Ethiopians who have escaped the intense fighting in their northern homeland of Tigray by fleeing into Sudan are safe, but the terrifying nightmare of what they witnessed continues to haunt them.
“I saw bodies dismembered by the explosions,” said Ganet Gazerdier, a 75-year-old sitting alone in the dust at eastern Sudan’s Um Raquba Refugee Camp, newly opened to cope with a sudden influx of more than 27,000 people fleeing airstrikes, artillery barrages and massacres in Ethiopia.
“Other bodies were rotting, lying on the road, murdered with a knife,” she added.
Photo: AFP
Distraught at having been forced to flee their homes, traumatized by becoming separated from family members in the mad rush and horrified after witnessing killings, refugees wander as if dazed in the camp.
“I lived with my three daughters,” said Gazerdier, dressed in a blue dress and white headscarf to protect her from the blazing sun. “When the shells started to rain down on our house, we all panicked and fled in the dark.”
The bombardment not only destroyed her house in Humera, the site of reportedly some of the heaviest fighting, but also separated her from her family.
Everyone scattered and she has yet to make contact with them.
She has found some help at the camp, 80km from the border, but conditions are rough, with only basic emergency relief set up.
For the Ethiopians who arrive, there is an initial sense of relief that they are safe.
However, for many, a sense of guilt soon kicks in, as they sit and wait in the hope that those they love might also turn up.
To escape, Messah Geidi split from his wife and four-year-old son — and he cannot forgive himself.
“I don’t know where they are, and if they are still alive,” he said.
Geidi comes from Mai-Kadra, where Amnesty International said last week that “scores, and likely hundreds, of people were stabbed or hacked to death.”
“I fled Mai-Kadra, because the army slaughtered the young people like sheep,” Geidi said.
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said that the border area faces an emergency.
“A full-scale humanitarian crisis is unfolding,” UNHCR spokesman Babar Baloch said, adding that about 4,000 people were fleeing across the frontier each day.
The Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is constructing a new counter-stealth radar system on a disputed reef in the South China Sea that would significantly expand its surveillance capabilities in the region, satellite imagery suggests. Analysis by London-based think tank Chatham House suggests China is upgrading its outpost on Triton Island (Jhongjian Island, 中建島) on the southwest corner of the Paracel Islands (Xisha Islands, 西沙群島), building what might be a launching point for an anti-ship missile battery and sophisticated radar system. “By constraining the US ability to operate stealth aircraft, and threaten stealth aircraft, these capabilities in the South China Sea send
HAVANA: Repeated blackouts have left residents of the Cuban capital concerned about food, water supply and the nation’s future, but so far, there have been few protests Maria Elena Cardenas, 76, lives in a municipal shelter on Amargura Street in Havana’s colonial old town. The building has an elegant past, but for the last few days Maria has been cooking with sticks she had found on the street. “You know, we Cubans manage the best we can,” she said. She lives in the shelter because her home collapsed, a regular occurrence in the poorest, oldest parts of the beautiful city. Cuba’s government has spent the last days attempting to get the island’s national grid functioning after repeated island-wide blackouts. Without power, sleep becomes difficult in the heat, food
Botswana is this week holding a presidential election energized by a campaign by one previous head-of-state to unseat his handpicked successor whose first term has seen rising discontent amid a downturn in the diamond-dependent economy. The charismatic Ian Khama dramatically returned from self-exile six weeks ago determined to undo what he has called a “mistake” in handing over in 2018 to Botswanan President Mokgweetsi Masisi, who seeks re-election tomorrow. While he cannot run as president again having served two terms, Khama has worked his influence and standing to support the opposition in the southern African country of 2.6 million people. “The return of
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has rejected a plan for the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to visit Kyiv due to Guterres’ attendance at this week’s BRICS summit in Russia, a Ukrainian official said on Friday. Kyiv was enraged by Guterres’ appearance at the event in the city of Kazan on Thursday and his handshake with its host, Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose forces invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022. Guterres, who called for a “just peace” in Ukraine at the BRICS event and has repeatedly condemned the invasion, discussed a visit to Ukraine with Zelenskiy when they met in New York
RSS