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Ethiopia accused Sudanese troops of killing “many civilians” in recent fighting over contested land at the nations’ border.
Tensions between the two countries have escalated since conflict erupted in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region on Nov. 4, with several deadly clashes occurring on fertile farming land in the al-Fashqa area that straddles the border. The dispute risks drawing a third nation into a regional conflict that has already involved troops from neighbouring Eritrea.
Ethiopian authorities have observed Sudanese military forces carrying out organized attacks using heavy machine guns and armoured convoys at their border, Dina Mufti, spokesman for Ethiopia’s Foreign Ministry, told reporters on Tuesday. Ethiopian farmers in the region have had their properties looted, while “many civilians have been murdered and wounded,” he said.
Sudanese Foreign Minister Omar Qamar al-Din didn’t respond to requests for comment and calls to the North African nation’s Information Ministry and the Sudanese army went unanswered.
Al-Din said last week that Sudan’s army have taken control of most of the disputed land in the al-Fashqa area. He played down the prospect of the conflict escalating, saying the government will use diplomatic channels to resolve the dispute.
Both sides met last month to discuss the border issue, but made no progress.
Amhara Militia
Foreign diplomats and Sudanese officials who have been following the talks said that while Sudanese troops moved to the al-Fashqa area after Ethiopian federal troops left to help with the conflict in Tigray, large groups of Ethiopian ethnic Amhara militiamen have mobilized in the area.Amhara state, whose fighters backed the Ethiopian federal army’s incursion into Tigray, claims ownership of parts of al-Fashqa, including areas that are within Sudanese territory.
Amhara militias are “asserting a renewed aggressiveness on the border that could result in further provocations,” said Cameron Hudson, senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center. “If left unchecked, it represents the kind of ‘low probability, high impact’ scenario that could have devastating and far-reaching consequences.”
Sudan says the border area around al-Fashqa was demarcated under colonial-era treaties dating back to 1902, putting the land firmly inside its international borders. Khartoum has historically allowed Amhara farmers to conduct business and live on the fertile land as long as they pay taxes and operate under Sudanese laws and, in turn, Ethiopia has recognized the land as Sudanese.
Foreign Fighters
The Sudanese border has already been destabilized by the fighting in Tigray. The UN said Tuesday that scores of refugees continue to arrive in Sudan because of persistent violence in the area.“Some 800 people crossed from Ethiopia’s Tigray region into eastern Sudan in just the first few days of the new year,” said Andrej Mahecic, a spokesperson for the UN’s refugee agency in Geneva. “Latest arrivals tell of being caught in the conflict and being victims of various armed groups.”
Despite previous denials, Ethiopian officials have begun conceding the presence of Eritrean troops inside Tigray. Speaking on Tigray’s regional broadcaster, which is now effectively controlled by Abiy’s administration, Ethiopian army Major-General Belay Seyoum said last week that Eritrean troops had entered Ethiopia “uninvited” while federal forces were under attack by Tigrayan troops.
“We feel bad this had to happen,” he said. “We can resolve our internal issues by ourselves. We are capable of doing so.”
Ethiopia Autonomous Media
At a time when the free flow of information and free debate about the government’s actions in Tigray are urgently needed, the Ethiopian government has arrested six journalists, reports the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission.
The arrest of 6 journalists in Ethiopia pales in comparison to what’s happening in the northern region of the country. Over 6 million people are deprived of food, medicine, electricity, Internet, phone lines, access to banks.
Open your eyes and ears world do let Tigray people down urge Abiy Ahmed Ali to open communications, banking roads let humanitarian and journalists in Tigray. Let the world see what’s going on in Tigray and let the world judge who is doing what.
Abiy Ahmed is fooling the international community and diverting their attention from focusing on humanitarian actions to be taken. Still he is bombing by airstrike hospitals and schools as we speak.
Tigrayans are suffering from starvation, lack of medication, extrajudicial killings, indiscriminate shelling & other war crimes.
Crimes against humanity. 70 days without electricity, telecom, internet, gas, medical supplies, banks are still closed. Abiy Ahmed is committing war crimes.
The shameless and incredible looting of Tigray!!! “The first division entered Ethiopia last few weeks ago and arrived at Adi Grat. Their assignment is to identify and take control of all assets — military items, warehouses, industrial equipment, etc.
Full of lies and cover up by the government mouthpiece as always. Tigray have no representative in the parliament. People of Tigray have voted who they want them to administer. Tigray is not Abiy’s PLc whom he appointed a CEO as he wish to, rubbish, Tigray Will Prevail.
