A report released today by the United Nation Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) showed that additional funds are required to address the impacts of El Niño in Ethiopia for the first quarter of 2016.
The statement also said that Ethiopian Ministry of Health urgently needed US$5.5 million to vaccinate 5.3 million children under-5 in nutrition hotspot priority 1 and 2 Woredas.
Low rains caused domestic animals deaths
OCHA said 60% of the required funds to address the drought and famine was raised. Yet, $174 million is urgently needed where “$110 million is intended to meet the food needs of 4.5 million people; and $64 million for emergency needs in the nutrition, WASH, health, agriculture and education sectors during the remainder of 2015.”
OCHA estimates food insecurity will remain a concern in belg rain receiving areas: Southern, Central, Eastern and North-Eastern Ethiopia until the next belg harvest in June 2016.
Low belg harvest and failed or low meher rain would significantly exasperate food insecurity in these vulnerable areas, the report said. Therefore, additional funds are needed to address the extended impact in 2016.
UNOCHA predicted that displacements may occur due to flood in Afar, Oromia, Amhara, and Somali areas situated along major rivers and their tributaries. OCHA urges all authorities to closely monitor developments to mitigate the displacement.
Previously ESAT reported that belg crop producing areas did not receive adequate rains from February to May 2015 leading millions to starvation. In pastoral areas, water and pasture shortages impacted the livestock body condition, milk, and herd size.
Reports from Ethiopia indicated that crop coverage in belg-rain receiving areas was reduced to 40-60 per cent. Belg-producing areas experienced below average harvest in central Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples’ Region (SNNPR) and northeastern Amhara, the lowlands of the Tekeze River catchment in northern Amhara, and the lowlands of eastern Oromia in Ethiopia.
MALAWI, Sudan and Ethiopia recorded an inflation rate of 26.6, 17.4 and 14.7 per cent each in July, making them the countries with the most expensive goods and services in the Comesa region, according to the latest harmonised consumer price indices.
The data provided by the Common Market for East and Southern Africa shows a high inflation rate also prevailed in Burundi, Madagascar and Egypt at 8.5, 7.8 and 7.7 per cent, respectively.
The Democratic Republic of Congo recorded a low inflation rate of 0.6 per cent while Mauritius, Rwanda and Zimbabwe recorded negative 0.2, 2.3 and 2.8 each.
Zambia, Kenya, Seychelles, Uganda and Swaziland, which recorded an inflation of 6.2, 6, 5.7, 5.5 and 4.6 per cent respectively, were the only countries that maintained the recommended inflation average of two to seven per cent.
According to the index, inflation in the Comesa region stood at 7.3 per cent in July 2015.
It shows an item that cost an average of 100 cents in July 2014 would have sold at 107.30 cents in July this year if the region used a common currency.
“The year-on-year inflation rate in the Comesa region as measured by the HCPI-Comesa stood at 7.3 per cent for the month of July 2015, down from 9.5 per cent registered in June 2015,” it states.
“The month on month inflation rate in the Comesa region as measured by HCPI-Comesa stood at 0.7 per cent for the month of July 2015, up from 0.2 per cent registered in June 2015. It was 2.8 per cent in July 2014.”
The HCPI-Comesa annual rate measures the price change between a particular month and the same month one year earlier while the monthly rate measures the price change between the two latest months.
The index shows the main components of expenditure in the region are education, recreation and culture and alcoholic and tobacco.
Others include restaurants and hotels, food and non-alcoholic beverages, clothing and footwear, housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels, furnishings, household equipment and routine maintenance, health, transport and communication.
– See more at: http://www.the-star.co.ke/news/july-cost-living-highest-malawi-sudan-and-ethiopia?#sthash.dJ6i5vkK.dpuf
governor of Gedaref state, Merghani Salih, has called for redrawing borders between Sudan and Ethiopia in order to bring the long running dispute between the two nations to an end.
A road leading to Ethiopia-Sudan border (Photo Jamminglobal.com)
Farmers from two sides of the border used to dispute the ownership of land in the Al-Fashaga area located in the south-eastern part of Sudan’s eastern state of Gedaref.
The two governments have agreed in the past to redraw the borders, and to promote joint projects between people from both sides for the benefit of local population. However, the Ethiopian opposition has used to accuse the ruling party of abandoning Ethiopian territory to Sudan.
In November 2014, Sudan’s president Omer al-Bashir and Ethiopia’s premier, Hailemariam Desalegn, instructed their foreign ministers to set a date for resuming borders demarcation after it had stopped following the death of Ethiopia’s former prime minister, Meles Zenawi.
Also, in December 2013 the Joint Sudanese- Ethiopian Higher Committee (JSEHC) announced that it reached an agreement to end disputes between farmers from two sides of the border over the ownership of agricultural land particularly in the Al-Fashaga.
Salih on Friday emphasized to a federal delegation from the societal and popular police currently visiting Gedaref the need to redraw the Sudanese-Ethiopian borders in order to end land disputes permanently.
He pointed to the importance of the joint military patrols to secure the borders between the two countries, praising the role of the societal and popular police in protecting the borders.
It should be mentioned that Al-Fashaga covers an area of about 250 square kilometers and it has about 600.000 acres of fertile lands. Also there are river systems flowing across the area including Atbara, Setait and Baslam rivers.
Sudan’s Gadarif and Blue Nile states border Ethiopia’s Amhara region. The borders between Sudan and Ethiopia were drawn by the British and Italian colonisers in 1908.
The mood in the border town of Metema these days is quiet and watchful.
