Month: February 2021

Guesh Liasanewerk’s family had just gathered to celebrate the birth of his sister’s child four days earlier. Sitting in their home in a rural area outside of the historic Ethiopian city of Axum, they were interrupted by Eritrean soldiers storming in. Within moments, the men, including his 78-year-old father and 17-year-old brother, were executed by gunshots. Amnesty International has called the Axum killings, which took place Nov. 28 and 29, a “massacre”Map locates Axum, Ethiopia.Eritrea’s Minister of Information Yemane Gebremeskel denied the Amnesty International report Friday and called it a fabrication.“Eritrea is outraged and categorically rejects the preposterous accusations leveled against it by Amnesty International in a fallacious report issued today,” he said in a tweet. “It must be underscored that Amnesty made absolutely no attempt to seek any information from Eritrea.”Ethiopia’s minister of foreign affairs posted on its Facebook page that all blame goes to the TPLF. “None other than the TPLF should, therefore, take the primary responsibility for what subsequently unfolded in the region. This outlaw group has been engaged in ambush, assassination, and other criminal activities.”An Eritrean soldier speaking to VOA’s Tigrigna service denied the charges.“We had no aim or goal to target civilians. In fact, our understanding is that the people of Tigray were coming toward us looking for a safe haven or seeking shelter with us,” he said asking that his name not be used.“Even in Axum, there were situations where some people were shooting and some were looting. There were times that required for an appropriate response, but there was nothing that aimed at the civilian population. I am an eyewitness myself. I was there myself,” he said.‘We have a trust deficit’There are others who cast doubt on the accuracy of the report.“I think that it is important to get evidence and to put it forward,” Bronwyn Bruton, the director of programs and studies at the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center told VOA. “The evidence would hopefully come from investigators going on the ground. But in order to get those investigators on the ground, we have political problems that we need to solve. We have a trust deficit. We have the lingering ghost of TPLF which was the indispensable partner of the U.S. for so many years.”Gallopin said Amnesty International’s methodology in the report was meticulous. Researchers spent 11 days in the Hamdayet refugee registration center in eastern Sudan speaking to witnesses who fled the area. The organization corroborated locations of shelling and burial sites using satellite imagery analyzed by its Crisis Evidence Lab. They have also reviewed videos taken in the area showing evidence of the attacks and were able to geolocate them.“So clearly the casualty figure is very high and this is the highest, the most significant massacre that’s been documented so far in the conflict in Tigray and also the most systematic documentation of violations by Eritrean forces Tigray,” Gallopin said.Gallopin said he fears other abuses are going undocumented due to the difficulty in collecting information.“It’s very important to bear in mind that given the considerable restrictions on access, we don’t have a clear picture of the overall scale of violations. And this could be just the tip of the iceberg,” he said.VOA Tigrigna service’s Tewelde Tesfagabir contributed to the report.  
…

Gunmen in Nigeria on Saturday released 27 teenage boys who were kidnapped from their school last week in the northern state of Niger, while security forces continued to search for 317 schoolgirls abducted in a nearby state.
 
Schools have become targets for mass kidnappings for ransom in northern Nigeria by armed groups, many of whom carry guns and ride motorcycles.
 
On Feb. 17, 27 students, three staff and 12 members of their families were abducted by an armed gang who stormed the Government Science secondary school in the Kagara district of Niger state, overwhelming the school’s security detail. One boy was killed during the raid.
 
After their release, boys were seen by a Reuters witness walking with armed security through a dusty village, some struggling to stand and asking for water. A government official said the boys were aged between 15 and 18.
 
“The Abducted Students, Staff and Relatives of Government Science Collage Kagara have regained their freedom and have been received by the Niger State Government,” Governor Abubakar Sani Bello said in a tweet.
 
The release of the schoolboys comes just a day after the raid on a school in Zamfara state where gunmen seized the 317 girls.
 
The recent attacks have raised concern about rising violence by armed gangs and Islamist insurgents. Jihadist group Boko Haram carries out abductions in Nigeria’s turbulent northeast, as does a branch of Islamic State.
 
The unrest has become a political problem for President Muhammadu Buhari, a retired general and former military ruler who has faced mounting criticism in recent months over high profile attacks by the gangs known locally as “bandits”.
 
Buhari replaced his long-standing military chiefs this month amid worsening violence in Nigeria.
 
In December, gunmen raided a school in northwestern Katsina state and kidnapped nearly 350 boys, who were subsequently rescued by security forces.
 
