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Amhara Region seeks one million daily laborers to harvest 6.9million quintals

by Radarr Africa
written by Radarr Africa

One million daily laborers are required by the West Gondar Zone, which is a part of the Amhara Region, to harvest 6.9 million quintals this month.

The call comes as the zone faces a challenge to hiring workers due to the war in Tigray and Wollo, which were major sources of daily labourers for big agriculture farms in West Gondar, though the practice had existed for decades.

The daily laborers are expected to harvest crops planted on 438,000 hectares of land, which is covered by sesame, soya bean and green mung bean.

West Gondar, known for being the major oilseed belt of Ethiopia, covers areas like Quara, Metema Yohannes, and Midre Genet. More output is expected this year, according to the Zone’s Agriculture Bureau.

“We expect more harvest this year and there is no uncultivated land, even mountains are covered with oilseeds,” said Ephrem Worku, deputy head of the Bureau.

In 2021 Meher season, 930,000 quintals of oilseed were harvested from 130,945 hectares of land, according to the Ethiopian Statistics Service (ESS). The average yield is seven quintals per hectare. The figure is expected to double this year.

“We have made a mass cultivation in cooperation with investors. Though our first intention was to harvest using mechanized farming, we did not manage to get that,” added Ephrem, explaining the reason behind the call for over a million daily laborers.

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The task of the office is limited to recruiting daily laborers and facilitating the hiring process. Investors are expected to make the payment and they are expected to incur at least five billion birr.  The daily workers will be paid between 250 birr and 300 birr depending on the type of work.

A camp has been readied for the accommodation of workers, according to Ephrem, who said: “Medical treatment will be available in case of emergency.”

Authorities in the zone have also been working with federal and regional security agencies and the Ethiopian National Defense Force (ENDF) to improve the security situation in the area.

“Our zone is now very stable and security forces are ready to make the area safe during the harvesting, which could take at least 20 days.”

SOURCE: The reporter

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Banking, Finance & InvestmentEastern Africa

World Bank agrees $300 million grant for reconstruction, Ethiopia.

by Radarr Africa
written by Radarr Africa

Ethiopia and the World Bank have signed a pact for a grant of $300 million to assist reconstruction and recovery in conflict-hit areas, the finance ministry said.

Fighting that erupted in the northern region of Tigray in November 2020, and spilled over into neighboring Afar and Amhara last year, has eased since a unilateral ceasefire by the federal government in March.

“The resource will be used to finance the activities designed to support … basic services,” the ministry said in a statement late on Monday.

Services that stand to benefit are education, health, water supply and a special effort to support survivors of gender-based violence in conflict-hit areas, it said.

Areas in Amhara, Afar, Tigray and the regions of Oromia and Benishangul-Gumuz are targeted to receive the funds, it said, adding that the government would sign up with third-party organizations to execute the project in high-conflict areas.

The violence in Oromia and Benishangul-Gumuz home to several ethnic groups is separate from the war in Tigray.

Source: US News

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Eastern AfricaEducation

Gondar University, Ethiopia denies aiding grave destruction in west Tigray

by Radarr Africa
written by Radarr Africa

Gondar University Ethiopia has denied reports that some of its experts helped Amhara militia destroy evidence of mass graves containing bodies of Tigrayans.

Witnesses told the BBC that they had seen the experts advise militia members, In a letter to the BBC, the university described this as an “unsubstantiated accusation”.

It also denied that there was any evidence that the bodies of Tigrayans had been found in mass graves.

If anything like that had been discovered then the “research team would have been the first to acknowledge and provide the evidence”, the university said.

“The university is one of the most respected research based educational institutions in Ethiopia which is devoted to solving some of society’s most pressing issues,” it added.

As part of its research, Gondar University’s experts have found mass grave sites in the area, but it has discovered that these were the result of the killing of thousands of ethnic Amhara’s carried out by the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) since the mid 1990s.

The TPLF was once the dominant political party in Ethiopia, but that changed when Abiy Ahmed became prime minister in 2018.

In November 2020, the political tension between the federal government and the TPLF which controls most of the northern Tigray region, led to the outbreak of civil war.

All sides in the on-going conflict have been accused of carrying out mass killings.

Witness had described to BBC how, in western Tigray, an area under the control of forces from the neighbouring Amhara region, the bodies of ethnic Tigrayans in freshly dug mass graves had been exhumed and destroyed. This came ahead of a possible visit by UN investigators looking into war crimes.

Source: BBC News

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Eastern AfricaPolitics

General Gebremedhim Fikadu Dies in Prison; Addis Ababa 

by Radarr Africa
written by Radarr Africa

A Tigrayan general and former commander in the African Union mission in Somalia died in custody after he was arrested along with other senior officers in the early days of the war in 2020. The rebel authorities in Tigray are calling for an independent investigation into the circumstances surrounding his death.

General Gebremedhin Fikadu, alias “Wedi Necho”, was a dominant figure in the Ethiopian army. On Tuesday, the Tigrayan authorities’ External Affairs Office called him a “martyr”. His death, the External Affairs office said, follows the suspicious deaths of two other generals as well as “hundreds” of Tigrayan officers and soldiers.

The former sector commander with Amisom, he was the head of the Federal Troops Communications Department when the war broke out. Previously, he had commanded Ethiopian troops in Liberia and then on the Badmé front, during the war against Eritrea between 1999 and 2000. He was arrested on November 11, 2020 with 16 other senior officers from the start of operations in Tigray. They were accused of having sabotaged communications between the federal command and the northern commander. General Wedi Necho, in particular, was accused of having sought to send explosives to the rebel authorities. Last year, the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission met him in prison and declared that his conditions of detention was “acceptable”.

Source: Allafrica

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