'we the peoples,'" he said.
The Foreign Minister said they are looking forward to a meaningful outcome from the Glasgow Conference.
"We are helpful, we must take decisive action now, not tomorrow. Together, we must find a way to reduce harmful emissions to net zero by 2050," he said.
READ: UN shouldn’t be mouthpiece for a few: FM
Dr Momen said they must keep the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees.
UN shouldn’t be mouthpiece for a few: FM
Foreign Minister Dr AK Abdul Momen on Sunday said the United Nations should be a voice of all the countries, not just the mouthpiece of a few countries.
“There’s a need for a change in this situation,” he said while addressing a discussion at Jatiya Press Club marking the UN Day.
He said Bangladesh will be the candidate for UNGA President in 2026 and insisted that the next UN General Secretary, if it is from Asia, should be from Bangladesh.
Dr Momen said it is regrettable that there is no significant number of Bangladeshis in the UN leadership positions. “Now, time has come for increasing our representation in the UN.”
The Foreign Minister appreciated the UN role in many areas saying there was no third World War because of the UN though it has failed to resolve problems in many countries.
Read: Bangladesh’s UNGA participation shows its stronger presence in multilateral forum: Officials
“We want peace in the world and the UN was established in search of peace. We recognize UN contributions,” he said.
Dr Momen said Bangladesh will host a world peace conference in December as peace is imperative for development.
Colin Powell: A trailblazing legacy, blotted by Iraq war
A child of working-class Jamaican immigrants in the Bronx, Colin Powell rose from neighborhood store clerk to warehouse floor-mopper to the highest echelons of the U.S. government. It was a trailblazing American Dream journey that won him international acclaim and trust.
It was that credibility he put on the line in 2003 when, appearing before the United Nations as secretary of state, he made the case for war against Iraq. When it turned out that the intelligence he cited was faulty and the Iraq War became a bloody, chaotic nightmare, Powell’s stellar reputation was damaged.
Still, it wasn’t destroyed. After leaving government, he became an elder statesman on the global stage and the founder of an organization aimed at helping young disadvantaged Americans. Republicans wanted him to run for president. After becoming disillusioned with his party, he ended up endorsing the last three Democratic presidential candidates, who welcomed his support.
For many Iraqis and others, Powell will forever be associated with that 2003 speech and the bloodshed that followed. But with Powell's death Monday at 84 of COVID-19 complications, Republicans and Democrats remembered him as a historic figure, a groundbreaking soldier-turned-statesman, the first Black secretary of state and first Black chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Powell rejected comparisons between himself and previous icons like George Marshall, the World War II general who became America’s top diplomat. But he embraced a local-kid-does-good narrative that reflected his humble roots.
He was fond of recalling his youth in the Bronx, working first as a clerk in a neighborhood store and then as a sweeper in the massive Pepsi-Cola plant directly across the East River from the United Nations headquarters, a job he frequently referred to in meetings at the United Nations. A geology student at City College of New York, Powell made clear that he found his calling in the Reserve Officer Training Corps or ROTC, which would initiate his 35-year career in the Army.
Read:Colin Powell dies, exemplary general stained by Iraq claims
Powell served two tours in Vietnam and rose through the ranks with various stints in Cold War-era Europe before President Ronald Reagan tapped him as his national security adviser. President George H.W. Bush then appointed him chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, where he oversaw the ouster of Saddam Hussein’s Iraq from Kuwait in 1991.
It was then that the “Powell Doctrine” emerged; it was a strategy for the use of American military power that relied on the deployment of overwhelming force and a clear and defined exit strategy from conflict.
Powell held the Joint Chiefs of Staff position into the Clinton administration, where he recalled arguments with Cabinet members over military intervention in the Balkans, which Powell believed was unwise.
“I thought I would have an aneurysm,” Powell wrote in a memoir about a White House incident in which then-U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Madeleine Albright asked what good the armed forces are if they were never used. Powell ended up succeeding Albright as secretary of state in 2001.
And while his military career had taken him from the minefields of Vietnam to West Germany’s strategic Fulda Gap, it was his role as secretary of state in wartime that almost did him in.
Powell was the first of President George W. Bush’s Cabinet members to publicly blame Osama bin Laden for the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and the first of Bush’s top national security aides to visit Pakistan, just a month later, to make clear to the Pakistanis that they must join the U.S.-led coalition or be labelled an enemy.
