UNIVERSITY OF HALIFAX, CANADA – Born in an Ethiopian prison, all Elias Mebrate knew by the age of 10 was how to clean the guards’ guns. By 14, he was learning to train his own rifle on the enemy.
“That was the only opportunity I had to survive,” he said Wednesday in Halifax. “Instead of just sitting and dreaming of bread, it’s better to go and fight and to get that bread.”
After spending his first decade behind bars, guards released him on the streets of Bahir Dar, a city in northwest Ethiopia. But they kept his mother, a political prisoner. So he slept in a church and “borrowed” coins people dropped in front of a saint’s statue.
Four years later, the homeless boy begged the Ethiopian army to let him enlist. He was told he was too young. “Then I asked them again and again.”
Persistence paid off, and a week later he was issued a uniform. “At least I got clothes to cover myself, food.”
Several times over the next four years, he fought rebels who attacked camps where he was training. Mortar fire and rockets rained around him.
“Compared with Canadian children, I didn’t see childhood at all. I’ve never played soccer outside on the field.”
At 18, he ran away from the military and made his way to Kenya. After working as a security guard for an international hotel chain, he wound up in a refugee camp and was sent to Canada a decade later for resettlement.
Mr. Mebrate, now 35, is in the final year of a management degree program at Dalhousie University. His route to the institution was anything but conventional.
At the refugee camp, a Canadian minister gave him a bag of old clothing for Christmas. One of the donated T-shirts said Dalhousie University across the front.
“So I was wearing it but I didn’t know what (it was),” he said. “After I came here, the first job I got was at the Purdy’s Wharf towers.”
He was cleaning an office when he noticed a Dal diploma on the wall and realized the university was in Halifax. “I said, ‘I am going to have one of these degrees before I die.’ ”
Mr. Mebrate applied as a mature student and was accepted on the condition of maintaining good grades.
He has an exam in corporate finance today but instead of studying on Wednesday, he participated in a Halifax workshop aimed at finding ways to end the use of children in war. The Child Soldier Initiative, which staged the event, hopes to have a small team working in Africa by next year.
“The best thing is just to give them the opportunity to be engaged, either in sport or education,” said Mr. Mebrate, who hopes to find a career with the United Nations refugee agency.
The UN estimates about 300,000 children are being forced to fight in wars around the world, mainly in sub-Saharan Africa.
“We could be talking about eight-year-olds,” said Shelly Whitman, the deputy director of Dal’s Centre for Foreign Policy Studies, who teaches a course on children and war.
Ken Eyre of the Pearson Peacekeeping Centre put it bluntly. “They’re cheap, they’re easy to manipulate and if they break, you don’t even need to fix them. You just get another one.”
Mr. Eyre, a retired Canadian Forces major, said recruiters use drugs to lure children into fighting. In Sierra Leone, he said, child soldiers sniffed a mixture of gunpowder and cocaine while watching Rambo movies.
Mr. Eyre recalled encountering several child soldiers during a trip to Rwanda in late 1994, after the genocide where an estimated 800,000 people were killed over 100 days.
“I met a friend at an airport and I was telling her that I’d been stopped at a roadblock by these young children early in the morning and they had these Kalashnikov automatic rifles and they were drunk, and I admitted to her that I was scared,” Mr. Eyre said.
“And she said to me: ‘You should be scared. They’d kill you for a Fanta.’ ”
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia, 16 October 2008 – Addis Ababa’s Maskal Square came alive in the spirit of handwashing yesterday as 1 million Ethiopian children united to wash their hands with soap and water in celebration of the first-ever Global Handwashing Day.
“The message is that the simple action of washing hands with soap saves lives,” said UNICEF Ethiopia Officer-in-Charge Marc Rubin.
“The top four messages,” he added, “are that washing hands with water alone is not enough, handwashing with soap can prevent diseases that kill millions of children needlessly every year, critical moments for handwashing are after using the toilet and before handling food, and handwashing is the single most cost-effective intervention.”
The half-day Global Handwashing Day national event held at Maskal Square featured over 300 schoolchildren from five elementary schools. They marched and sang to promote handwashing with soap as an important hygienic practice that reduces the prevalence of diarrhoeal diseases and respiratory illnesses, which together kill 3.5 million children worldwide each year.
