s leaders must demonstrate their sustained commitment to a peaceful resolution of the crisis," Obama said in a statement. "They have an obligation to ensure that the lives of their people and future of their young country are not further marred by continued violence, and that individuals who have committed atrocities are held to account." The pact, which marks the first significant breakthrough since...
Photographs from the Guardian Eyewitness series ...
AFP photographer Carl de Souza travels to the Ethiopian town of Gondar to document Timkat, the Ethiopian Orthodox Christian festival marking Epiphany ...
s central Oromia region. With three children already, Wudinesh says it is time to stop. "For me, three is enough," she says, through a translator. "If they are too many, they are too expensive." Wudinesh, who lives in a small village 200km south of the capital, Addis Ababa, is one of millions of Ethiopian women who have gained access to modern forms of birth control over the past decade. Today, her...
s newest state on the brink of civil war. The talks in neighbouring Ethiopia will focus on brokering a ceasefire to halt three weeks of violence that has killed at least 1,000 people and driven 200,000 from their homes. "We have begun our meeting on the cessation of hostilities," a member of the government delegation said. The fighting, often along ethnic faultlines, has pitted President Salva Kiir's...
s capital, Juba, as peace talks between rebels and the government to hammer out a ceasefire deal faced further delay in neighbouring Ethiopia. The gunfire, which lasted about an hour, came from the direction of the military headquarters of the SPLA government forces in the north of the city. It was not clear who was involved. Three weeks of fighting, which began in Juba but spread beyond, often along...
s warring factions held preliminary meetings on Friday before the official start of talks in neighbouring Ethiopia, mediators said. Dina Mufti, with Ethiopia's foreign ministry, said the introductory meetings were necessary to bridge the groups' differences ahead of direct talks expected to start on Saturday. The meetings are being held at Addis Ababa's Sheraton hotel. Both sides, meanwhile, continue...
s young people with no assets and limited employment opportunities. The issue of landless youth is fast becoming a national crisis in Ethiopia where 30% of young people are unemployed. In Gebre's hometown of Sero Tabia, where 2,200 families live, 560 young people are unemployed and have no access to land for earning a living. The prospect of earning money in Middle Eastern countries as a domestic maid...
s warring factions are expected to meet for the first time on Thursday for peace talks in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, even as fighting continues in some parts of the world's newest country. Former vice-president Riek Machar's representatives arrived early on Thursday at the Sheraton hotel, where both sides are to hold direct talks. Some western diplomats were also present as mediators waited...
s emergency co-ordinator in the town. "They have fled their homes and have arrived here with few belongings. There is no clean water, no food, and no place to shelter or sleep. They are relying solely on the help of the local population." François Moreillon, deputy head of delegation of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), said: "The road to the river is lined with thousands of people,...
s nascent civil war edged a step closer on Tuesday when the leader of a rebellion said he was ready to enter peace talks with the government. Riek Machar told the BBC that he was sending a three-person delegation to the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, where the government confirmed it would have also a team. "We are going there," South Sudan's foreign minister, Barnaba Marial Benjamin, told Reuters....
s newest country said talks had been "promising" but admitted that it was not clear when a ceasefire might be agreed. Following nearly two weeks of fighting which has left thousands dead, a high-level delegation including the Kenyan president, Uhuru Kenyatta, and Ethiopia's prime minister, Hailemariam Desalegn, landed in the capital Juba to meet President Salva Kiir on Thursday. Kenya previously hosted...
s rise . More Africans were seduced by them in 2013 than ever before. But the mall was also then the logical target for terrorists seeking maximum impact on their perceived enemies and the world beyond. In September al-Shabaab , an Islamist militant group from Somalia, brought mayhem to the upmarket Westgate shopping centre – one of the temples of Africa's 21st-century consumer capitalism – in neighbouring...
s multiple indicator cluster surveys , another valuable source on information on the wellbeing of adolescents, children and adults, has never included migration questions. Without such basic information, we cannot understand the life circumstances of internal migrants, and lack the evidence we need for effective policies and programmes to improve their lives. Ideally, both surveys and censuses would...
agendas, but USAid rules mean NGOs are shying away from abortion work Just 1km away from the African Union conference centre, and the international evangelical church in Addis Ababa, the Kirkos health clinic feels far from the politicking and religious opposition that continue to stalk abortion – one of the most contentious global health issues. Outside, a blue and white sign displays the range of...
special' blood of Ethiopian-born MP is rejected by emergency services Israel's president, Shimon Peres, has criticised the refusal of the country's emergency medical services to accept a blood donation from an Ethiopian-born member of parliament on the grounds that it was a "special kind" of blood – a move that has prompted charges of racism. Pnina Tamano-Shata, who has lived in Israel since she was...
rural hometown of Axum, and was staying with my grandmother. There was a young girl around my age there, and I became very good friends with her. Before I left, I wanted to keep in touch with her as a pen pal, but my parents explained to me that she did not have the pencils or materials to do so. I knew in that moment that advocating for girls like me to have equal opportunities in education would...
s walk from the hastily erected transit centre, which has been processing some 7,000 returning migrants each day, a small crowd, held back by federal police officers in blue military fatigues, waits anxiously for a glimpse of a loved one. As of 8 December, 115,465 Ethiopians – 72,780 men, 37,092 women and 5,593 children, 202 of whom were unaccompanied – had returned from Saudi Arabia, according to...
t seen water for two years. "Our annual rainfall has been getting worse and worse. It has been impossible to grow food for my family. Without rain we are finished," she said. The drought-prone region of Tigray in northern Ethiopia is one of the country's poorest regions, where 80% of the population live in rural areas and malnutrition is very high. The majority of the population produce less than half...
s famished Ethiopia of 1984 has become a nation achieving 93% GDP growth in six years, finds study "Dawn. And as the sun breaks through the piercing chill of night on the plain outside Korem it lights up a biblical famine, now, in the 20th century. This place, say workers here, is the closest thing to hell on earth." That television news report by the BBC's Michael Buerk in 1984 framed Ethiopia for...