ADDIS ABABA: Conflict between the Ethiopian army and rebels in the country’s most populated region is having “devastating consequences” on civilians, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) warned on Thursday.
Africa’s second most populous country, home to some 130 million inhabitants, is being torn apart by several armed conflicts.
Oromia, which surrounds the capital Addis Ababa, has seen clashes since 2018 between federal forces and the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA), with peace talks failing to yield progress.
Authorities have classified the OLA as a “terrorist organization,” but it claims to be fighting for the rights of the region’s approximately 40 million inhabitants.
“The ongoing conflict in the Oromia region is having a devastating effect on many communities, particularly those in remote areas,” the ICRC in Ethiopia said in a statement.
“Oromia doesn’t make the headlines, yet civilians continue to be deeply affected by violence, with many people killed or injured and limited help coming from outside the region,” it warned.
“Many communities live on either side of a front line, or in places where there are ever-changing front lines, meaning that frequent skirmishes make movements particularly difficult and dangerous,” it added, saying that it prevented access to life-saving health care.
International monitors in 2018 estimated the OLA’s strength at a few thousand men but believe numbers have significantly increased in recent years.
Despite this, they believe it remains insufficiently armed and organized to pose a real threat to the Ethiopian government.
In November, the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission (EHRC) announced it was investigating the deaths of 48 people, including a district official, in an attack attributed to the OLA.
While Ethiopia signed a peace deal to end a deadly war between federal and regional forces in northern Tigray in 2022, conflicts continue to roil the sprawling nation.
In the Amhara region, the second most populous, federal authorities have been grappling with the Fano People’s Militia insurgency for over a year.
Civilians face ‘devastating’ impact of Ethiopia’s Oromia conflict: ICRC
https://arab.news/wx39w
Civilians face ‘devastating’ impact of Ethiopia’s Oromia conflict: ICRC
- While Ethiopia signed a peace deal to end a deadly war between federal and regional forces in northern Tigray in 2022, conflicts continue to roil the sprawling nation
Four killed in Ukraine as Moscow and Kyiv exchange drone strikes
- Kyiv said Russian drone strikes had killed two people and wounded seven more in Kharkiv
- Synegubov said two people had been killed in the attack on the Shevchenkivsky district
KHARKIV, Ukraine: Russian and Ukrainian drone strikes killed at least four people Wednesday, officials said, as the war between the neighbors dragged on for more than four years with no diplomatic breakthrough in sight.
The latest attacks came with a third round of three-party talks derailed by the war in the Middle East, despite pressure from Washington on both sides to agree to an elusive peace deal.
Kyiv said Russian drone strikes had killed two people and wounded seven more in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv.
Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, which lies close to the Russian border, was encircled at the beginning of Russia’s invasion four years ago.
It has been attacked almost daily since Moscow’s forces were pushed back later in 2022.
The governor of the wider region, Oleg Synegubov, said two people had been killed in the attack on the Shevchenkivsky district.
“A civilian enterprise caught fire as a result of the enemy strike,” he said, adding that three women and four men had been hospitalized.
Another Russian drone wounded 20 people in the afternoon, after hitting a civilian minibus in the southeastern city of Kherson, Ukrainian prosecutors said.
In the Russian-occupied part of the southern Zaporizhzhia region, Moscow-installed authorities said two civilians had been killed in their car by a Ukrainian drone strike on the frontline town of Vasylivka.
“The danger of repeated strikes remains,” Kremlin-appointed governor Yevgeny Balitsky said.
