Like thousands of others fleeing to Sudan from the conflict in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region, 20-year-old Girum left his family and many of his possessions behind, but a friend managed to salvage his kirar, a small string instrument that he strums softly while waiting with fellow refugees to be transferred by bus to the camp of Um Rakuba, about 12 hours from the border.
He has had no contact with relatives since he fled early last month, when fighting between Ethiopian federal forces and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front began.
“My whole family has been separated. I don’t know where they are now,” Girum said.
Photo: Reuters
More than 46,000 people have crossed from Ethiopia, though since last week arrivals have slowed to a trickle. Like Girum, most have been ferried across the Tekeze River and into Sudan at Hamdayet, clutching few if any belongings.
Girum said that his instrument, which has strings stretched across a simple rectangular wooden frame, was retrieved after his home had been looted.
“The people who robbed our property ... only cared about gold and money,” he said.
Other Tigrayan refugees have said they fled attacks by government forces and allied militia.
The Ethiopian government denies it has killed civilians in the conflict. Both sides have accused the other of ethnic-based killings, while denying responsibility for carrying them out.
After arriving at Um Rakuba, Girum is to be assigned a plot of land with a tent, supplied with blankets, cooking utensils and food rations, but he has no idea how long he will stay.
In a speech to parliament on Monday, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed urged those who fled to Sudan to return.
Dozens, keen to find belongings and relatives, and frustrated with the lack of humanitarian assistance in eastern Sudan, have crossed back into Ethiopia at Hamdayet over the past week, an aid worker said on Wednesday.
Girum was studying mechanical engineering, but dreams of becoming a musician and singer.
“If I ever feel sad, I just use the instrument to express how I feel,” he said.
WAKE-UP CALL: Firms in the private sector were not taking basic precautions, despite the cyberthreats from China and Russia, a US cybersecurity official said A ninth US telecom firm has been confirmed to have been hacked as part of a sprawling Chinese espionage campaign that gave officials in Beijing access to private texts and telephone conversations of an unknown number of Americans, a top White House official said on Friday. Officials from the administration of US President Joe Biden this month said that at least eight telecommunications companies, as well as dozens of nations, had been affected by the Chinese hacking blitz known as Salt Typhoon. US Deputy National Security Adviser for Cyber and Emerging Technologies Anne Neuberger on Friday told reporters that a ninth victim
Russia and Ukraine have exchanged prisoners of war in the latest such swap that saw the release of hundreds of captives and was brokered with the help of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), officials said on Monday. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said that 189 Ukrainian prisoners, including military personnel, border guards and national guards — along with two civilians — were freed. He thanked the UAE for helping negotiate the exchange. The Russian Ministry of Defense said that 150 Russian troops were freed from captivity as part of the exchange in which each side released 150 people. The reason for the discrepancy in numbers
A shark attack off Egypt’s Red Sea coast killed a tourist and injured another, authorities said on Sunday, with an Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs source identifying both as Italian nationals. “Two foreigners were attacked by a shark in the northern Marsa Alam area, which led to the injury of one and the death of the other,” the Egyptian Ministry of Environment said in a statement. A source at the Italian foreign ministry said that the man killed was a 48-year-old resident of Rome. The injured man was 69 years old. They were both taken to hospital in Port Ghalib, about 50km north
MISSING: Prosecutors urged the company to move workers out of poor living conditions to hotels, but residents said many workers had already left the town Brazil has stopped issuing temporary work visas for BYD, the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Friday, in the wake of accusations that some workers at a site owned by the Chinese electric vehicle producer had been victims of human trafficking. The announcement came days after labor authorities said they found 163 Chinese workers who had been brought to Brazil irregularly in “slavery-like” conditions at the BYD factory construction site in the northeastern state of Bahia. The workers were employed by contractor Jinjiang Group, which has denied any wrongdoing. Later, the authorities also said the workers were victims of human trafficking,
RSS