Africa News Highlights — April 11, 2022

Sisay Tadele/CPJ.org

A pho­to of Ethiopi­an jour­nal­ist Amir Aman Kiyaro who was recent­ly released from detention.

DENVER  — (AFRICA NEWS MATTERS) 

Each week our staff at Africa News Mat­ters com­piles a list of impor­tant Africa sto­ries to feed your curios­i­ty. WHY ARE WE DOING THIS?

Ethiopi­an Video Jour­nal­ist for Asso­ci­at­ed Press Released on Bail

With World Press Free­dom Day approach­ing, the detain­ment of Ethiopi­an video jour­nal­ist of the Asso­ci­at­ed Press Amir Aman Kiyaro deserves our attention.

Novem­ber 28, local Ethiopi­an forces detained Kiyaro in Addis Aba­ba. Accord­ing to the Asso­ci­at­ed Press, local Ethiopi­an forces detained him for inter­view­ing offi­cials of groups oppos­ing the Ethiopi­an gov­ern­ment. The Voice of Amer­i­ca (VOA) has spec­i­fied that Kiyaro inter­viewed mem­bers of the Oro­mo Lib­er­a­tion Army. How­ev­er, Kiyaro is a jour­nal­ist who aims for objec­tiv­i­ty. “He is a respect­ed, bal­anced jour­nal­ist who has cov­ered both sides of the con­flict,” said Ian Phillips to Voice of Amer­i­ca (VOA), who is Inter­na­tion­al News Vice Pres­i­dent of the AP. “

This is arbi­trary deten­tion.” Kiyaro was lat­er released on bail. How­ev­er, fears loom as pros­e­cu­tors con­sid­er more charges.

Since Novem­ber 2020 Ethiopia has been engaged in an armed con­flict pit­ting the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment against forces of the Tigray Peo­ple’s Lib­er­a­tion Front(TPLF)

Soma­lia Fac­ing Famine

Devoid of much-need­ed rain­fall, Soma­lis have been left dev­as­tat­ed. The Voice of Amer­i­ca (VOA) report­ed that it’s Somalia’s worst drought in three decades. Farm­ers are unable to main­tain live­stock and par­ents are strug­gling to feed their fam­i­lies. Chil­dren are suf­fer­ing the most, from mal­nu­tri­tion to acute diar­rhea, putting the region at greater risk of wide­spread death. 

Talks about cli­mate change are hap­pen­ing all around the world. And effects of cli­mate change can be seen any­where. Ice is melt­ing at alarm­ing rates in the arc­tic. Cal­i­for­nia fires are hard to con­tain. But no oth­er region of the world is fac­ing the brunt of cli­mate change more than Africa. And accord­ing to the Unit­ed Nations (UN), if cli­mate change is not ade­quate­ly addressed, we will nev­er escape its worst consequences.

UN Secu­ri­ty Coun­cil Approves New Peace­keep­ing Mis­sion in Somalia

A new African Union (AU) Mis­sion has been approved by the Unit­ed Nations Secu­ri­ty Coun­cil (UNCS). Soma­lia has been fac­ing a myr­i­ad of crises, notably the vio­lent move­ment of Al-Qae­da affil­i­ate Al-Shabaab. Soma­lia need­ed to re-estab­lish gov­ern­ment legit­i­ma­cy in order to address the pow­er­ful extrem­ist group. 

The pre­vi­ous AU Mis­sion in Soma­lia (AMISOM) helped sta­bi­lize Soma­lia, allow­ing for the new AU mis­sion, or the African Union Tran­si­tion­al Mis­sion in Soma­lia (ATMIS). This new mis­sion rec­og­nizes Somalia’s grow­ing abil­i­ty to imple­ment its own plans to com­bat Al-Shabaab. The Euro­pean Union (EU) and the Unit­ed Nations (UN) have already fall­en in line, and with the opti­mism of the AU, ATMIS could be a sig­nif­i­cant step in Somalia’s mere 15-year-long bat­tle to re-estab­lish­ing its nation­al security.