Public-private partnership
With the goal of preventing such deaths, an estimated 120 million children observed Global Handwashing Day in 70 countries across five continents.
The celebration in Ethiopia was organized by UNICEF and the national WASH (for ‘water, sanitation and hygiene’) movement, along with private-sector partners. Across the country, schoolchildren washed their hands with soap and water at noon just before their lunch break. Soap was distributed to participating schools through regional education boards.
Global Handwashing Day also aims to raise the profile of the International Year of Sanitation, which is being observed worldwide throughout 2008. Globally, an estimated 2.6 billion people do not have access to basic sanitation. In Ethiopia, only 11 per cent of the population has access to improved sanitation.
ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA – (APA) Ethiopia and a Canadian petroleum company on Thursday signed an agreement in Addis Ababa for the exploration of oil in several locations in the African country.
Ethiopian Ministry of Mines and Energy and the Calvalley Petroleum Inc, a Canada-based company, signed the agreement that allows the company to explore for oil and develop petroleum products in the Amhara, Tigray, Oromia, and Benishangul Gumuz States of Ethiopia.
Ethiopian Minister of Mines and Energy, Alemayehu Tegenu and Company Chief Executive Officer, Edmund M. Shimon, representing the company signed the agreement.
The company will be exploring for oil on more than 46,000 sq. meter area of land and will bear all the necessary costs.
“The initial term of the exploration period shall be 4 years to be extended twice for two years.
The total development and production period will be 25 years to be extended if required,” the agreement said.
UNITED NATIONS, Oct. 13 (Xinhua) — UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has transmitted to the Security Council the last report issued by the independent commission on Ethiopia and Eritrea’s common boundary, said the United Nations in a statement Monday.
The report noted that the commission’s mandate has been fulfilled and that all administrative issues connected to its termination have wrapped up.
In 2002, the Eritrea-Ethiopia Boundary Commission handed down a final and binding decision awarding Badme, the town that triggered fierce fighting between the neighboring Horn of Africa nations, to Eritrea. But the two countries have since been at an impasse on that demarcation.
In this July, the Security Council voted unanimously to terminate the UN peacekeeping mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea, known as UNMEE, after restrictions placed on the peacekeeping operation by the latter country undermined its ability to carry out its mandate.
Eritrea is angry that the United Nations has not enforced a ruling by the independent boundary commission awarding the town of Badme to Eritrea.
As such, Ban said in his recent letter to the 15-member body that he will no longer provide regular reports on the situation between the two nations.
SODO, Ethiopia (AFP) — Okume Ochubo’s tiny plot of land in southern Ethiopia is lush with waist-high maize sprouts and other crops, but she and her seven young children are struggling to feed themselves.
“We cannot survive without food aid, we collect assistance whenever it is available,” she said, as two of her children jostled under the shadows of giant eucalyptus trees.
“We are praying to God for a better situation,” the 40-year-old farmer added, her voice barely audible under the breeze of swaying maize leaves.
Okume is one of millions of people in the Horn of Africa nation — a country with a long history of extreme food shortages — who are at renewed threat of hunger as a result of failed and delayed rains.
The British charity group Oxfam announced last week that the number of Ethiopians in need of emergency food aid had risen from 4.6 to 6.4 million since June, as rising food prices and drought continued to compound the crisis.
But in Wolaytta district, some 330 kilometres (200 miles) south of Addis Ababa, and most surrounding areas, it is a crisis of a different kind.
The region is known for its diverse crop varieties, and a recent downpour of rain since August has turned the valley into a sea of green.
But the area’s apparent fertility is deceptive. Rains fell at the wrong time, reserves are dwindling and 50 percent of the area’s two million inhabitants are facing what aid workers have labelled a “green famine”.
Prior to that, not a single rain drop fell for eight months, leaving farmers with dwindling food reserves, while plunging the entire region into one of the worst droughts it has ever seen.
“It certainly is one of the worst in Wolaytta’s history, probably third to 1984 after 2003,” Abraham Asha, representative of the US-based charity group Concern, told AFP.
