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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. Also Read: Bangladeshi investors should eye untapped African continent: Experts 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. Also Read: Misappropriation of Tk12 crore: 2 Bank Asia officials among 5 sued 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. Also Read: Bangladesh’s importance in S Asia growing: US “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.”  

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. Also Read: In Afghanistan, a girls’ school is the story of a village 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. Also Read: South Sudan names road after Bangladesh 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. Also Read: US gives final clearance to COVID-19 shots for kids 5 to 11 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.      

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. Read: 3 groups of students freed in Nigeria in 24-hour period 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.

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.

Sudan’s military seized power Monday, dissolving the transitional government hours after troops arrested the prime minister, and thousands flooded the streets to protest the coup that threatened the country’s shaky progress toward democracy. Security forces opened fire on some of them, and three protesters were killed, according to the Sudan Doctors’ Committee, which also said 80 people were wounded. The takeover, which drew condemnation from the United Nations, the United States and the European Union, comes more than two years after protesters forced the ouster of longtime autocrat Omar al-Bashir and just weeks before the military was supposed to hand the leadership of the council that runs the country over to civilians. The U.N. Security Council scheduled an emergency closed meeting on the Sudan coup late Tuesday afternoon. The United States, United Kingdom, France, Ireland, Norway and Estonia requested the emergency consultations. Read:PM, officials detained, internet down in apparent Sudan coup After the early morning arrests of Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok and other senior officials, thousands demonstrated in the streets of the capital, Khartoum, and its twin city of Omdurman. They blocked streets and set fire to tires as security forces used tear gas to disperse them. As plumes of smoke rose, protesters could be heard chanting, “The people are stronger, stronger!” and “Retreat is not an option!” Social media video showed crowds crossing bridges over the Nile to the center of the capital. The U.S. Embassy warned that troops were blocking parts of the city and urged the military “to immediately cease violence.” Pro-democracy activist Dura Gambo said paramilitary forces chased protesters through some Khartoum neighborhoods. Records from a Khartoum hospital obtained by The Associated Press showed some people admitted with gunshot wounds. The head of the military, Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan, announced on national TV that he was dissolving the government and the Sovereign Council, a joint military and civilian body created soon after al-Bashir’s ouster to run the country. Burhan said quarrels among political factions prompted the military intervention. Tensions have been rising for weeks over the course and the pace of the transition to democracy in Sudan, a nation in Africa linked by language and culture to the Arab world. The general declared a state of emergency and said the military will appoint a technocratic government to lead the country to elections, set for July 2023. But he made clear the military will remain in charge. “The Armed Forces will continue completing the democratic transition until the handover of the country’s leadership to a civilian, elected government,” he said. He added that the constitution would be rewritten and a legislative body would be formed with the participation of “young men and women who made this revolution.” The Information Ministry, still loyal to the dissolved government, called his speech an “announcement of a seizure of power by military coup.” As darkness fell in Khartoum, barricades were still burning and occasional gunshots could be heard, said Volker Perthes, the U.N. special envoy for Sudan, at a briefing in New York. President Joe Biden was briefed on Sudan in the morning, said White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre. She added that the U.S. was “deeply alarmed at reports of a military takeover" and called for the immediate release of the prime minister and other officials. “The actions today are in stark opposition to the will of the Sudanese people and their aspirations for peace, liberty and justice,” Jean-Pierre said. The Biden administration is suspending $700 million in emergency economic aid to Sudan that had been allocated to help the transition, said State Department spokesman Ned Price. He called it a “pause,” and urged the civilian-led government be immediately restored. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres “strongly condemns the ongoing military coup d’état in Khartoum and all actions that could jeopardize Sudan’s political transition and stability,” said his spokesman, spokesman Stéphane Dujarric. Guterres also called for the release of the government officials, the spokesman said, as did the African Union. EU foreign affairs chief Joseph Borrell tweeted that he was following the events with the “utmost concern.” Read: 10 killed in South Sudan plane crash