Fact Checking Despot Abiy Ahmed: “No women, No children in Sudanese refugee camps,” Abiy lied to Ethiopia’s rubber-stamp parliament. UNHCR reported 50% of Tigrayans refugees are women. Nearly half are children.
Ethnic Tigrayan bank accounts frozen -Tigrayans can not fly out of the country, Ethnic Tigrayans dismissed from military, security, and other institutions –
Tigrayans are under extreme agony, but also their cries, agony and pain can not be heard by the rest of the world.
Ethiopia Autonomous Media
Full fledged Tigray Genocide while the world watches idly.
Abiy Ahmed Ali sending more tanks to Tigray. Below is a photo taken today on the road to Tigray through Afar.This is today! After the war is over a month bac, as claimed by the Ethiopia regime/
Tigray war means of late, from Mekele to Addis: 2 days by bus through 20 police checkpoints. Eyewitness 15 destroyed tanks along road between Mekele and Alamata.
If between Mekele and Alamata destroyed 15 tanks imagine how many tanks destroyed between Mekele and Humera. This reminds of the time during DERG, when it took us hours to reach Mendefera or Massawa from Asmara through checkpoints.
Arriving in Addis everyone taken to a police station for questioning. 6 detained. Locals forbidden to fly from Mekelle to Addis.
My husband had to wait 6+ hours for questioning by police when they all arrived to Addis. Seemed like half of the passengers were sent to a bigger police station (detained?)
A failed state by all standards, thanks to the warlord in Addis Ababa – where the hell is he by the way?Ethiopia without a Tigray is like a car without an engine. Now let’s see this car moved.
Ethiopia Autonomous Media
This 800-year-old church in Ethiopia was carved from a single stone.
Good morning Tigray:
The land of hopeful
The land of honest
The land of civilized
The land of disciplined
The land of hardworking
The land of perseverance
The land of fair & just
The land of heroesHave a wonderful workweek!
Ethiopia Autonomous Media
After being brutally beaten and tortured, they were photographed and interviewed to force them to say what they did not believe. Ethiopia, Benshangul region.
Stop genocide on Gumuz.The Ethiopian government is getting really lazy with their propaganda. They keep exposing themselves. How are you going to be interviewing freshly beat up people? Ethiopians need to come together and over through Abiy Ahamed and his savage supporters, they know who they are.
Ethiopia Autonomous Media
Prior to November 4th, Tigray was the most peaceful of Ethiopia’s 10 regional states.
After November 4th, the federal government and allied with Eritrea, and Amhara militias waged a genocidal campaign against 6+ million Tigrayans causing mayhem. Our children don’t feel safe- they feel the genocide in Tigray. That’s why the came to Sudan to be refugees. They don’t deserve this.Ethiopia Autonomous Media
Prosperity Party Appointee, Acting Mayor of Mekelle, Atakilti Haileslassie, says “We’re pressing the Federal Government & Higher Military Personnel of Ethiopia National Defence Forces to enforce the withdrawal of Eritrean troops from Tigray.”
The Abiy-installed “new mayor” of Mekelle bluntly, & perhaps inadvertently, conceded that Eritrean troops are in Tigray.
He said they entered because the Ethiopian defence was attacked by the TPLF. This concession is in stark departure from the Ethiopian government’s position.The trauma that the people of Tigray have faced & the devastation they will continue to endure is deeply troubling. These are real people with lives and families, and the urgency to intervene is NOT there.
The invasion of Tigray caused: *1000s death *over 2.5 million children to need urgent assistance *over 54,000 to fled Sudan *looting & destruction of ancient churches & mosques *destruction of factories & universities.
Ethiopia Autonomous Media
On December 9, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed called for eliminating the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF), signalling his next big move in redefining the Ethiopian state. Abiy made the perilous claim during a joint presser with Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta on the inauguration of a one-stop border post to boost trade between the two countries.
By M Masoo
Unprompted, he told the audience: “If we could eliminate Al-Shabaab and OLF from this region, you can see how these people can be transformed into one family, one country, one people with great joy and cooperation.”
In true-and-tried Abiy fashion, when he switched to Afaan Oromo, he left out the explosive call to eliminate the OLF—a vanguard organization etched into the consciousness and lived experiences of the Oromo nation. The premier is renowned for his doublespeak saying different things about the same thing to different audiences. Unsurprisingly, the comment excited Abiy’s Oromophobic supporters but his true intentions, perhaps inadvertently divulged, were hardly a surprise.
Abiy is on a victory lap, still oblivious to the menacing war he has begun. The Eritrea-backed military campaign against the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) is not over yet, but it has dealt a significant blow to the group. Abiy appears to have won the battle thanks to Eritrea’s active involvement in the planning and execution of the war and, perhaps more importantly, the alleged involvement of drones from the United Arab Emirates.
