Sat 06 November 2021:
For the first time, the United Nations Security Council has called for an end to hostilities in Ethiopia, encouraging the warring parties to seek a “lasting ceasefire.”
According to the UN, up to 7 million people in Tigray, Amhara, and Afar need assistance, including 5 million in Tigray, where an estimated 400,000 people are living in famine-like conditions.
Thousands of people have been killed and more than 2.5 million people have been displaced as a result of the year-long fighting between federal government troops and Tigrayan forces.
The Tigrayan troops, who have formed an alliance with the Oromo Liberation Army, claim to have taken control of key cities along a major route leading to Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa, and have vowed to march on it. The Tigrayan troops have been accused by the Ethiopian government of exaggerating their territorial gains.
Much of northern Ethiopia is cut off from the outside world, and journalists have limited access, making combat statements difficult to verify independently.
A Security Council meeting that had been scheduled for Friday has been delayed for early next week, just days before it was to take place.
Instead, in a joint press statement, the 15 members of the UN’s most powerful body “expressed deep concern about the expansion and intensification of military clashes in northern Ethiopia”.
The Security Council further called on all parties to refrain “from inflammatory hate speech and incitement to violence and divisiveness” and urged them “to put an end to hostilities and to negotiate a lasting ceasefire”. The council members also called for unhindered access for humanitarian aid and the re-establishment of public services,
UN Security Council press statement on Ethiopia ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/Pstgj2Hevc
— Amanda Price (@amandaruthprice) November 5, 2021
The federal armed forces on Friday called to retired soldiers and veterans to rejoin the military, setting a November 24 deadline for registration, amid mounting international worry about the risk of an all-out war in Africa’s second most populous country.
The government also proclaimed a six-month state of emergency last week, and municipal authorities in the capital encouraged residents to register their guns and prepare to protect their neighborhoods.
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