Dozens of houses on the hot, dusty main road that stretches from Ethiopia into Sudan look as if they have been closed in haste. Guards grimly patrol the border, stopping anyone who looks as if they are trying to cross illegally. The nightclubs and bars are emptier than usual, although they still attract Sudanese who cannot drink alcohol in their own country under sharia law.
Metema, with a population of some 100,000 people, is one of a handful of towns across the region that serve as feeders for a booming trade in migrants from Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia and Sudan, with many hoping to make their way to Europe. Life has become a cat-and-mouse game: the authorities are cracking down, yet the migrants just keep coming, often risking death.
In Metema, the effect of the crackdown is clear. But while the flow of migrants has dropped from about 250 a day, it’s still strong at 100 to 150, according to Teshome Agmas, the mayor. “It’s just a pity that people choose to endanger their lives in an effort to move out of their country and work in inhumane conditions abroad,” he said.
Getachew Merah, a 30-year-old migrant from Ethiopia, stands by a tree near Metema, June 2015. Photograph: Mulugeta Ayene/AP
Getachew Merah, a rail-thin 30-year-old aspiring migrant from Ethiopia, has made three unsuccessful attempts to cross into Sudan, and is now trying again. He said his father is dead and his mother lives in extreme poverty in a rural village in the Amhara region.
Merah has tried just about every job in Ethiopia. He’s worked as a butcher, a guard, an assistant in a heavy-duty truck, a labourer carrying oil back and forth from between Sudan and Ethiopia and more. But he simply can’t get enough money to change his life or his family’s. He hopes to earn money in Libya to send back to his family, and eventually return to start his own business.
Three times before, Sudanese police arrested him and sent him back to Ethiopia. Each time, he didn’t have enough money in his pocket to bribe the police. So this time, he is planning to enter Sudan as a daily labourer on a farm and earn about $150 – enough for bribes – and then disappear into the forest to reach the capital, Khartoum.
“I’m tired of working in Ethiopia,” said Merah. “I know the dangers of living now in Libya, especially with the Isis news. But I want to risk it all and try my luck.”
Almost 80% of Metema’s businesses are run by smugglers and their affiliates, according to Sister Hamelmal Melaku of the Ethiopia Higher Clinic. They smuggle charcoal, oil, fruit and, of course, people. With the government sweep-out, migrants are no longer showing up at the clinic, and the temporary shelter built for migrants in the middle of the town sits idle.
“I think it won’t be an exaggeration if I say that the town is totally out of the government’s control,” she said.
With Metema under surveillance, the smugglers are now changing their tactics, according to Abraraw Abeje, police assistant inspector. He said they are now “dumping” the migrants in forests and mountainous areas, and then forcing them to resume their journey into Sudan on foot or in packed vehicles.
Like the migrants, the suspected smugglers say they are poor. Adamo Anshebo is under detention in Metema as a suspected kingpin, which he denies. “I came here after selling all my property to receive and take back home my sick child, who was working in Sudan,” he said. There is no way to tell if it is the truth.
FacebookTwittePinterest
Prisoners look out at Adamo Anshebo, right, who is being held as an alleged smuggling kingpin, as he walks through the detention centre in Metema. He denies trafficking charges. Photograph: Mulugeta Ayene/AP
Poverty in Ethiopia fell significantly from 44% in 2000 to 30% more than a decade later, according to the World Bank. However, the country remains one of the world’s poorest and is ruled by an authoritarian government. More than 96% of people in the country’s rural areas are still barely eking out a living, according to Oxford University’s poverty index.
Ethiopia is also a transit point for most Eritreans travelling to Europe, according to the UN’s high commissioner for refugees. While exact numbers vary, Eritreans make up one of the largest groups of migrants crossing the Mediterranean, coming second in number only to Syrians. Somalis are third.
According to accounts from several migrants and officials, the smugglers operate in and from all parts of Ethiopia. While major smugglers stay in cities like Addis Ababa, the capital, affiliates known as “shaqabas” operate in and around small towns like Metema, Moyale to the south and Afar in the north-east.
The migrants say they are not asked for money in Metema, because they could easily be robbed or lose it. Instead, they are charged upon arrival in Khartoum or other Sudanese cities. The final payment is made once they reach the Libyan coast and, in many cases, depart for Europe. The trip to Europe can cost as much as $5,000. Often, the migrants don’t carry all their money for fear of being robbed, so payment is made through their families, via transfer by hand to the smugglers or affiliates in their hometowns.
Metema’s government officials said they have repatriated more than 1,100 migrants arrested while trying to cross to Sudan illegally. They come from all parts of Ethiopia, especially the south, as well as Eritrea, the officials said. Ethiopian immigration officials on the Sudan border confirm that some of the migrants are foreigners, and more now from South Sudan because of the conflict there.
FacebookTwittePinterest
Women sell food at the roadside in Metema, where a crackdown by authorities is failing to stem the tide of migrants trying to leave. Photograph: Mulugeta Ayene/AP
Other migrants tell similar stories of poverty. Two women in their 20s travelling together, who refused to give their names out of fear of their safety, said their only reason for migration is economic. They, too, said they wanted to work abroad, then return home to help their families and start a business. Both have not worked in Ethiopia since completing high school.
Another young man, Abinet Yirga, 23, said his job in a billboard advertising company in Addis Ababa did not even leave him with enough money to buy clothes. He said two years ago, he was out of work for many months, which led to a feud with his father. He is now in Metema waiting to cross the border.
“I don’t know when I will travel to Sudan and then to Libya to go to Europe, because I don’t have any money now,” he said. “But I’ve decided I have to change my life whatever the cost is, even if it means life or death.”