He is now turning his attention to another ruinous political turmoil further South: the Oromo opposition. The Abiy administration’s campaign to dismantle any viable opposition in Oromia, the region he hails from, has been ongoing for more than two years. Tens of Oromo opposition party supporters and leaders have been harassed, intimidated, arrested, and some are being subjected to political show trials.
Abiy’s reference to the OLF—a legally registered party with overwhelming support among the Oromo people—in the same breath as Al-Shabab, an internationally proscribed terrorist organization, is straight out of the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) playbook. The TPLF dominated EPRDF used the discourse of terrorism to delegitimize the OLF and its causes, comparing it to Al-Shabab, Boko Haram, and other terrorist organizations. His statement reignited the virulent debate on the nature of the recent changes in Ethiopian politics and the position of the Oromo within the Ethiopian state.
Abiy was catapulted to the position of prime minister by the Oromo protests, representing the Oromo wing of the EPRDF. Many saw this as a dramatic shift that signalled the end of Oromo marginalization in Ethiopia. However, the human rights conditions in Oromia over the last two years, and the abuses and heavy-handed treatment meted out to his opponents across the region shows the position of the Oromo as a whole has worsened.
Under Abiy, Oromos faced sweeping repression and egregious violations of human rights. In May, Amnesty International accused government forces of “horrendous human rights violations including burning homes to the ground, extrajudicial executions, rape, arbitrary arrests, and detentions, sometimes of entire families.” Since then, the situation in several parts of Oromia has worsened, particularly since the assassination of Haacaaluu Hundeessaa. Abiy and PP officials were quick to implicate the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA) and TPLF for the killing of the famed singer.
The government used the anger and violence that followed Haacaaluu’s murder to arrest several prominent leaders of the two main Oromo opposition parties, the Oromo Federalist Congress (OFC) and the OLF. It closed their offices and arrested many of their leaders and members across the country, leading the OFC to announce its intention to withdraw from the next election.
OLF and the Ethiopian state
Founded in the 1970s to end the political, cultural and economic oppression of the Oromo, the OLF struggles for the Oromo right to self-determination. Since then, successive Ethiopian rulers have tried to eliminate the group. In fact, as a core member of the TPLF-led EPRDF, Abiy spent years spying on the OLF and trying to co-opt or uproot the group.In 1991, OLF was among a coterie of liberation fronts that overthrew the communist regime of Mengistu Hailemariam. It was also part of the Transitional Government of Ethiopia that helped set in motion the introduction of multinational federalism. However, when OLF’s support in Oromia proved insurmountable for the TPLF-controlled Oromo Peoples Democratic Organization (OPDO), TPLF forced OLF out of the transitional arrangement.
The EPRDF then launched a scorched earth campaign to eliminate the OLF. Many of its top leaders were killed, many disappeared, and tens of thousands of OLF leaders and members were jailed or forced into exile. EPRDF, in which Abiy was a core member, oversaw nearly three decades of repression against every dissenting Oromo using the OLF as a pretext—so much so that former Prime Minister Meles Zenawi once insinuated, “if you scratch every Oromo, you get an OLF” – a collective demonization that had real-life consequences for many. By 2008, former top TPLF leaders remarked that Ethiopian “prisons speak Afaan Oromo” due to the disproportionate targeting of Oromo nationalists.
The repression and continued marginalization of the Oromo ignited the widespread protests (2014-2018) that ended TPLF’s hegemony and paved the way for Abiy’s rise. The new prime minister is continuing the work he did to eliminate the group as a TPLF spy.
As soon as the OLF returned to Ethiopia in 2018, the Abiy government brought back the EPRDF-era dangerous and violent image of the organization. It tried to blame the OLF for much of the chaos and instability in the Oromia state in much the same way it blamed the TPLF. Indeed, the government also linked the OLF to the TPLF, arguing that the two are working in tandem to destabilize the country.
The government tried to recast TPLF and OLF as extreme, violent, and irrational entities hellbent on destabilizing Ethiopia for no apparent reason. During a recent session, members of parliament called on the government to proscribe both parties as terrorist organizations. Abiy’s war in Tigray and his call for the elimination of the OLF is part of this ongoing pattern of criminalizing and decimating opposition to his budding personalist dictatorship.
Today, authorities respond to any expression of dissenting opinion with an accusation of OLF support. Local officials who raise questions about the direction of the country are accused of being members or supporters of the OLF and arrested. Like the pre-Abiy era, accusations of OLF support are becoming the basis for intimidating, controlling, and punishing political dissent in Oromia.