Amid significant security concerns in the aftermath of 9/11, Powell flew to Islamabad, his plane blacked-out as it went into a corkscrew landing to avoid potential rocket strikes, to tell then-Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf that his support in the operation to avenge the attacks was non-negotiable. It worked, at least in the short-term.
Powell was personally skeptical of the 2003 Iraq invasion and cautioned against the war privately. But he dutifully presented the administration’s case for invasion not only in diplomatic meetings with his counterparts but also in the now-infamous speech before the U.N. Security Council in February 2003.
Confronted with widespread doubts about the accuracy of the American and British assessment of Saddam’s capabilities and intentions, many compared the stakes of Powell’s speech to be similar to those of former United Nations Ambassador Adlai Stevenson’s electrifying 1962 presentation to the council about the Soviet Union’s placement of missiles in Cuba.
In Powell’s speech — which he would later call a “blot” on his record — he brandished a vial that he said could have contained anthrax that intelligence agencies insisted Saddam was producing in mass quantities.
“Less than a teaspoon of dry anthrax, a little bit — about this amount,” he told the council, waving the vial. “This is just about the amount of a teaspoon. Less than a teaspoonful of dry anthrax in an envelope shut down the United States Senate in the fall of 2001.”
Some, including several critics of the Bush administration, believed Powell had hit the mark, but unlike Stevenson 41 years earlier, whatever convincing he accomplished was quickly erased.
No anthrax or, in fact, any weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq after the end of the war, which led to a protracted U.S. military occupation of the country that many believe resulted in a broader destabilization of the Middle East, including the rise of the Islamic State, that persists to this day.
While he will always be associated with the Iraq War, Powell was not an unaccomplished diplomat. He oversaw the resolution of the Bush administration's first foreign policy crisis, China's force down of a Navy spy plane and the detention of its crew, and self-deprecatingly referred to successes in resolving a spat with Moscow over a Russian ban on U.S. chicken imports and an armed dispute between Morocco and Spain over a small Mediterranean island.
Read:'Umblical cord': In Israel, Jaishankar hails contribution of Indian Jewish community
Powell was also critical in engineering an end to a standoff between Israel then Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat who had been blockaded in his Ramallah headquarters by Israeli troops during the second “intifada" or Palestinian uprising. And he was the first senior U.S. official to visit Afghanistan after the Taliban were ousted, flying into Kabul on a military plane in Jan. 2002, to meet with then-President Hamid Karzai.
Nonetheless, Powell’s biggest legacy at the State Department may be bureaucratic rather than diplomatic. A natural tinkerer who loved to collect and repair old Volvos and was a fan of the then-new Chrysler PT Cruiser, Powell pushed to bring the department’s antiquated computer and communications systems into the age of email and interoperability.
He fought budget battles to increase diplomatic spending and hiring and also led a successful drive to prevent the newly established Department of Homeland Security from entirely taking over the process of issuing visas, something that had been recommended in the wake of 9/11.
Unlike his predecessors and several successors as secretary of state, Powell was not enamored of foreign travel and spent less time overseas than almost any of America’s top diplomats since the dawn of the jet age, an aversion perhaps exacerbated by his unsuccessful behind-the-scenes attempts in Washington to blunt his Bush administration colleagues’ push for war with Iraq.
Personable and often approachable, Powell sought to assure his new employees that he would not be a burden on them in some of his first remarks to the diplomatic corps.
“I will be around to see you in due course,” he told his first town hall meeting. “I am an easy visitor. We are going to try to make it very easy for me to visit. Just to save a lot of cable traffic, I have no food preferences, no drink preferences. A cheeseburger will be fine. I like Holiday Inns, I have no illusions.”
India, UAE re-elected to UN Human Rights Council for new term
India was re-elected to the UN Human Rights Council for the 2022-24 term on Thursday with an overwhelming majority in the General Assembly, with New Delhi’s envoy describing the election as a "robust endorsement" of the country's strong roots in democracy, pluralism and fundamental rights enshrined in the Constitution.
According to The Saudi Gazette, the 76th UN General Assembly held elections on Thursday for 18 new members of the UN Human Rights Council who will serve for a period of three years, starting in January 2022.
