Eritrea has admitted its troops are involved in the war in Ethiopia's northern Tigray region but vowed to pull them out amid mounting international pressure.
The country's first acknowledgement of its role in the fighting came in a letter from its UN ambassador to the Security Council, which was posted online by the Eritrea's information minister on Friday night.
Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed sent troops into Tigray in November to disarm and detain leaders of the region's once dominant political party, the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF).
The Ethiopian and Eritrean governments initially denied Eritrean troops were involved, contradicting testimony from residents, rights groups, aid workers, diplomats and even some Ethiopian civilian and military officials.
Mr Abiy finally acknowledged the Eritrean presence while speaking to lawmakers last month, and vowed soon after that they would leave.
Eritrean forces are among various armed groups accused of committing human rights abuses in Tigray since Ethiopia’s federal army ousted the TPLF from the regional capital Mekelle in November. Tigray residents have repeatedly accused Eritrean troops of mass rape and massacres, including in the towns of Axum and Dengolat.
The Eritrean ambassador's letter said that with the TPLF "largely thwarted", Asmara and Addis Ababa "have agreed – at the highest levels – to embark on the withdrawal of the Eritrean forces and the simultaneous redeployment of Ethiopian contingents along the international boundary".
The letter was released a day after UN aid chief Mark Lowcock told the Security Council that Eritrea was not answering global calls to withdraw its troops from the Tigray region.
Addressing a closed-door session, Mr Lowcock reported that 4.5 million people out of about 6 million in Tigray needed humanitarian assistance as the conflict “is not over and things are not improving”.
Aid workers continued to report atrocities committed by Eritrean forces, according to a draft copy of his comments to the council, which was obtained by The National.
“Without a ceasefire, this already grave humanitarian crisis is only going to get a lot worse,” Mr Lowcock said.
“Since the conflict began, civilians have endured indiscriminate shelling of towns, targeted violence, mass killings and executions and systematic sexual violence as a weapon of war.”
An attack by Eritrean troops that left at least nine civilians dead in the Ethiopian town of Adwa on Monday showed the continued Eritrean military presence in Tigray despite promises last month that forces would withdraw.
“Neither the UN nor any of the humanitarian agencies we work with have seen proof of Eritrean withdrawal,” said Mr Lowcock.
“We have, however, heard some reports of Eritrean soldiers now wearing Ethiopian Defence Force uniforms. And regardless of uniform or insignia, humanitarian staff continue to report new atrocities which they say are being committed by Eritrean Defence Forces.”
The Security Council meeting, held at the request of the US, was its fifth debate on the violence in Tigray. Permanent members Russia and China have blocked calls for action by Western powers on what they consider to be an internal Ethiopian matter.
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The biog
Family: wife, four children, 11 grandchildren, 16 great-grandchildren
Reads: Newspapers, historical, religious books and biographies
Education: High school in Thatta, a city now in Pakistan
Regrets: Not completing college in Karachi when universities were shut down following protests by freedom fighters for the British to quit India
Happiness: Work on creative ideas, you will also need ideals to make people happy
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Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
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THE BIO: Martin Van Almsick
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What sanctions would be reimposed?
Under ‘snapback’, measures imposed on Iran by the UN Security Council in six resolutions would be restored, including:
- An arms embargo
- A ban on uranium enrichment and reprocessing
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- Authorisation for countries to inspect Iran Air Cargo and Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines cargoes for banned goods
Some of Darwish's last words
"They see their tomorrows slipping out of their reach. And though it seems to them that everything outside this reality is heaven, yet they do not want to go to that heaven. They stay, because they are afflicted with hope." - Mahmoud Darwish, to attendees of the Palestine Festival of Literature, 2008
His life in brief: Born in a village near Galilee, he lived in exile for most of his life and started writing poetry after high school. He was arrested several times by Israel for what were deemed to be inciteful poems. Most of his work focused on the love and yearning for his homeland, and he was regarded the Palestinian poet of resistance. Over the course of his life, he published more than 30 poetry collections and books of prose, with his work translated into more than 20 languages. Many of his poems were set to music by Arab composers, most significantly Marcel Khalife. Darwish died on August 9, 2008 after undergoing heart surgery in the United States. He was later buried in Ramallah where a shrine was erected in his honour.
Dust and sand storms compared
Sand storm
- Particle size: Larger, heavier sand grains
- Visibility: Often dramatic with thick "walls" of sand
- Duration: Short-lived, typically localised
- Travel distance: Limited
- Source: Open desert areas with strong winds
Dust storm
- Particle size: Much finer, lightweight particles
- Visibility: Hazy skies but less intense
- Duration: Can linger for days
- Travel distance: Long-range, up to thousands of kilometres
- Source: Can be carried from distant regions
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Farage on Muslim Brotherhood
Nigel Farage told Reform's annual conference that the party will proscribe the Muslim Brotherhood if he becomes Prime Minister.
"We will stop dangerous organisations with links to terrorism operating in our country," he said. "Quite why we've been so gutless about this – both Labour and Conservative – I don't know.
“All across the Middle East, countries have banned and proscribed the Muslim Brotherhood as a dangerous organisation. We will do the very same.”
It is 10 years since a ground-breaking report into the Muslim Brotherhood by Sir John Jenkins.
Among the former diplomat's findings was an assessment that “the use of extreme violence in the pursuit of the perfect Islamic society” has “never been institutionally disowned” by the movement.
The prime minister at the time, David Cameron, who commissioned the report, said membership or association with the Muslim Brotherhood was a "possible indicator of extremism" but it would not be banned.
