A British citizen who was released from death row in Ethiopia after a high-profile government lobbying effort has been accused of telling soldiers to carry out genocide in the East African nation’s bloody civil war.

Andargachew Tsege, an Ethiopian-born UK citizen who was freed after pleas from Philip Hammond and Jeremy Corbyn, urged soldiers to resort to “the most savage of cruelties”, in a speech seen by The Telegraph.

“I tell you, you must not hesitate from resorting to the most barbaric of cruelties when you face them,” he said, referring to the ethnically Tigrayan opposition army that is advancing on the capital, Addis Ababa.

“You must be merciless, you must act beyond what our [ethnic] Amhara or Ethiopian cultural values permit,” Mr Tsege, a top government advisor dressed in army fatigues, yelled at a cheering crowd which included armed fighters. 

Mr Tsege’s inflammatory rhetoric comes at a time when ethnic Tigrayans are allegedly being rounded up into concentration camps and murdered. It has been widely interpreted as a call to kill Tigrayan civilians.

“It is genocide incitation against Tigrayans. It adds to the list of similar public incitements by public figures of the regime in Addis [Ababa],” said Mehari Taddele Maru, a professor at the European University Institute in Florence.

“What is more baffling is the international community’s, including UK’s and US, silence to genocidal incitement and war by their nationals.”

Tens of thousands of people have died since the war between Ethiopian federal and allied troops, and fighters from the northern country’s Tigray region broke out late last year.

Now the prospect of the ancient nation of 115 million people breaking apart has alarmed observers who fear what would happen to the already fragile Horn of Africa.

The British man’s outburst comes after the country’s Nobel Peace Prize-winning Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed was filmed in army gear surrounded by soldiers on what he claimed was the frontline.

In 2015, Mr Tsege, an Ethiopian-born UK citizen was at the heart of a diplomatic feud between Addis Ababa and London.

The 66-year-old is an opposition leader who first fled Ethiopia in the 1970s after the country’s old Marxist dictatorship murdered his brother.

The UK granted him asylum in 1979 and he went on to study the works of the German philosopher Immanuel Kant at the University of Greenwich.

Later he married in the UK, fathered three children and was granted full UK citizenship, voiding his Ethiopian citizenship as the country does not allow dual nationality.

In the 1990s, Mr Tsege returned to Ethiopia to work in opposition politics against the new authoritarian government which was dominated by ethnic Tigrayan elites.

The Tigrayans are just one of more than 80 ethnic groups in Ethiopia but despite its small size, the group has played a huge role in Ethiopia’s modern history and dominated the country’s politics for almost 30 years up to 2018.

Accused of organising a failed coup

In 2009, he was accused of organising a failed coup and sentenced to death in absentia. Then five years later he was arrested by airport guards in Yemen and extradited to Ethiopia where he was put in solitary confinement on death row.

Mr Tsege was dubbed “Andy Tsege” by parts of the British press. His plight was covered widely and his family appeared on Good Morning Britain and other major news shows, to advocate for his release.

Jeremy Corbyn, Mr Tsege’s local MP, tried to lead a delegation to Ethiopia to secure his release in early 2015.

Later, Philip Hammond, at the time foreign secretary, warned Ethiopia - one of the top recipients of UK aid - that the country’s relationship with the UK was being threatened by the treatment of Mr Tsege.

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch also campaigned heavily for his release.

In 2018, he was pardoned by the newly appointed Prime Minister Abiy. He is believed to be an advisor to the Nobel laureate.

According to ABC News in America, at the start of November, the US government is considering designating the Ethiopian federal army atrocities in the northern Tigray region over the last year as a genocide. By Wiil Brown, The Telegraph/Yahoo News

Photo via Pindula

Uganda Airlines has suspended some of its staff members for allowing a vendor to sell grasshoppers to passengers who were aboard an Uganda airlines flight that was leaving for Dubai.

The man who was filmed selling the grasshoppers was identified as 27-year-old Ronald Mubiru.

The airline said the man who had no face mask was violating the country’s Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) in light of the Covid-19 pandemic. 

The video of the entrepreneurial Ugandan citizen selling grasshoppers inside a plane at Entebbe International Airport before take-off has caused a frenzy on social media.

Mubiru can be seen hawking grasshoppers to seated passengers from a large paper bag while others continue to board.

Grasshoppers are loved by Ugandans who treasure them for being delicious food.

Uganda’s minister for Works and Transport, General Katumba Wamala, is said to have called for the suspension of the crew members on duty for what he termed as “misconduct”. Said Gen Katumba:"I work with the leadership of the Airlines, and if they see fit that the people responsible when this particular incident happened should be suspended, they should be."

On the other hand, after the video went viral, Uganda Airlines has announced it will start offering grasshoppers, as part of its special inflight menu. - Pindula

KHARTOUM — The Acting Governor of the Darfur region, Mohamed Issa Aliyu, said that 24 people were killed in the recent tribal clashes that took place in Jebel Moon of West Darfur State.

Tribal clashes erupted in Jebel Moon on November 17 after several incidents isolated between the Arab nomads and Massalit farmers.

UNOCHA said that at least 43 people have been killed, 46 villages have been burned and looted, and an unknown number of people were injured.  While the Central Committee of Sudanese Doctors reviewed the death toll to 17 people besides 12 wounded.

In a press conference held in El-Fasher, Aliyu said that 24 people were killed during the tribal clashes and 8 villages have been burned. He added a number of children are still missing and some families fled the attacks to eastern Chad while others are displaced in the region.

He pointed out that the tribal violence in Jebel Moon is the result of the insecurity in the Darfur region “due to the failure to implement the security arrangements agreed in the Juba Peace Agreement.”

He added that the lack of funding is not a viable reason to justify the non-enforcement of the security arrangements and called on the central government to say the real motive behind this failure.

In line with the peace agreement, the parties have to form a 12,000-strong joint force to protect civilians and restore stability.

The acting governor accused some people in the region of seeking to take advantage of the insecurity in Darfur to achieve their own agenda, without specifying about whom he was speaking.

Darfur governor Minni Minnawi last October appointed Aliyu as the acting governor saying he was busy with the political developments in the country. - Sudans Post