India on being re-elected to the UNHRC for the 2022-24 term vowed to continue to work for the promotion and protection of human rights through “Samman, Samvad and Sahyog".
Read: India introduces draft resolution in UN over observer status for international solar alliance
“India gets re-elected to the @UN_HRC (2022-24) for a 6th term with overwhelming majority. Heartfelt gratitude to the @UN membership for reposing its faith in India," India’s Permanent Mission to the UN tweeted.
"We will continue to work for promotion and protection of Human Rights through #Samman #Samvad #Sahyog #Samman #Samvad #Sahyog," it added.
India got 184 votes in the 193-member assembly, while the required majority was 97.
"I am truly delighted at this overwhelming support for India in elections to Human Rights Council. It’s a robust endorsement of our strong roots in democracy, pluralism and fundamental rights enshrined in our Constitution.
“We thank all UN member states for giving us a strong mandate,” India’s Permanent Representative to the UN Ambassador T.S. Tirumurti told PTI.
India’s current term was set to end on Dec. 31 2021. For election for the term 2022-2024, there were five vacant seats in the Asia-Pacific States category — India, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Qatar and United Arab Emirates.
Read: 9 dead as rains trigger landslides in India
The 193-member General Assembly elected by secret ballot Argentina, Benin, Cameroon, Eritrea, Finland, Gambia, Honduras, India, Kazakhstan, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Montenegro, Paraguay, Qatar, Somalia, UAE and the USA for the 2022-2024 term on the Council.
The US joined the cohort more than three years after the Trump administration quit the 47-member body over what it called chronic bias against Israel and a lack of reform.
The United States, which was unopposed, received 168 votes in the secret ballot by the 193-member General Assembly. It begins a three-year term on Jan. 1 — pitting Washington against Beijing and Moscow, who began council terms this year.
China and some of its allies including Belarus and Venezuela have taken advantage of the US absence from the council to push through joint statements supporting Beijing's actions in Hong Kong, Xinjiang and Tibet, and denouncing "human rights violations" in Western countries, including against indigenous Canadians.
For Thursday's vote, non-governmental organizations accused regional groups of stitching up a "legitimizing facade" rather than a genuine contest at the council, by presenting the same number of candidates as vacant seats.
India’s mission congratulated other UN member states for their election to the Human Rights Council, which consists of 47 Member States elected directly and individually by secret ballot by the majority of the members of the General Assembly.
Read: Made in India virus kits boost testing, and local industry
The membership is based on equitable geographical distribution, and seats are distributed among regional groups Group of African States (13), Group of Asia-Pacific States (13), Group of Eastern European States (6), Group of Latin American and Caribbean States (8) and Group of Western European and other States (7).
As of January 2021, 119 of the 193 UN member states will have served as a member of the HRC. "This broad membership not only reflects the UN’s diversity, but it gives the Council legitimacy when speaking out on human rights violations in all countries,” the UN said.
US Ambassador at UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield said Washington’s election to the Council has “fulfilled President Biden’s campaign pledge to rejoin the Human Rights Council” and the US will “work to ensure this body lives up to these principles.”
‘God have mercy’: Tigray residents describe life under siege
As food and the means to buy it dwindled in a city under siege, the young mother felt she could do no more. She killed herself, unable to feed her children.
In a Catholic church across town, flour and oil to make communion wafers will soon run out. And the flagship hospital in Mekele, the capital of Ethiopia’s Tigray region, wrestles with whether to give patients the expired medications that remain. Its soap and bleach are gone.
A year of war and months of government-enforced deprivation have left the city of a half-million people with rapidly shrinking stocks of food, fuel, medicine and cash. In rural areas, life is even grimmer as thousands of people survive on wild cactus fruit or sell the meager aid they receive. Man-made famine, the world’s worst hunger crisis in a decade, has begun.
Despite the severing of almost all communication with the outside world, The Associated Press drew on a dozen interviews with people inside Mekele, along with internal aid documents, for the most detailed picture yet of life under the Ethiopian government’s blockade of the Tigray region’s 6 million people.
Amid sputtering electricity supplies, Mekele is often lit by candles that many people can’t afford. Shops and streets are emptying, and cooking oil and baby formula are running out. People from rural areas and civil servants who have gone unpaid for months have swelled the ranks of beggars. People are thinner. Funeral announcements on the radio have increased.