Sudan's interim prime minister and a number of senior government officials were arrested Monday, the information ministry said, describing the actions as a military coup. The internet in the country was largely cut off and military forces closed bridges, according to the ministry’s Facebook page. It said the whereabouts of Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok were not immediately known. Meanwhile, the country’s state news channel played patriotic traditional music and scenes of the Nile river. The country's main pro-democracy group and the largest political party urged people in separate appeals to take to the streets to counter the apparent military coup. Thousands of people flooded the streets of Khartoum and its twin city of Omdurman. Footage shared online appeared to show protesters blocking streets and setting fire to tires as security forces used tear gas to disperse them. A takeover by the military would be a major setback for Sudan, which has grappled with a transition to democracy since long-time ruler Omar al-Bashir was toppled by mass protests two years ago. Read: 10 killed in South Sudan plane crash Early Monday, the U.S. Special Envoy to the Horn of Africa Jeffrey Feltman said Washington was “deeply alarmed” by reports of the military takeover. Monday's arrests come after weeks of rising tensions between Sudan’s civilian and military leaders. A failed coup attempt in September fractured the country along old lines, pitting more-conservative Islamists who want a military government against those who toppled al-Bashir in protests. In recent days, both camps have taken to the street in demonstrations. The information ministry said on its Facebook page that Hamdok was detained and taken to an undisclosed location. It said a number of officials were also detained and their whereabouts were not known. Earlier Monday, two officials confirmed that at least five government figures were the detained. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media. The officials said the detained government members include Industry Minister Ibrahim al-Sheikh, Information Minister Hamza Baloul, and Mohammed al-Fiky Suliman, member of the country's ruling transitional body, known as The Sovereign Council, and Faisal Mohammed Saleh, a media adviser to Hamdok. Ayman Khalid, governor of the state containing the capital, Khartoum, was also arrested, according to the official Facebook page of his office. Under Hamdok and the transitional council, Sudan has slowly emerged from years of international pariah status in which it existed under al-Bashir. The country was removed from the United States' state supporter of terror list in 2020, opening the door for badly needed international loans and investment. But the country's economy has struggled with the shock of a number economic reforms called for by international lending institutions. There have been previous military coups in Sudan since it gained its independence from Britain and Egypt in 1956. Al-Bashir came to power in a 1989 military coup that removed the country’s last elected government. Read:Death toll from violence in Sudan's West Darfur rises to 83 The arrests followed meetings by Feltman, the special U.S. envoy, with Sudanese military and civilian leaders Saturday and Sunday in efforts to resolve the dispute. Sudan's state news website highlighted the meetings with military officials. The Sudanese Communist Party called on workers to go on strike and mass civil disobedience after what it described as a “full military coup” orchestrated by the Sovereign Council's head Gen. Abdel-Fattah Burhan. NetBlocks, a group which tracks disruptions across the internet, said it had seen a “significant disruption” to both fixed-line and mobile internet connections across Sudan with multiple providers early Monday. “Metrics corroborate user reports network disruptions appearing consistent with an internet shutdown,” the advocacy group said. “The disruption is likely to limit the free flow of information online and news coverage of incidents on the ground.”

Gunmen have killed at least 30 people in northwest Nigeria in the latest round of violence in which hundreds have been killed so far this year and thousands more displaced. Aminu Tambuwal, Sokoto state governor, said Monday that the gunmen stormed Goronyo community on Sunday evening to carry out the attack that lasted through the night. The area attacked is just 75 kilometers (46 miles) away from the Sokoto state capital, unlike past attacks which were in more remote areas. Read:Gunmen abduct 30 students from school in northwest Nigeria “Between last night, yesterday evening till this morning, we were greeted with a very dastardly attack in Goronyo local government, particularly Goronyo township, where scores and tens have lost their lives and still counting. We’re not sure of the figure. But it is 30 something,” Tambuwal said in a statement. The governor was speaking when he received Lt. Gen. Farouk Yahaya, Nigeria’s army chief of staff, who recently commissioned special military operations to bring under control the country's rising violence. Those operations, in addition to extreme measures such as blockades of telecommunications and curfews, have not stopped the armed groups from attacking communities. The gunmen often kill dozens of residents in areas with little security presence. In Sokoto, one of the most affected states where the bandits have taken advantage of the large swathes of land that are not patrolled along the border with the neighboring country of Niger, residents have told AP that some attacks are not heard of until days or weeks after they have occurred. “We are under bandits now,” state lawmaker Amina Al-Mustapha recently told AP of violence in the Sabon Birnin area of Sokoto. "No single village has not been attacked." Children and women have also been targeted in the violence. The gunmen often abduct women and have kidnapped more than 1,400 schoolchildren over the past year, according to UNICEF. Read: Gunmen kill at least 27 at memorial for Afghan Shiite leader It is a “very trying moment” for Nigeria, the Sokoto governor said, adding that Nigeria is “bedevilled by many security challenges in our own area here, particularly banditry, kidnapping and other associated crimes.” It has been difficult for the government to stop the attacks because often the gunmen outnumber Nigerian security personnel in affected villages and are also better equipped, according to Nnamdi Obasi of the International Crisis Group. He said a “serious deficit of will” by government officials across all levels contributes to the prolonged crisis.

