(ICC) – International Criminal Court (ICC) Deputy Prosecutor Mrs. Fatou Bensouda is invited to brief the Peace and Security Council of the African Union on 11 July on case related issues including Darfur, as ICC Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo prepares to present to ICC Judges in The Hague his second case in the Darfur situation, scheduled to take place on July 14.
In Ethiopia, Deputy Prosecutor Bensouda will also meet with the Chairperson of the African Union Commission H.E. Jean Ping.
Prior to traveling to African Union Headquarters in Ethiopia, Mrs. Bensouda attended the African Union Summit in Sharm-El-Sheikh, Egypt, from 30 June – 1 July.
The International Criminal Court is an independent, permanent court that investigates and prosecutes persons accused of the most serious crimes of international concern, namely genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes.
GENEVA/ADDIS ABABA — Worsening malnutrition and the threat of disease outbreaks are compounding Ethiopia’s humanitarian crisis. The World Health Organization is working with the Government of Ethiopia and health partners to support the 4.6 million people needing urgent emergency food relief nationwide.
The number of people needing food assistance is increasing markedly in Ethiopia, and health risks are being compounded by the global food security crisis, the impact of drought on agricultural production and the country’s weak health system. During the coming months, annual rains are expected to again cause large-scale flooding, increasing loss of crops and risk of disease.
“In humanitarian terms, the situation is unacceptable,” said Dr Eric Laroche, Assistant Director-General for WHO’s Health Action in Crises Cluster. “The health of millions of Ethiopians is worsening by the day, and the international community must act to support the country’s government to ease this terrible suffering.”
In three regions alone (Somali, SNNP and Eastern Oromiya), the number of government-run feeding centres has risen from 200 three months ago to 605 today. Some 75 000 children aged under 5 need therapeutic and supplementary nutrition support. WHO, UNICEF and nongovernmental organization partners are supporting these centres.
Additional major gaps affecting people’s health and livelihoods are lack of access to safe drinking water, shortages of drugs and medical supplies and insufficient human resources. The areas affected by shortages are also at significant risk of disease outbreaks: diarrhoeal diseases, measles and meningitis. Cases of acute watery diarrhoeal have been reported in 16 districts, and outbreaks of cerebrospinal meningitis in 37 districts. More than 7000 cases of measles have been registered in 38 districts.
WHO works with Federal and regional government partners, UN agencies and nongovernmental organizations to provide better health and nutrition services throughout Ethiopia using emergency mobile teams; deploy drugs, medical and nutrition supplies and staff for emergency action in affected areas; plan the rolling out outpatient therapeutic programmes in the health extension programme which promotes the primary health care approach in Ethiopia; and strengthen disease and nutritional surveillance systems to enable rapid response.
Response efforts include:
– Strengthening disease and nutritional surveillance, particularly for severe acute malnutrition to enable critical response.
– Preventing measles via immunization activities, including vaccinations and vitamin A supplementation. The first phase of supplementary immunization activities had a more than 95 % coverage rate.
– Training and support for health staff and strengthening systems to address health needs.
– Water treatment and hygiene and sanitation promotion interventions to stop the spread of acute watery diarrhoea and other communicable diseases.
– Provision of urgently needed drugs and medical supplies to support health services and therapeutic feeding programmes.
For more information please contact:
Paul Garwood
Communications Officer
Health Action in Crises
World Health Organization
Telephone: +41-22-791-3462
Mob: +41-794755546 [email protected]
Sam Ajibola
Communications Officer
WHO Regional Office for Africa
Telephone: +47 241 39387
Mob: +242 653 70 22 [email protected]
“The absorption was hard and painful,” said Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, and mistakes were made. The Ethiopian Jews wanted to be a drop returning to the sea and were accepted with open arms, but there was also estrangement and isolation, and there were also clear manifestations of racism.”
Olmert was talking on Wednesday night at a three-hour long gala event honoring the Ethiopian community in Israel and marking a hundred years since the birth of Yona Bogale, the legendary Ethiopian Zionist leader. It was an utterance that should have deserved more attention, for what he said but also for what he didn’t.