The Asmara Agreement
OLF made a jubilant return to Ethiopia in 2018 after more than two decades of imposed exile. Millions of adoring fans welcomed the party in the capital Addis Ababa. The Ethiopian parliament also lifted the “terrorist” proscription, paving the way for the group to prepare for elections.After nearly three decades of exile and numerous splits, OLF is a shadow of the one-time formidable organization it was. However, it enjoys unparalleled emotional attachment among the Oromo mass. Abiy kept the group at bay from the very beginning. The government’s peace deal with the group was riddled with controversy even before the ink dried.
The return of OLF leaders to Addis Ababa was met with counter-protests and subsequent violence, much of which appears orchestrated by state actors in hindsight. Ethiopian nationalists see the OLF as a separatist movement and the ultimate embodiment of anti-Ethiopianism. The EPRDF spent decades drilling the anti-OLF sentiments into the hearts and minds of the urban elite.
Abiy’s Prosperity Party (PP) knew the high esteem with which Oromos regarded the OLF and that it could not win an electoral contest against such a formidable opponent. Yet as Workineh Teshome noted recently, the PP cadres in Oromia initially appeared to tolerate the group. Relations deteriorated rapidly amid counter-accusations over the implementation of the peace deal. The electoral board held up the group’s application for an election certificate. OLF vacillated on full disarmament. PP also stonewalled OLF’s efforts to form a coalition with Oromo Federalist Congress (OFC) and other Oromo parties.
OLF eventually relented and handed over responsibility for the OLA rebels to the Abba Gadaa Council. The electoral board approved its certificate. After shambolic efforts to disarm the OLA fell through, PP and OLF began to collide again when the latter began opening up district offices across Oromia.
PP leaders, including the prime minister, continued to accuse the OLF of trying to play for both sides: Continuing to provide support for the insurgency while also preparing for an electoral contest. OLF leaders deny the accusations. Then, the arrests began. In October, PP officials engineered an internal coup within the OLF, side-lining the group’s long-time chairman Dawud Ibsa while openly siding with and providing tacit support for treacherous elements within the party.
The Abiy government has stepped up crackdown against the Oromo in the backdrop of the Tigray war in the name of hunting down “OLA bandits,” even arresting parents whose children allegedly joined the rebels, instituting illegal curfews and extrajudicial killings of the youth. The Oromia police said it killed more than 370 militants in November outside of the media spotlight. In early December, PP representatives in Oromia reported confiscating weapons and arresting 473 suspects, including OLA members, in the East Hararge zone, indicating the group’s presence in nearly all Oromia zones.
Abiy wasted Ethiopia’s chance of democratic transition. The country is now on the cusp of a colossal political and social fissure. The war in Tigray and the attendant ethnic profiling of Tigayans punctured the thread that weaves the Ethiopian national fabric together. After this war, Ethiopia will never be the same for Tigrayans.
The slip up in Moyale signals Abiy’s intention to outlaw the OLF, which is likely to push more Oromos toward armed resistance. If Abiy continues down this path of subjugation and violence, he will be planting the seeds of violence that will haunt his tenure and ultimately herald the disintegration of the Ethiopian state. Both the Derg and the EPRDF regime saw themselves as invincible and brought the Ethiopian state dangerously close to fragmentation. Abiy should heed the lessons of history.
Ethiopia Autonomous Media
It was a very critical moment. Jafar ibn Abi Taleb, the elder brother of Ali ibn Abi Taleb, who after embracing Islam escaped the prosecution of Makkans and led a delegation of over 80 emigrants to Habesha, was standing in the court of Christian King Najashi to defend Islam. He had full faith in Almighty Allah and so he spoke fearlessly.
By ABU TARIQ HIJAZI
After the second emigration of Muslims to Habesha (Abyssinia), Abu Jahl and Abu Sufyan, the two warlords of pagans of Makkah, sent a delegation to Najashi asking him to expel the Muslims. The delegation brought many precious gifts for the king and his courtiers. They presented their claim in the court saying:
“O king, there is a group of evil persons from among our youth who have escaped to your kingdom. They practice a religion, which neither we, nor you know. They have forsaken our religion and have not embraced your religion. The respected leaders of their people — from among their own parents and uncles and from their own clans — have sent us to you to request you to return them.”
The king looked toward his bishops, who had already been bribed, they said: “O king, they speak the truth. Their own people know them better and are better acquainted with what they have done. Send them back so that they themselves might judge them.”
The king was angry with this response and said: “No, by God, I won’t surrender them to anyone until I myself call them and question them about what they have been accused of.”
Najashi invited the Muslims at the court and asked their leader Jafar: “What is this religion which you have introduced for yourself and which has served to cut you off from the religion of your people? You also did not enter my religion nor the religion of any other community.”
Jafar stood and replied with full confidence: “O king, we were a people in a state of ignorance and immorality, worshipping idols and eating the flesh of dead animals, committing all sorts of abomination and shameful deeds, breaking the ties of kinship, treating guests badly and the strong among us exploited the weak.
“We remained in this state until Allah sent us a Prophet (peace be upon him), one of our own people whose lineage, truthfulness, trustworthiness and integrity were well-known to us. He called us to worship Allah alone and to renounce the stones and the idols, which we and our ancestors used to worship besides Allah.
“He commanded us to speak the truth, to honour our promises, to be kind to our relations, to be helpful to our neighbours, to cease all forbidden acts, to abstain from bloodshed, to avoid obscenities and false witness, not to appropriate an orphan’s property nor slander chaste women.
He ordered us to worship Allah alone and not to associate anything with him, to uphold Salat, to give Zakat and fast in the month of Ramadan. We believed in him and what he brought to us from Allah and we follow him in what he has asked us to do and we keep away from what he forbade us from doing.
“Thereupon, O king, our people attacked us, visited the severest punishment on us to make us renounce our religion and take us back to the old immorality and the worship of idols.
“They oppressed us, made life intolerable for us and obstructed us from observing our religion. So we left for your country, choosing you before anyone else, desiring your protection and hoping to live in justice and in peace in your midst.”
Najashi was impressed and was eager to hear more.He asked Jafar: “Do you have with you something of what your Prophet brought from God? Please read to me:” Jafar, in his rich, melodious voice recited for him a portion of Surah Maryam from Verses 19 to 32.
Najashi stood up for Allah’s words and said: Certainly this and what Jesus had brought come out of one source. He turned to the Makkan delegates and said angrily: I won’t hand them to you and I’ll defend them. Then he ordered his courtier to dismiss the delegation and to return their gifts to them. He then turned to Jafar and his group and said: “You’re welcome; Your Prophet is welcome. I admit that he is the Apostle about whom Jesus had given good news. Live wherever you like in my country.”
The pagan delegation returned to Makkah with their gifts in despair.Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) after the Hudaibiyah Treaty, sent letters to leading kings and rulers of the region inviting them to Islam. Amr bin Umayyah Dhimri was delegated to the court of Habesha. King Najashi received the letter with great honour, touched it with his eyes and read it. He came down from the throne and sat on the ground to show his humbleness and high respect for the Prophet of Allah. Later he asked the letter to be preserved in an ivory casket.
The king wrote back saying”…I testify that you are the Messenger of Allah, true and confirming those before you. I have given my allegiance to you and to your brother (i.e. Jafar) and I have surrendered myself through him to the Lord of the Worlds.”
Muslim emigrants returned with Jafar to Madinah when the Prophet (peace be upon him) conquered Khyber. They thanked King Najashi for his good protection and hospitality provided to them. When King Najashi expired the Prophet (peace be upon him) offered his funeral prayer in absentia, in Madinah. He is buried at a place called Najash in Ethiopia.Ethiopia Autonomous Media
Taskforce established to restore peace and security in Metekel, Benishangul Gumuz region, said several detainees were found in prisons held without trial for two & more years.
Lt. Gen Asrat Denero said efforts were underway to expedite their cases within three days, ENA reported. According to Lt. Gen Asrat, in collaboration with Federal Attorney General’s office, efforts were underway in order to separate those who are detained without crimes & those who are suspected of crimes related to security crisis in Metekel zone. It is not clear how many detainees were found.
It is to be recalled that Inspector Misganaw Injifeta, Deputy police commissioner of Benishangul Gumuz region, told media that more than 1000 people were held without trial from 3 to 6 months in Metekel Zone.
Inspector Misganaw has since been arrested.
Ethiopia Autonomous Media
Abiy Ahmed Ali 
A failed state by all standards, thanks to the warlord in Addis Ababa – where the hell is he by the way?
Stop genocide on Gumuz.
After November 4th, the federal government and allied with Eritrea, and Amhara militias waged a genocidal campaign against 6+ million Tigrayans causing mayhem.
Our children don’t feel safe- they feel the genocide in Tigray. That’s why the came to Sudan to be refugees. They don’t deserve this.
He said they entered because the Ethiopian defence was attacked by the TPLF. This concession is in stark departure from the Ethiopian government’s position.
As per Ethiopian history, famine occurred in 1958 & 1983 and costed Tigray 1.6 million lives. 
