Ethiopia

ADDIS ABABA, Aug 5 (Reuters) - Forces from Ethiopia's Tigray region have taken control of the town of Lalibela, whose famed rock-hewn churches are a United Nations World Heritage Site, and residents were fleeing, two eyewitnesses told Reuters on Thursday.

Lalibela, also a holy site for millions of Ethiopian Orthodox Christians, is in the North Wollo Zone of the Amhara region in Ethiopia's north. In recent weeks fighting has spread from Tigray into two neighbouring regions, Amhara and Afar, forcing around 250,000 people to flee.

04 Aug 2021; MEMO: Seven Arabic speaking countries told the African Union (AU) yesterday that they reject granting Israel observer status in the bloc, Anadolu reported.

Israeli Ambassador to Addis Ababa Aleli Admasu presented credentials to AU Commission Chairperson Moussa Faki on 22 July, and Israel was granted observer status to the body.

ADDIS ABABA, July 29 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Martin Griffiths, on Thursday started a six-day mission to Ethiopia.

"It was important to me that I carry out my first official mission as the UN's humanitarian chief to Ethiopia," a statement by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) issued Thursday quoted Griffiths as saying.

ADDIS ABABA, July 27 (Reuters) - Thousands of Ethiopian army recruits paraded in Addis Ababa on Tuesday to bid farewell before leaving for training, potential future participants in a bloody eight-month-old conflict in the north that continues to spread and intensify.

Young women and men wearing plastic sandals and baseball caps with slogans such as "Ethiopia is calling" danced in central Meskel Square at a ceremony attended by defence minister Kenea Yadeta and the capital's deputy mayor, Adanech Abiebe.

ADDIS ABABA, July 26 (Xinhua) -- The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Africa reached 6,475,582 as of Monday afternoon, the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) said.

The Africa CDC, the specialized healthcare agency of the African Union, said the death toll from the pandemic stands at 164,383 while 5,674,552 patients across the continent have recovered from the disease.

South Africa, Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt and Ethiopia are the countries with the most cases in the continent, according to the Africa CDC.

ADDIS ABABA, July 24 (Xinhua) -- Chairperson of the African Union (AU) Commission Moussa Faki Mahamat has again called for peacefully solving the Israel-Palestine issue through the "two-state solution," said an AU statement Saturday.

The chairperson made the remarks Thursday in a meeting with Israeli Ambassador to Ethiopia Aleli Admasu, during which the two sides discussed the long-standing Israeli-Palestinian conflict, according to the statement.

ADDIS ABABA, July 24 (NNN-AGENCIES) — For the first time since 2002, Israel’s ambassador to Ethiopia, Aleleign Admasu presented his credentials as observer to the African Union.

The African Union is the largest and most important organization on the African continent whose members are the 54 countries in Africa.

ADDIS ABABA July 19 (Reuters) - Forces from Ethiopia's northern Tigray region have mounted attacks in neighbouring Afar region, a spokesman for Afar said on Monday, marking an expansion of an eight-month-old conflict into a previously untouched area.

Tigrayan fighters crossed into Afar on Saturday and Afar forces and allied militias were still fighting them on Monday, Afar spokesman Ahmed Koloyta said.

"Now (Ethiopian military forces) are on their way and we will work with them to eliminate (the Tigrayan forces)," he said.

17 July 2021; MEMO: Amnesty International today urged the Ethiopian authorities to end arbitrary detention of Tigrayans, Anadolu Agency reports.

In a statement, the global human rights watchdog said: "The arrests appear to be ethnically motivated, with former detainees, witnesses and lawyers describing how police checked identity documents before arresting people and taking them to detention centres."

ADDIS ABABA, July 16 (Xinhua) -- The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Africa reached 6,120,888 as of Friday noon, the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) said.

The Africa CDC, the specialized healthcare agency of the 55-member African Union, said the death toll from the pandemic stands at 155,502 while 5,320,688 patients across the continent have recovered from the disease.

South Africa, Morocco, Tunisia, Ethiopia and Egypt are the countries with the most cases in the continent, according to the Africa CDC.