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.”

The world’s first malaria vaccine should be given to children across Africa, the World Health Organization recommended Wednesday, a move that officials hope will spur stalled efforts to curb the spread of the parasitic disease. WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus called it “a historic moment" after a meeting in which two of the U.N. health agency's expert advisory groups endorsed using the vaccine. "Today’s recommendation offers a glimmer of hope for the continent, which shoulders the heaviest burden of the disease. And we expect many more African children to be protected from malaria and grow into healthy adults,” said Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, WHO's Africa director. WHO said its decision was based largely on results from ongoing research in Ghana, Kenya and Malawi that tracked more than 800,000 children who have received the vaccine since 2019. The malaria vaccine known as Mosquirix was developed by GlaxoSmithKline in 1987. While it’s the first to be authorized, it does have challenges: the vaccine is only about 30% effective, requires up to four doses and its protection fades after several months. Still, given the extremely high burden of malaria in Africa — where the majority of the world’s more than 200 million cases a year and 400,000 deaths a year occur — scientists say the vaccine could still have a major impact. “This is a huge step forward,” said Julian Rayner, director of the Cambridge Institute for Medical Research, who was not part of the WHO decision. “It’s an imperfect vaccine, but it will still stop hundreds of thousands of children from dying.” Rayner said the vaccine’s impact on the spread of the mosquito-borne disease was still unclear, but pointed to coronavirus vaccines as an encouraging example. “The last two years have given us a very nuanced understanding of how important vaccines are in saving lives and reducing hospitalizations, even if they don’t directly reduce transmission,” he said. Dr. Alejandro Cravioto, chair of the WHO vaccine group that made the recommendation, said designing a shot against malaria was particularly difficult because it is a parasitic disease spread by mosquitoes. “We’re confronted with extraordinarily complex organisms,” he said. “We are not yet in reach of a highly efficacious vaccine, but what we have now is a vaccine that can be deployed and that is safe.” WHO said side effects were rare, but sometimes included a fever that could result in temporary convulsions. Sian Clarke, co-director of the Malaria Centre at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said the vaccine would be a useful addition to other tools against the disease that might have exhausted their utility after decades of use, like bed nets and insecticides. “In some countries where it gets really hot, children just sleep outside, so they can’t be protected by a bed net,” Clarke explained. “So obviously if they’ve been vaccinated, they will still be protected.” Clarke added that in the last few years little significant progress has been made against malaria. “If we’re going to decrease the disease burden now, we need something else,” she explained. Azra Ghani, chair of infectious diseases at Imperial College London, said she and colleagues estimate that the introduction of the malaria vaccine in African children might result in a 30% reduction overall: up to 8 million fewer cases and as many as 40,000 fewer deaths per year. “For people not living in malaria countries, a 30% reduction might not sound like much. But for the people living in those areas, malaria is one of their top concerns,” Ghani said. “A 30% reduction will save a lot of lives and will save mothers (from) bringing in their children to health centers and swamping the health system.” She said the WHO guidance would hopefully be a “first step” to making better malaria vaccines. Ghani said efforts to produce a second-generation malaria vaccine might be given a boost by the messenger RNA technology used to make two of the most successful COVID-19 vaccines, those from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna. “We’ve seen much higher antibody levels from the mRNA vaccines, and they can also be adapted very quickly,” Ghani said, noting that BioNTech recently said it would begin researching a possible malaria shot. “It’s impossible to say how that may affect a malaria vaccine, but we definitely need new options to fight it.”  

A vehicle laden with explosives rammed into cars and trucks at a checkpoint leading to the entrance of the Presidential Palace in Somalia, killing at least eight people, police said Saturday. The checkpoint is the one used by Somalia’s president and prime minister on their way to and from the airport in Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu. Read:At least 2 killed in German chemical blast; 31 injured Nine other people were wounded in the bombing, police spokesman Abdifatah Adam Hassan said. The al-Qaida-linked al-Shabab extremist group has claimed responsibility. The group often carries out such attacks in the capital.