“The coming weeks will make or break the situation here,” said Mengstu Hailu, vice president for research at Mekele University, where the mother who killed herself worked.
He told the AP about his colleague’s suicide last month as well as the deaths of two acquaintances from hunger and a death from lack of medication. “Are people going to die in the hundreds and thousands?” he asked.
Read: 'I just cry': Dying of hunger in Ethiopia's blockaded Tigray
Pleas from the United Nations, the United States, the European Union and African nations for the warring sides to stop the fighting have failed, even as the U.S. threatens new sanctions targeting individuals in Africa’s second-most populous nation.
Instead, a new offensive by Ethiopian and allied forces has begun in an attempt to crush the Tigray fighters who dominated the national government for nearly three decades before being sidelined by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize winner.
Ethiopia is one of the top recipients of U.S. humanitarian aid. The government in Addis Ababa, fearing the assistance will end up supporting Tigray forces, imposed the blockade in June after the fighters retook much of Tigray, then brought the war into the neighboring Amhara and Afar regions. Hundreds of thousands are now displaced there, widening the humanitarian crisis.
After the AP last month reported the first starvation deaths under the blockade, and the U.N. humanitarian chief called Ethiopia a “stain on our conscience,” the government expelled seven U.N. officials, accusing them of falsely inflating the scale of the crisis. The expulsions were “unprecedented and disturbing,” the U.S. said.
Just 14% of needed aid has entered Tigray since the blockade began, according to the U.N., and almost no medicine at all.
“There is no other way to define what is happening to the people of Tigray than by ethnic cleansing,” InterAction, an alliance of international aid groups, said this month of the conflict marked by mass detentions, expulsions and gang-rapes.
“The Tigrayan population of 6 million face mass starvation now,” former U.N. humanitarian chief Mark Lowcock wrote in a separate statement.
In response to questions, the spokesperson for the Ethiopian prime minister’s office, Billene Seyoum, again blamed Tigray forces for aid disruptions and asserted “the government has worked relentlessly to ensure humanitarian aid reaches those in need.” She did not say when basic services would be allowed to Tigray.
At Tigray’s flagship Ayder referral hospital, Dr. Sintayehu Misgina, a surgeon and the vice chief medical director, watches in horror.
Patients sometimes go without food, and haven’t had meat, eggs or milk since June. Fuel to run ambulances has run out. A diesel generator powers equipment for emergency surgeries only when fuel is available.
Read: Ethiopia calls “all capable” citizens to fight in Tigray war
“God have mercy for those who come when it’s off,” he said.
No help is in sight. A World Health Organization staffer told Sintayehu there was nothing left to give, even though a warehouse in neighboring Afar was full of life-saving aid.
Scores of badly malnourished and ill children have come to the hospital in recent weeks. Not all have survived.
“There are no drugs,” said Mizan Wolde, the mother of a 5-year-old patient. Mehari Tesfa despaired for his 4-year-old daughter, who has a brain abscess and is wasting away.
“It’s been three months since she came here,” he said. “She was doing OK, then the medication ceased. She is now taking only oxygen, nothing else.”
Across Tigray, the number of children hospitalized for severe acute malnutrition has surged, according to the U.N. children’s agency — 18,600 from February to August, compared to 8,900 in 2020. The U.N. says hospitals outside of Mekele have run out of nutrition supplies to treat them.
“According to colleagues in the medical and agricultural sector, hundreds (of people) are dying each day, that’s the estimation,” Mekele University lecturer Nahusenay Belay said. He said one acquaintance died from lack of diabetes medication, and a young relative in the city’s outskirts starved to death.
“I’m surviving by the help of family and friends like anyone else,” he said.
Prices for essential goods are spiking. The U.N. last week said cooking oil in Mekele had shot up more than 400% since June and diesel more than 600%. In the town of Shire, swamped by scores of thousands of displaced people, diesel was up 1,200%, flour 300% and salt more than 500%.
The true toll of the deprivation in rural areas of the largely agricultural region is unknown as the lack of fuel prevents most travel.
One internal aid document dated last month and seen by the AP described thousands of desperate people who had fled “trapped and starved communities” near the border with Eritrea, whose soldiers have been blamed for some of the worst atrocities of the war.
