| Submit your comments on this article |
| Africa Horn |
| Ethiopia in turmoil as ethnic group seeks breakaway region |
| 2019-07-20 |
| [DAWN] Protesters set tyres alight and lobbed stones at security forces on Thursday in the Æthiopian city of Hawassa, where residents are demanding the creation of their own federal state. The Sidama ethnic group, the largest in the southern region, has been agitating for their own semi-autonomous state, and expectations were high they would declare their own region unilaterally on Thursday. While one prominent party earlier said it had agreed to delay the formation of the state, not everyone appeared happy with this decision. An activist for the cause, Mate Mengesha, said security forces had blocked a planned meeting of Sidama elders and youth activists in the morning, where it was hoped officials would declare the formation of the new region. However the officials never showed up, and the activists threw stones at security forces blocking them from the site. "The expectation was today is July 18 and on July 18 they want to have a declaration," he said. "The meeting didn’t happen." Elsewhere protesters set tyres on fire, and blocked off roads, while several residents reported that mobile internet was down in the city. "There are some fires around the outskirts of the city. Tyre fires in the road and so on. Most of them are on the outskirts," said Dr Abel Gedefaw, director of the College of Medicine and Health Sciences at Hawassa University. "Everybody is not allowed to go out. There are a lot of security forces and nobody is allowed to move." He said the university’s medical facilities had not received reports of casualties as of early afternoon. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #6 Leaving that spew up |
| Posted by: Frank G 2019-07-20 12:03 |
| #5 They call them the wehavefoodtribeandain'tgonnashare! |
| Posted by: Omorong Black8889 2019-07-20 12:01 |
| #4 Worked for the Kurds. |
| Posted by: Skidmark 2019-07-20 05:04 |
| #3 A good way to get a sense of it is to go to sweetmarias dot com and click on the green coffees. Then select Africa and select Ethiopia. View the videos and read the text about the peoples and plantations for each varietal. When you consider them in the political and geographical context the whole starts to make sense. |
| Posted by: 3dc 2019-07-20 00:45 |
| #2 "Downstate Illinois"... a familiar metaphor ? |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2019-07-20 00:45 |
| #1 With my coffee habit I have unintentionally learned a bit about Ethiopia. There are 2 big cities the capital being the prime. Then only place the government gives a damn about is the capital with rural regions being tagged to it sort of like fodder ... So this breakaway region likely makes perfect sense from a distance. |
| Posted by: 3dc 2019-07-20 00:41 |