Violence and insecurity have compounded the economic challenges faced by citizens in Africa’s most populous country and top oil exporter, which is struggling to cope with a fall in revenues due to a slump in crude prices in addition to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
 
The most high profile school kidnapping was that of more than 270 schoolgirls abducted by Boko Haram from the town of Chibok in 2014. Around 100 of them remain missing. 
…

Guesh Liasanewerk’s family had just gathered to celebrate the birth of his sister’s child four days earlier. Sitting in their home in a rural area outside of the historic Ethiopian city of Axum, they were interrupted by Eritrean soldiers storming in. Within moments, the men, including his 78-year-old father and 17-year-old brother, were executed by gunshots. Amnesty International has called the Axum killings, which took place Nov. 28 and 29, a “massacre” in a new report.“There are people who lost three or four people in our neighborhood,” Guesh told VOA’s Tigrigna service in one of the multiple interviews conducted with residents of Axum weeks before Amnesty International’s report. “Many people were killed, including monks in the monasteries.”In the city, Guesh said, many young people were killed.“Bodies in the city were laid out for three days because they didn’t have anyone to bury them. Some of the bodies were taken with a carriage after four days. My cousin was found after four days and they identified him using his identification card,” he added, making his cousin the third family member allegedly killed by Eritrean soldiers. All his family members were buried in one grave, he said. “I hope to get justice for my parents and my family.”’Hundreds, hundreds of people’The Amnesty International report details the systematic killing of hundreds of civilians in Axum, in the country’s Tigray region. Gathering information from interviews with more than 40 survivors and witnesses of the attack as well as others with knowledge of the events, the organization collected consistent accounts of looting, indiscriminate shelling and extrajudicial killings. The human rights group said the events may constitute a crime against humanity.Report author Jean-Baptiste Gallopin said the massacre began Nov. 28 after a small group of militiamen loyal to the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front, or TPLF, an armed movement that later became one of four political parties in a ruling coalition, attacked a temporary mountainside Eritrean base.“In retaliation for this attack, Eritrean forces shot wantonly at civilians and killed, we believe hundreds, hundreds of people over the course of roughly 24 hours,” Gallopin told VOA. “They also went around carrying house-to-house searches, and dragging mostly men out of their homes and shooting them on the streets or killing them in their homes.”Helina Afewerki, who grew up in Axum but lives in Addis Ababa, traveled to Axum to attend funerals of neighbors. She said she heard consistent accounts of Eritrean soldiers going door to door killing mostly men.“In my neighborhood alone, Enda Mikael, I have confirmed 26 people who were killed,” she told VOA. “They were targeting the men and asking for them. If people didn’t open their doors when they knocked, they said, ‘We will throw bombs.’”Another witness who is an Axum resident but did not want to reveal his name for fear of reprisal said there were some Tigrayan militiamen who were shooting in the beginning but when the Eritrean soldiers came in, they started to indiscriminately kill. “They came in with tanks,” he said.Eritrea’s Minister of Information Yemane Gebremeskel denied the Amnesty International report Friday and called it a fabrication.“Eritrea is outraged and categorically rejects the preposterous accusations leveled against it by Amnesty International in a fallacious report issued today,” he said in a tweet. “It must be underscored that Amnesty made absolutely no attempt to seek any information from Eritrea.”Ethiopia’s minister of foreign affairs posted on its Facebook page that all blame goes to the TPLF. “None other than the TPLF should, therefore, take the primary responsibility for what subsequently unfolded in the region. This outlaw group has been engaged in ambush, assassination, and other criminal activities.”An Eritrean soldier speaking to VOA’s Tigrigna service denied the charges.“We had no aim or goal to target civilians. In fact, our understanding is that the people of Tigray were coming toward us looking for a safe haven or seeking shelter with us,” he said asking that his name not be used.“Even in Axum, there were situations where some were people who were shooting and some were looting. There were times that required for an appropriate response, but there was nothing that aimed at the civilian population. I am an eyewitness myself. I was there myself,” he said.’We have a trust deficit’There are others who cast doubt on the accuracy of the report.“I think that it is important to get evidence and to put it forward,” Bronwyn Bruton, the director of programs and studies at the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center told VOA. “The evidence would hopefully come from investigators going on the ground. But in order to get those investigators on the ground, we have political problems that we need to solve. We have a trust deficit. We have the lingering ghost of TPLF which was the indispensable partner of the U.S. for so many years.”Gallopin said Amnesty International’s methodology in the report was meticulous. Researchers spent 11 days in the Hamdayet refugee registration center in eastern Sudan speaking to witnesses who fled the area. The organization corroborated locations of shelling and burial sites using satellite imagery analyzed by its Crisis Evidence Lab. They have also reviewed videos taken in the area showing evidence of the attacks and were able to geolocate them.“So clearly the casualty figure is very high and this is the highest, the most significant massacre that’s been documented so far in the conflict in Tigray and also the most systematic documentation of violations by Eritrean forces Tigray,” Gallopin said.Gallopin said he fears other abuses are going undocumented due to the difficulty in collecting information.“It’s very important to bear in mind that given the considerable restrictions on access, we don’t have a clear picture of the overall scale of violations. And this could be just the tip of the iceberg,” he said.
…