Olmert wasn’t clear about where this racism came from and what form it took. Was it casual racist slurs from Israelis in the street, religious schools who refused to accept Ethiopian children, was it bad treatment by the low-ranking officialdom who made little effort to help in their absorption, or discrimination on a much higher level within government ministries depriving an underprivileged group of much-needed resources. Or perhaps the racism was actually within the Ethiopian community itself, which is fragmented in many places along lines of family prestige and geographic origin, Tigreans and Amharics not marrying with each other, while many within the community shun the Falashmura. All these, of course, occur, but are any of them “clear manifestations of racism?”
I have no idea to which of these racisms Olmert – or perhaps his speechwriters – were referring, but if the prime minister is going to come out with a very rare admission about racism in Israeli society, it would pay to be a little more specific.
In 1997, then-opposition leader Ehud Barak caused a major fuss within the old Labor Party establishment when he apologized, in the party’s name, to the Israelis who emigrated from Arab countries for the injustices inflicted on them during their absorption process in the 1950s and 1960s. Historians and sociologists can argue over whether the Mapai leaders had anything to apologize for, and Barak’s move had more than a whiff of political opportunism to it, but at least he was making a clear point about who had been wronged and the establishment that had been at fault.
So in the absence of any other hints in his speech, since Olmert is the head of government, I am going to assume that he was referring to the government’s policy at large toward the Ethiopians as having been tainted at one stage or another by racism.
Various charges of racism can be leveled at Israel with varying degrees of justification, which are mainly based on how you define racism to begin with. Is having a Jewish state in itself racist? From there on, the slope gets even slipperier so let’s get back to the Ethiopian issue. Over the last 35 years, Israeli governments have constantly changed their policies on the desirability of bringing over large numbers of Ethiopians claiming to be Jews. Is this a racist debate?
At times when the government was reluctant to do so – as it has been recently over the question of whether to end the absorption of the Falashmura group – their lobbyists, particularly Jewish activists from North America, have repeated the accusation that “it’s strange that the only Jews who Israel is not so eager to welcome just happen not to be white.” This is a spurious accusation.
Never was there an aliya in which Israel invested so much money, manpower and diplomatic capital than the Ethiopians. It’s true that at times, the government was reluctant to go to such efforts and had to be pressured in different ways to do so – but that wasn’t due to their skin color, but simply to the fact that due to their isolation and lack of full historical evidence, a significant proportion of historians, anthropologists and yes, even rabbis, are certain that they are not really descendants of the historical people of Israel.
And despite this the government was still motivated to do what it did. Israeli society as a whole has serious racism problems, mainly concerning Palestinians and foreign workers. There were also serious mistakes concerning the Ethiopian immigrants, some of them still ongoing, but they had nothing to do with racism, which toward Ethiopian Jews is only on the margins, if at all.
If Olmert wants to confront racism in Israel, he should quit pandering and address it where it really exists. There are enough “clear manifestations.”
Alliance for the Re-liberation of Somalia (ARS) conducted a successful 2nd congress meeting in Asmara, conferring 95% of Somalia under their control… ONLF conducted an attack on Woyane troops, killing and wounding 131… More Ethiopian soldiers defected from Woyane to Eritrea… watch below
Abebech Gobena’s life is a testament to the fact that a woman’s truth cannot be bought or sold. Indeed, if she holds her ground, the world can change.
Abebech Gobena is the founder of Ethiopia’s oldest orphanage. Her accomplishments stem from an act of faith. She was on a pilgrimage to Gishen Mariam in the Wollo region of Ethiopia, an important site in the Ethiopian orthodox faith. The area was famine stricken and on her way back home she found a baby laying next to her dead mother, at a feeding center. She picked up the baby and brought her home. She subsequently brought a second baby home, who was lying next to his dead father. In one year’s time, she brought home 21 children. This simple act of love grew.
