The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said today that it is concerned by conditions in Ethiopia and that the situation will deteriorate further without an immediate infusion of resources to carry out life-saving interventions.
The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said that eight million Ethiopians are chronically food insecure and at least 3.4 million Ethiopians are in need of emergency food relief – a figure that is likely to rise.
The agency estimates that 176,000 children are in need of urgent therapeutic care for severe malnutrition and says that the rapidly deteriorating situation is the worst since the major humanitarian crisis of 2003.
Up to six million children under 5 years of age are living in impoverished, drought-prone districts and require urgent preventive health and nutrition interventions.
“It is extremely unfortunate that the combined effects of drought, food price hikes, and insufficient resources for preventive measures resulted in an emergency that jeopardizes child survival gains in Ethiopia,” said Bjorn Ljungqvist, UNICEF’s Representative in the Horn of Africa nation.
UNICEF is providing therapeutic feeding to severely malnourished children. Over the weekend the agency received 90 tons of food supplies, noting that as much as 1,800 tons are needed over the next three months.
The agency also estimates that $50 million are needed for life-saving health, nutrition, water and sanitation interventions, but has received only $6 million to date.
Meanwhile, the World Food Programme (WFP) is facing a total relief shortfall of 181,000 tons of food, valued at $145 million.
NAIROBI (AFP) — United Nations monitors have accused Ugandan peacekeepers of selling arms to Islamist rebels fighting the government and Ethiopian Woyanne troops in Somalia.
Amid a row over the acquisition of military hardware by bickering factions in Somalia’s transitional government, the UN panel charged with monitoring the situation there said it was alarmed by “continued militarisation and an increase of armed action” between the rival camps.
“The fact that members of the transitional federal government are buying arms at the market in Mogadishu is not new to the monitoring group,” it said.
“But during this mandate period, the monitoring group received information on sales of arms by prominent officials of the security sectors of government, Ethiopian Woyanne officers and Ugandan officers of the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM).”
The report, seen by AFP on Friday, was sent to the UN Security Council on Thursday by the panel which is charged with reviewing the 1992 arms embargo slapped on Somalia after it descended into anarchy a year earlier with the ouster of strongman Mohamed Siad Barre.
In it, the experts said arms on sale originate from army stocks or are seized following battles with Islamist insurgents.
“According to arms traders, the biggest supplier of ammunition to the market are Ethiopian Woyanne and transitional federal government commanders, who divert boxes officially declared ‘used during combat’,” the report said.
Since Barre’s ouster, several well-armed clan-based factions have been in an almost constant state of low-level war, hindering effective monitoring of the UN arms embargo.
The UN Security Council has rejected several pleas by President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed to ease the arms ban, warning that such a move would exacerbate fighting in the lawless nation.
The experts accused neighbouring Ethiopia, Yemen and Eritrea of continuously violating the embargo by sending weapons shipments to the increasingly hostile factions within Somalia.
Somalia’s breakaway northern regions of Puntland and Somaliland are other entry points for weapons.
“The routes are more covert, and the weapons reach Somalia either by a large number of small vessels, or through remote locations along the land borders,” the report said.
“The Somali police force no longer differs from other actors in the armed conflict, despite the fact that many of its members have received training in accordance to international standards,” it added.
The panel lamented that the Somali government’s budget, heavily supported by international donors, lacks even the most minimal standards of transparency.
“Some donors expressed discontent that some of the funding provided, despite being earmarked for civilian and peace-building activities, may have been used for military activities and purchase of military materials.”
Somali troops, their Ethiopian Woyanne allies and AU peacekeepers have been routinely targeted by Islamist insurgents over the past year, worsening security and choking humanitarian operations in the country.
DELDEN, Netherlands — Kenenisa Bekele has ruled out attempting to win both the 5,000 and 10,000 meters at the Beijing Olympics, a feat he nearly accomplished at the Athens Games in 2004.
Bekele says he is the best form of his life after winning the world cross-country title again, but announced on Friday that tougher competition and a tight schedule ruled out challenging for both golds.
“I don’t want to run the double this time,” Bekele said on the eve of his attempt to run a world record in the 5,000 at the FBK Games on Saturday.
On June 8, he will also attempt to break the 10,000 mark at the Prefontaine Classic in Eugene, Ore.
In Beijing, Bekele will focus on defending his gold in the 10,000, a title held by Ethiopians since Haile Gebrselassie won at the 1996 Atlanta Games.
In Athens, Bekele was beaten by 0.2 seconds in the 5,000 by Morocco’s Hicham El Guerrouj in a sprint to the finish.
Few athletes have achieved the distance double, though Emil Zatopek of Czechoslovakia did a triple in 1952 by adding the marathon. The last runner to win the double was Miruts Yifter of Ethiopia at the 1980 Moscow Games.
SALT LAKE CITY — An Ethiopian refugee has been sentenced to serve four months in federal custody for conspiring to import more than 400 pounds of an exotic plant used as a drug.
Sherif Kadir Sirage, known as Sherif Sherif, was sentenced Wednesday in federal court with four months’ credit for time served. Another man, Patrick Bahati, is awaiting sentencing on a similar charge.
Prosecutors say Sirage and Bahati arranged to have a plant called khat flown into Salt Lake City from Ethiopia.
Khat is a flowering evergreen shrub that is chewed like tobacco in East Africa and the Arabian peninsula. It is considered a narcotic and is illegal in the U.S., as well as parts of Europe, east Africa and the Arabian peninsula. The plant’s effect on the human body is similar to ephedra.
Sirage is expected to be released, since he already has served the time the court sentenced him to.
In its latest issue, Voice of Ginbot 7 has accussed the Meles regime of treason for giving away undisputed land to Sudan. Before the news broke out about the border re-demarcation deal with al-Bershir’s regime, Sudan had never been heard claiming the area that Meles gave away.
Ginbot 7 also sends a message to members of the armed forces not to be part of the Meles region’s treachery. Click here to read Voice of Ginbot 7
NAIROBI (AFP)–Ethiopia’s Ogaden rebels Friday scoffed at government statements they were losing their battle and said that Addis Ababa was attempting to divert world attention from a spiraling famine.
Ethiopian Prime Minister dictator Meles Zenawi Wednesday said that 95% of rebels in the Ogaden, an oil-rich region populated by ethnic Somalis, had been killed or captured.
However, the Ogaden National Liberation Front, or ONLF, laughed off the assertion as “a sign of the level of desperation the current regime has reached in dealing with the realities in the Ogaden.”
“ONLF is stronger and more effective than ever and is capable of launching operations at will, when and where it wants,” the rebel group said in a statement received by AFP in Nairobi.
The Ethiopian Woyanne army launched a crackdown in Ogaden after ONLF rebels attacked a Chinese oil venture in April 2007 that left 77 people dead.
Access to the area has been largely denied to humanitarian groups and journalists, sparking international concern over the fate of its estimated 4 million inhabitants.
“These utterances of Meles are PR exercises intended to divert attention from the fact that millions of Ethiopians are facing famine and hunger,” the ONLF said.
According to the U.N., 3.4 million Ethiopians require food aid in southern and central regions as a result of a devastating drought.