Gunmen abducted 317 girls Friday from a boarding school in northern Nigeria, police said, the latest in a series of mass kidnappings of students in the West African nation.Police and the military have begun joint operations to rescue the girls after the attack at the Government Girls Junior Secondary School in Jangebe town, according to a police spokesperson in Zamfara state, Mohammed Shehu, who confirmed the number abducted.One parent, Nasiru Abdullahi, told The Associated Press that his daughters, ages 10 and 13, are among the missing.”It is disappointing that even though the military have a strong presence near the school they were unable to protect the girls,” he said. “At this stage, we are only hoping on divine intervention.”Resident Musa Mustapha said the gunmen also attacked a nearby military camp and checkpoint, preventing soldiers from interfering while the gunmen spent several hours at the school. It was not immediately clear if there were any casualties.Several large groups of armed men operate in Zamfara state, described by the government as bandits, and are known to kidnap for money and to push for the release of their members from jail.Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari said Friday the government’s primary objective is to get all the school hostages returned safe, alive and unharmed.”We will not succumb to blackmail by bandits and criminals who target innocent school students in the expectation of huge ransom payments,” he said. “Let bandits, kidnappers and terrorists not entertain any illusions that they are more powerful than the government. They shouldn’t mistake our restraint for the humanitarian goals of protecting innocent lives as a weakness, or a sign of fear or irresolution.”He called on state governments to review their policy of making payments, in money or vehicles, to bandits.”Such a policy has the potential to backfire with disastrous consequences,” Buhari said. He also said state and local governments must play their part by being proactive in improving security in and around schools.United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres strongly condemned the abductions and called for the girls’ “immediate and unconditional release” and safe return to their families, calling attacks on schools a grave violation of human rights and the rights of children, U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said.The U.N. chief reaffirmed U.N. support to Nigeria’s government and people “in their fight against terrorism, violent extremism and organized crime,” Dujarric said, and urged Nigerian authorities “to spare no effort in bringing those responsible for this crime to justice.””We are angered and saddened by yet another brutal attack on schoolchildren in Nigeria,” said Peter Hawkins, UNICEF representative in the country. “This is a gross violation of children’s rights and a horrific experience for children to go through.” He called for their immediate release.Nigeria has seen several such attacks and kidnappings over the years, notably the mass abduction in April 2014 by jihadist group Boko Haram of 276 girls from the secondary school in Chibok in Borno state. More than 100 girls are still missing.Friday’s attack came less than two weeks after gunmen abducted 42 people, including 27 students, from the Government Science College Kagara in Niger State. The students, teachers and family members are still being held.In December, 344 students were abducted from the Government Science Secondary School Kankara in Katsina State. They were eventually released.Anietie Ewang, Nigeria researcher at Human Rights Watch, noted the recent abductions and tweeted that “Strong action is required from the authorities to turn the tide & keep schools safe.”Amnesty International also condemned the “appalling attack,” warning in a statement that “the girls abducted are in serious risk of being harmed.”Teachers have been forced to flee to other states for protection, and many children have had to abandon their education amid frequent violent attacks in communities, Amnesty said.
…

Rwandan Justice Minister Johnston Busingye said in an interview broadcast Friday that Kigali had paid for the plane that brought the hero of the hit movie Hotel Rwanda to his home country to be arrested and tried.A critic of Rwandan President Paul Kagame since he left Rwanda to live abroad, Paul Rusesabagina, 66, appeared in Kigali under arrest in mysterious circumstances last August and is now on trial for charges including terrorism.”The government paid” to return Rusesabagina to Rwanda with the help of someone who knew him, Busingye told Al Jazeera’s UpFront program, produced in the U.S.The former manager of the Mille Collines hotel in Kigali, scene of the film recounting how he saved more than 1,000 people during Rwanda’s 1994 genocide, Rusesabagina later moved to the U.S. and Belgium, where he was naturalized.But he was arrested in Rwanda in late August as he disembarked from a plane that had taken off from Dubai, which he believed was taking him to Burundi, in what his lawyers called a kidnapping.“In international criminal law, luring people into places where they can be brought to justice has happened and happened in many jurisdictions,” he added.In a statement, the justice ministry confirmed that the country “facilitated the journey” that brought the accused to Rwanda and insisted that “his rights were not violated at any point” in the legal arrest.It also said that a segment of the Al Jazeera program in which the minister is seen discussing with his advisers the interception of Rusesabagina’s private communications, which the broadcaster said was shown in error, “does not reflect the government’s position.”Rusesabagina faces nine charges, including terrorism, especially for alleged support for the National Liberation Front rebel group believed to have carried out deadly attacks in recent years.
…