“Had it not been for the quick response of the government and NGOs, the disaster would not have been averted,” he added.
At least a million people died in the 1984 famine, with the then dictator Haile Marian Mengistu accused of concentrating scarce resources on the lengthy conflict along the border with what is now Eritrea, and the 2003 crisis left 14 million Ethiopians in need of food assistance.
The current Ethiopian government under Prime Minister Meles Zenawi has been criticised for spending too much of its budget on the military and not enough on guaranteeing the basic needs of the population.
The authorities also expelled several aid groups operating in the Ogaden region, where government troops have since last year cracked down on a rebellion, further deepening an alarming humanitarian situation there.
At the height of the drought in April, Abraham said hundreds of children in several districts suffered from stunted growth and weight deficit.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said up to 12 percent were diagnosed with acute malnutrition in the area at that time.
Experts blame numerous factors for the chronic food insecurity behind the facade of green fields in Wolaytta and the rest of southern Ethiopia.
High population density of up to 800 people per square kilometre and a system of smallholdings have always exerted huge pressure on the land.
“Resources are being exhausted and population is increasing. The region has to take drastic measures such as voluntary resettlement to curb the burden,” Abraham said.
Government officials on the other hand, are banking on high yields as a cure for the problem.
“In this district, productivity is far from satisfactory. Farmers here produce only 20 quintals of yield per hectare when other nearby zones produce up to 80,” district administrator Hailebirhan Zena told participants in a recent meeting.
“We are focusing on increasing yields through irrigation. It is no secret that Wolaytta lies in proximity to several rivers,” he said.
Despite the number of hungry Ethiopians doubling since April and aid agencies reporting a funding shortfall of 260 million dollars (190 million euros), chronic malnutrition has stabilised in the region.
Yet local residents remained pessimistic. The September harvest is thought to be enough to stave off starvation until December but unless reserves last until February, millions will be on the brink again.
“It will happen again as not enough stocks will last until then. It is even expected to be worse next year,” Abraham said.
Aid organisations have warned that Ethiopia — one of Africa’s poorest countries and its second most populous — on the brink of a major famine to that which killed millions in the 1980s.
SOMALIA’S FRAGILE government appears to be on the brink of collapse. Islamist insurgents now controls large parts of southern and central Somalia – and are continuing to launch attacks inside the capital, Mogadishu.
Ethiopia Woyanne, which launched a US-backed military intervention in Somalia in December 2006 in an effort to drive out an Islamist authority in Mogadishu, is now pulling out its troops.
Diplomats and analysts in neighbouring Nairobi believe the government will fall once Ethiopia Woyanne completes its withdrawal, and secret plans have been made to evacuate government ministers to neighbouring Kenya.
That may happen sooner rather than later. A shipment of Ethiopian Woyanne weapons, including tanks, left Mogadishu port last month as part of the withdrawal. Bringing the equipment back to Ethiopia by land would have been impossible – analysts believe Ethiopian Woyanne troops and their Somali government allies control just three small areas in Mogadishu and a few streets in Baidoa, the seat of parliament. There are now estimated to be just 2500 Ethiopian Woyanne soldiers left inside Somalia, down from 15,000-18,000 at the height of the war.
Somalia’s overlapping conflicts go back, at the very least, to 1991, the year the country’s last recognised government was overthrown. Men and women who were children then have since given birth to a second generation of Somalis who have known only war.
But analysts believe Somalia is now in the midst of its worst ever crisis. The ongoing conflict, which has claimed the lives of at least 9000 civilians and forced more than 1.1 million to flee their homes, has combined with devastating droughts and rocketing food prices to create one of the world’s worst humanitarian catastrophes.
Almost half the population – 3.2m people – are in need of emergency aid (the figure has almost doubled in the last 12 months). One in six children is thought to be malnourished.
“This crisis is broadening as well as deepening,” said Mark Bowden, the head of the UN’s humanitarian effort. “It is now the world’s most complicated crisis.”
Violence and insecurity have made it almost impossible for aid to get through, and 24 aid workers have been killed in Somalia so far this year. A recent shipment of food aid needed a military escort to navigate Somalia’s pirate-infested waters. But within hours of the food being unloaded in Mogadishu’s port most of it was stolen by gun-toting gangs.
Oxfam, Save The Children and 50 other aid agencies working in Somalia last week said the international community had “completely failed Somali civilians”.
As the crisis worsens thousands are trying to leave the country every week. Around 6000 people are now crossing the border into Kenya every month – despite the Kenyan government’s decision to close the border. Some are arriving at the overcrowded Dadaab refugee camp in eastern Kenya, which is now one of the largest refugee camps in the world with nearly 250,000 people.
Others try to leave by sea, travelling to the northern town of Bosasso and paying $100 to people smugglers who ram more than 100 people onto a small fishing boat and set sail for Yemen.
Many do not make it. Smugglers last week forced 150 people off the boat three miles off the Yemeni coast. Only 47 made it to shore.
Attempts to find a political solution have stalled. The UN claims progress has been made, citing an agreement signed in neighbouring Djibouti by the Somali government and the opposition Alliance for the Reliberation of Somalia (ARS).
But the deal has been signed only by the moderates on each side: Prime Minister Nur Adde and the ARS’s Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed.
President Abdullahi Yusuf, a former warlord who controls the government’s security forces, has refused to get involved. Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, the hardline Islamic leader of another faction of the ARS, has denounced the deal, as have the leaders of the insurgents, a group called Al Shabaab.
Since the deal was struck in June, the level of violence has increased.
Few Somalis will weep if the government falls. In most respects it is a government in name only. Few ministries have offices, let alone civil servants to fill them. There are no real policies – and no real way to implement any.
Worst of all, this government, which is backed by the United Nations and funded by Western donors including Britain and the EU, has been accused of committing a litany of war crimes. Its police force, many of whom were trained under a UN programme part-funded by Britain, has carried out extrajudicial killings, raped women and fired indiscriminately on crowds at markets. Militias aligned to the government have killed journalists and attacked aid workers.
The government’s fall would mark the end of a disastrous US-backed intervention. For six months in 2006, Somalia was relatively calm. A semblance of peace and security had returned to Mogadishu. The reason was the rise of the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC), a loose coalition of Islamist leaders who had driven out Mogadishu’s warlords.
Hardline elements within the UIC vowed to launch a jihad against Somalia’s traditional enemy, Ethiopia. The US viewed the UIC has an “al-Qaeda cell” – a belief not shared by the majority of analysts and diplomats.
Ethiopia Woyanne, with the support of the US, sent thousands of troops across the border to drive out the UIC. It took just a few days to defeat them. Their leaders fled towards the border with Kenya, while many of the fighters took off their uniforms and melted into Mogadishu.
Within weeks, an Iraq-style insurgency had begun, targeting Somali government and Ethiopian troops. Al Shabaab began laying roadside bombs and firing at Ethiopian troops from inside civilian areas.
The Ethiopians Woyanne responded by bombarding residential areas. Hundreds were killed and hundreds of thousands fled Mogadishu. Human rights groups accused Ethiopia Woyanne of committing war crimes.
The US must now be wondering whether it was all worth it. Western backing for the unpopular Somali government and US support for the Ethiopian Woyanne intervention has created a groundswell of anti-West sentiment in Somalia.
The Islamist leaders they were so keen to oust are the same ones they are now engaged in negotiations with. US officials have met both Sheikh Sharif and the more hardline Sheikh Aweys in an effort to find a peace deal.
Meanwhile, in Somalia, the Islamists taking control of towns and villages across the country are considered far more extremist than Aweys. “They are real international jihadis,” said one Nairobi-based diplomat. “The Americans’ fear of al-Qaeda in Somalia is becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.”
“That was the only opportunity I had to survive,” he said Wednesday in Halifax. “Instead of just sitting and dreaming of bread, it’s better to go and fight and to get that bread.”
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia, 16 October 2008 – Addis Ababa’s Maskal Square came alive in the spirit of handwashing yesterday as 1 million Ethiopian children united to wash their hands with soap and water in celebration of the first-ever Global Handwashing Day.