Raed: At river where Tigrayan bodies floated, fears of ‘many more’
“Most are able to eat at least one meal per day, largely thanks to the availability of cactus fruit,” the document said. “The situation is likely to deteriorate after September when wild fruits are exhausted.”
A document from another part of Tigray described “too many people to count” trying to sell items such as buckets and soap distributed by humanitarian groups. Some people walked straight from the distribution site to the roadside to sell.
“They have no option as they needed the money to buy food to supplement the inadequate food rations,” the document stated, adding the forecast for famine is “terrifying.”
A Catholic priest in Mekele, the Rev. Taum Berhane, described conditions echoing harsh tales from biblical times. Even before the war, parts of Tigray faced an invasion of desert locusts. Then hostile forces looted and burned crops and shot farmers’ animals. Now, the blockade means people are going hungry despite having money in the bank.
“You see lactating mothers with no milk,” he said. “We see babies dying. I saw myself people eating leaves like goats.”
While the church struggles to support camps for thousands of displaced people, “they are telling us, ‘Let us go back to our villages, even if there’s nothing there. It’s better to die at home.’”
The Catholic bishop in the town of Adigrat told him eight children have died at the hospital there, he said.
The priest, 70 years old and a diabetic, now watches his medication dwindle. His congregation’s spirits, too. With cash in Tigray running out, the collection plate is no longer passed at Mass. The bread for communion will be depleted soon.
“Even if I survive, am I going to preach to a vacuum if all humans perish?” he asked. “The only hope is, to be frank, these people have to stop fighting and talk for sustainable peace.”
US religious group says 17 missionaries kidnapped in Haiti
A group of 17 U.S. missionaries including children was kidnapped by a gang in Haiti on Saturday, according to a voice message sent to various religious missions by an organization with direct knowledge of the incident.
The missionaries were on their way home from building an orphanage, according to a message from Ohio-based Christian Aid Ministries.
“This is a special prayer alert,” the one-minute message said. “Pray that the gang members would come to repentance.”
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The message says the mission's field director is working with the U.S. Embassy, and that the field director's family and one other unidentified man who stayed at the ministry's base while everyone else visiting the orphanage, was abducted.
No other details were immediately available.
A U.S. government spokesperson said they were aware of the reports on the kidnapping.
“The welfare and safety of U.S. citizens abroad is one of the highest priorities of the Department of State,” the spokesperson said, declining further comment.
Haiti is once again struggling with a spike in gang-related kidnappings that had diminished after President Jovenel Moïse was fatally shot at his private residence on July 7, and following a 7.2-magnitude earthquake that struck southwest Haiti in August and killed more than 2,200 people.
Gangs have demanded ransoms ranging from a couple hundred dollars to more than $1 million, according to authorities.
Last month, a deacon was killed in front of a church in the capital of Port-au-Prince and his wife kidnapped, one of dozens of people who have been abducted in recent months.
At least 328 kidnapping victims were reported to Haiti’s National Police in the first eight months of 2021, compared with a total of 234 for all of 2020, according to a report issued last month by the United Nations Integrated Office in Haiti known as BINUH.
Gangs have been accused of kidnapping schoolchildren, doctors, police officers, busloads of passengers and others as they grow more powerful. In April, one gang kidnapped five priests and two nuns, a move that prompted a protest similar to the one organized for this Monday to decry the lack of security in the impoverished country.
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“Political turmoil, the surge in gang violence, deteriorating socioeconomic conditions – including food insecurity and malnutrition – all contribute to the worsening of the humanitarian situation,” BINUH said in its report. “An overstretched and under-resourced police force alone cannot address the security ills of Haiti.”
On Friday, the U.N. Security Council voted unanimously to extend the U.N. political mission in Haiti.
The kidnapping of the missionaries comes just days after high-level U.S. officials visited Haiti and promised more resources for Haiti's National Police, including another $15 million to help reduce gang violence, which this year has displaced thousands of Haitians who now live in temporary shelters in increasingly unhygienic conditions.
Among those who met with Haiti's police chief was Uzra Zeya, U.S. under secretary of state for civilian security, democracy, and human rights.
“Dismantling violent gangs is vital to Haitian stability and citizen security,” she recently tweeted.