She increasingly brought home more children and raised them using her own resources. Her husband soon divorced her and her husband’s family disowned her. As you listen to her tell the story, she describes the reasoning behind the divorce as her “unusual actions.” In retrospect, it’s hard to call bringing a baby home, who would have died, unusual. Would it not be more unusual to not bring the baby home? Once you let love inform your actions, the difficult part becomes stopping it. Where do you draw the line between one too many and not enough?
Abebech’s life instructs what happens when you do not stop the love. The kids soon became 200 and in 1988 she received a permit to raise the children as orphans. Her unusual actions have grown into 6 different branches of the Abebech Gobena Children’s Care and Development organization with over 12,000 children under her care.
Love is revolutionary. We often constrain it to very narrow dimensions and separate it from our work. However, when individuals integrate it in all they do, the world changes. This takes commitment. When asked about commitment, Abebech replied:
“Commitment is everything to me. The first thing I did to start with was to commit myself fully. My vision would have gone nowhere without commitment. I had no idea as to how to proceed but I was sure that the only way forward was to work hard with my children in order to be self-supportive. During those six years, I sold all my gold ornaments. I tore all my dresses and re-sew them up into the size of the children. I didn’t have any sewing machine in those days. I stayed 24 hours a day and seven days a week with them.” (Making a Difference for Population and Development: Leaders in Action, Vol.2)
Abebech also teaches us what happens when your commitment, as defined by faith, is uncompromising. In modern times, many commit to money and personal success. However, commitment to a greater good outside of yourself is what the world needs right now. The natural disasters and wars serve as a reminder that greed is killing us. It’s women like Abebech Gobena who will save us.
NAIROBI, 10 July 2008 (IRIN) – Médecins Sans Frontières Switzerland (MSF-Swiss) has withdrawn from Fiiq, Somali region, saying repeated administrative hurdles and intimidation had prevented it from providing medical care to vulnerable populations.
“Over the six months of our intervention, our medical teams could only work for 10 weeks in Fiiq town and five on the periphery of the town where the most important needs are,” Hugues Robert, who heads the Ethiopia programme in Geneva, said in a statement. “It significantly reduces the medical impact of our action.”
A senior Ethiopian official, however, denied the claims.
“They did not face any problem,” the official, who requested anonymity, told IRIN in Addis Ababa. “They might have their own double agenda. Otherwise there was no intimidation or administrative hurdles from our side.
“If there was intimidation, they would not have stayed for the last six months.”
MSF-Swiss said despite an agreement signed with Ethiopia’s federal authorities, its staff had not received the necessary work permits and could only be on-site for short periods.
Despite severe malnutrition rates in some villages, the charity added, only 84 children suffering from malnutrition had been helped. “In addition, over the past six months, MSF mobile teams have only been able to give medical consultations to 677 patients in the most affected rural area around Fiiq, while many more patients would have been expected.
“The authorities’ attitude towards humanitarian organisations has translated into recurrent arrests of MSF Switzerland staff without charge or explanation,” it added. “Despite continuous attempts to improve the working relations with the authorities, our organisation can only regret the absence of any room to bring independent and impartial assistance.”
The government official said disagreements had arisen with the charity. “The region has a right to monitor whether they conduct their operations according to the agreement they reached [but] they do not want our close monitoring,” he said.
Among other activities, the official added, the charity had refused to give information about its patients, had failed to seek clearance to move operations from one area to another and at one time, landed a plane in Fiiq without notifying anyone.
“We did not arrest any MSF expatriate staff,” he told IRIN. “Five national staff of MSF are in detention. We do not know the reasons behind their arrest but if a citizen is found to be a criminal, a government has a right to arrest [them].”
According to the official, MSF Greece, Belgium and Holland were still operating in the region.
Clashes between government troops and the rebel Ogaden National Liberation Front, related disruptions to trade, transport and social services along with limited access for aid agencies have compounded the humanitarian situation in the area.
“I never put a price on a child”
Love is revolutionary. We often constrain it to very narrow dimensions and separate it from our work. However, when individuals integrate it in all they do, the world changes. This takes commitment. When asked about commitment, Abebech replied: