Ethiopia

Search teams were still digging at the site of deadly mudslides in southern Ethiopia on Friday, as the death toll rose to 257, according to the UN humanitarian office. Heavy rain triggered deadly slides on Sunday and Monday in a remote part of the country. The UN humanitarian office, known as OCHA, said in an update Thursday that the death toll could rise to as many as 500, citing local officials. More than 15,000 affected people need to be evacuated" from the area, it said. Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed is expected to visit the remote area on Friday. Mudslides there have been triggered by heavy rainfall in recent days. Abiy said earlier in the week that he was deeply saddened by this terrible loss. Photos from the scene show residents standing over the shrouded bodies of mudslide victims who are being pulled, one by one, from the muddy earth. Diggers have been using hand shovels to pick through the mud. Many people were buried in the Gofa Zone of Kencho Shacha Gozdi distric

Mudslides triggered by heavy rain in a remote part of Ethiopia have killed at least 229 people, including many who tried to rescue survivors, local authorities said Tuesday, in what the prime minister called a "terrible loss." Young children and pregnant women were among the victims in Kencho Shacha Gozdi district of southern Ethiopia, said Dagmawi Ayele, a local administrator, adding that at least five people have been pulled out alive. The death toll rose sharply from the initial one of 55 late Monday. Search operations continued in the area, said Kassahun Abayneh, head of the communications office in Gofa Zone, the administrative area where the mudslides occurred. Ethiopia's ruling party in a statement said it felt sorrow over the disaster. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said in a statement on Facebook that he was deeply saddened by this terrible loss." The federal disaster prevention task force has been deployed to assist in search and rescue efforts, Abiy's statement said. It was

Ethiopia's biggest bank says it has recouped nearly 80 per cent of the cash it lost during what it says was a glitch in its system that allowed customers to take out more money than they had in their accounts. Abe Sano, president of the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia, told reporters on Tuesday that around USD 14 million was withdrawn or digitally transferred during the error. The value of the transactions ranged from 9 cents to USD 5,350, he said. The amount lost initially was reported as USD 40 million. Nearly 15,000 people have voluntarily returned funds that were taken illegally, the bank said in a statement. But 567 individuals haven't yet returned money that is not theirs. On Tuesday, the bank posted their names and account details online, in an apparent attempt to shame them into giving it back. The total amount remaining is not significant for the bank, but if this money is not fully recouped, it sends the wrong message, Abe said. News of the glitch spread on social media on Ma

The justice ministry authorised the capital markets regulator this week to go ahead with issuing the licences, said Brook Taye, Director General of the Ethiopian Capital Market Authority

Current members Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa in August invited six other nations to become part of their group, pairing some of the planet's largest energy producers

India has urged Ethiopia to explore possibility of settling bilateral trade transactions in local currency as it will help boost bilateral trade and conserve foreign exchange, an official statement said on Wednesday. The country has also invited the African nation to collaborate on the Unified Payment Interface (UPI) with Ethswitch of Ethiopia. These issues were discussed during the sixth session of India-Ethiopia Joint Trade Committee in Addis Ababa from November 6-7. Both sides also agreed to expeditiously address all issues impeding bilateral trade and facilitate trade promotion between the two countries. "The Indian side urged Ethiopia to explore the possibility of settlement of trade transactions in local currency which will help boost bilateral trade and conserve foreign exchange," the commerce ministry said. "The Indian side also requested the Ethiopian side to expedite the early finalization of the Bilateral Investment Treaty," it added. Ethiopia is one of the fastest gro

The CBI has registered a fresh FIR against IL&FS Transportation Network Ltd and its step-down subsidiary Spain-based Elsamex SA for allegedly misappropriating credit facilities to the tune of Rs 239 crore by cheating and diverting funds, officials said on Monday. India Exim Bank had sanctioned a credit limit of Euro 35 million to Elsamex which is also a wholly owned subsidiary of Singapore-based ITNL International Pte Ltd in 2015 for securing and executing overseas contracts. IL&FS Transportation is already facing a CBI probe for causing a loss of over Rs 6,524 crore to a Canara Bank-led consortium. In 2016, a consortium of Elsamex and ITNL won the bid for an Ethiopian project to design, manage and maintain the work of the Nekemte Bure Road upgrading project under an output and performance-based road contract. The project needed disbursal of certain mobilisation advances, which were to be secured by guarantees sanctioned by Exim Bank. So, Euro 32.60 million was allocated under

The members countries announced the expansion of the grouping by adding six new countries - Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) - into the fold

Border guards in Saudi Arabia have fired machine guns and launched mortars at Ethiopians trying to cross into the kingdom from Yemen, likely killing hundreds of the unarmed migrants in recent years, Human Rights Watch said in a report released Monday. The rights group cited eyewitness reports of attacks by troops and images that showed dead bodies and burial sites on migrant routes, saying the death toll could even be possibly thousands. The United Nations has already questioned Saudi Arabia about its troops opening fire on the migrants in an escalating pattern of attacks along its southern border with war-torn Yemen. A Saudi government official, speaking on condition of anonymity as he was not authorised to speak publicly, called the Human Rights Watch report unfounded and not based on reliable sources, without offering evidence to support the assertion. Yemen's Houthi rebels, who allegedly make tens of thousands of dollars a week smuggling migrants over the border, did not respon

The attack happened on Sunday in the Amhara region of Ethiopia's West Gojam Zone's centre town of Finote Selam

The United Nations World Food Programme said on Friday that it is temporarily suspending food aid to Ethiopia because its supplies are being diverted, an announcement that came a day after the United States Agency for International Development said it was doing the same. Food diversion is absolutely unacceptable, and we welcome the government of Ethiopia's commitment to investigate and hold accountable those responsible, WFP Executive Director Cindy McCain said. The programme's head office in Rome declined further comment when contacted by The Associated Press. Some 20 million Ethiopians rely on food aid because of drought and conflict, out of the country's population of roughly 120 million. Much of the aid comes from USAID and the World Food Programme. The suspensions brought worries that malnutrition could rise in Africa's second most populous country, USAID, WFP and the Ethiopian government have not said who is responsible for the food diversion, which the US has described as .

UN's FAO said humanitarian access and the delivery of urgently needed assistance to conflict-affected parts of northern Ethiopia remain a key priority to ensure people's recovery from conflict

The first shipment of grain as part of Ukraine's own initiative to supply countries in need arrived in Djibouti Monday for delivery to neighbouring Ethiopia amid the region's worst drought in decades. Ukraine's embassy in Ethiopia confirmed that the Grain from Ukraine" shipment of 25,000 tons is separate from a United Nations World Food Program effort that has funded humanitarian grain shipments from Ukraine. A second ship with 30,000 tons of wheat will be heading to Ethiopia next week, while a third vessel is currently being loaded with 25,000 tons of wheat bound for Somalia, an embassy statement said. Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky last month announced the initiative aimed at helping countries the most struck by the food crisis. Ukraine has said it plans to send more than 60 ships to Ethiopia, Sudan, South Sudan, Somalia, Congo, Kenya, Yemen and other countries. Millions of people in Ethiopia, Somalia and Kenya are going hungry due to drought following the fifth straight

The parties to the conflict have agreed to promote unhindered humanitarian access for all in need in Tigray and neighbouring regions, and facilitate the movement of humanitarian aid workers, AU said

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar held talks with the Foreign Minister of Ethiopia Demeke Mekonnen Hassen and discussed reinforcing cooperation in the education and trade sectors

Ethiopia's government is criticising as unethical the statement by the World Health Organisation's director-general that the crisis in the country's Tigray region is the worst disaster on Earth and his assertion that the lack of attention from global leaders may be due to Tigrayans' skin colour. The spokeswoman for Ethiopia's prime minister on Thursday told journalists that the comments by WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus were unbecoming of such a high-profile position. Billene Seyoum suggested that Tedros, himself an ethnic Tigrayan, should recuse himself from his post if he wants to talk that way. She spoke a day after the WHO chief in an emotional statement at a press briefing asserted that the 6 million people in Tigray have been under siege for the last 21 months because of the conflict that erupted there in late 2020 between Ethiopian and Tigray forces. I haven't heard in the last few months any head of state talking about the Tigray situation anywhere in the developed ..

A United Nations-chartered ship loaded with 23,000 metric tonnes of Ukrainian grain destined for Ethiopia set sail Sunday from a Black Sea port, the first shipment of its kind in a programme

Humanitarians in Ethiopia are targeting more than 16 million people for drought aid while more than 1.7 million people face flooding, a UN spokesman said

It is one of the deadliest such attacks in recent memory as ethnic tensions continue in Africa's second most populous country

The move to shash garmenting capacity in the African country is set to be compensated by fresh capital expenditure plans in India