Tigrayan rebels said that they have withdrawn from a region neighbouring war-racked Tigray, fulfilling a key condition set by the government of Ethiopia when it declared a humanitarian truce last month.
The claims could not be independently verified and government officials did not respond immediately to AFP requests for comment.
The 17-month conflict between government forces and the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) has sparked fears of famine in Tigray and created a humanitarian crisis in northern Ethiopia as the fighting spread to neighbouring Amhara and Afar.
The withdrawal of the TPLF from Afar and Amhara was a major condition of the truce announced by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed's government with a view to easing aid deliveries to Tigray, which has been under a de facto blockade, according to the UN.
Although the pause in fighting this month allowed humanitarian convoys by road to resume after being cut off since mid-December, the region of six million people is still receiving only a fraction of what it needs.
On Tuesday, two TPLF spokesmen, Getachew Reda and Kindeya Gebrehiwot, told AFP that their forces had pulled out of Afar.
"We have already withdrawn from all parts of Afar," Mr Kindeya said in a message to AFP. "Humanitarian and political issues should be de-linked."
The announcement followed an open letter by the TPLF to UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres last Wednesday in which the rebels said they were "committed to further withdrawal of Tigray forces from Afar territory".
"The issue is whether or not there is a system in place to facilitate regular, sufficient and unfettered aid flow into Tigray," the letter said.
The government and the rebels have long accused each other of blocking aid to Tigray, where people are living without basic services such as electricity, internet, telecommunications or banking.
The United States aid chief Samantha Power met Ethiopia's Finance Minister Ahmed Shide on Friday in Washington and urged the government to do "much more ... to facilitate significant and sustained humanitarian access to all Ethiopians in need" a USAID statement said.
The war has killed untold numbers of people, displaced more than two million and left more than nine million in need of food aid, according to the UN.
The conflict erupted in November 2020 when Nobel peace laureate Mr Abiy sent troops into Tigray to topple the TPLF, the region's former ruling party, saying the move was a response to rebel attacks on army camps.
In neighbouring Sudan, up to 550 Ethiopian peacekeepers have sought asylum rather than return home for fear they will be persecuted because of their Tigrayan ethnicity, an official told Reuters on Tuesday.
The soldiers, numbering between 525 and 550, were part of a UN peacekeeping force working in Abyei, a contested oil-rich area on Sudan's border with South Sudan, the official working in refugee response told Reuters.
Ethiopian government spokesperson Legesse Tulu and military spokesman Col Getnet Adane did not immediately respond to Reuters' request for comment on the soldiers seeking asylum. Nor did representatives of the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, nor the UN peacekeeping office.
The official said that the soldiers were at the peacekeeping mission's rear base in Kadugli in South Kordofan and that UNHCR was planning to move them to a fenced camp near a refugee camp for Eritreans in Sudan's Gadaref state.
Thousands of Tigrayans, civilians and soldiers, were imprisoned in squalid conditions in Ethiopia without charge after war erupted in the Tigray region in November 2020.
Since the fighting started, rights groups have said ethnic Tigrayans have been repeatedly detained without trial. The state-appointed rights commission said last year that thousands of ethnic Tigrayans were detained, including very elderly people, nursing mothers and babies.
At the time, police denied targeting any ethnic group, saying they targeted suspected TPLF supporters.
The UN said at least 15,000 Tigrayan civilians were arrested or imprisoned across Ethiopia under the state of emergency declared in November and lifted in February.
At the beginning of the conflict, Tigrayan police and soldiers were disarmed and put in secure areas. It is not clear if they have been released.
Tigrayan peacekeepers serving in UN missions in Darfur have previously sought asylum.
The government has repeatedly said it is fighting against the TPLF and not Tigrayans in general.
Federer's 11 Wimbledon finals
2003 Beat Mark Philippoussis
2004 Beat Andy Roddick
2005 Beat Andy Roddick
2006 Beat Rafael Nadal
2007 Beat Rafael Nadal
2008 Lost to Rafael Nadal
2009 Beat Andy Roddick
2012 Beat Andy Murray
2014 Lost to Novak Djokovic
2015 Lost to Novak Djokovic
2017 Beat Marin Cilic
Recent winners
2002 Giselle Khoury (Colombia)
2004 Nathalie Nasralla (France)
2005 Catherine Abboud (Oceania)
2007 Grace Bijjani (Mexico)
2008 Carina El-Keddissi (Brazil)
2009 Sara Mansour (Brazil)
2010 Daniella Rahme (Australia)
2011 Maria Farah (Canada)
2012 Cynthia Moukarzel (Kuwait)
2013 Layla Yarak (Australia)
2014 Lia Saad (UAE)
2015 Cynthia Farah (Australia)
2016 Yosmely Massaad (Venezuela)
2017 Dima Safi (Ivory Coast)
2018 Rachel Younan (Australia)
Avatar: Fire and Ash
Director: James Cameron
Starring: Sam Worthington, Sigourney Weaver, Zoe Saldana
Rating: 4.5/5
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
THE SIXTH SENSE
Starring: Bruce Willis, Toni Collette, Hayley Joel Osment
Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Rating: 5/5
The Ashes
Results
First Test, Brisbane: Australia won by 10 wickets
Second Test, Adelaide: Australia won by 120 runs
Third Test, Perth: Australia won by an innings and 41 runs
Fourth Test: Melbourne: Drawn
Fifth Test: Australia won by an innings and 123 runs
The specs: 2019 Cadillac XT4
Price, base: Dh145,000
Engine: 2.0-litre turbocharged in-line four-cylinder engine
Transmission: Nine-speed automatic
Power: 237hp @ 5,000rpm
Torque: 350Nm @ 1,500rpm
Fuel economy, combined: 8.7L / 100km
Temple numbers
Expected completion: 2022
Height: 24 meters
Ground floor banquet hall: 370 square metres to accommodate about 750 people
Ground floor multipurpose hall: 92 square metres for up to 200 people
First floor main Prayer Hall: 465 square metres to hold 1,500 people at a time
First floor terrace areas: 2,30 square metres
Temple will be spread over 6,900 square metres
Structure includes two basements, ground and first floor
Five%20calorie-packed%20Ramadan%20drinks
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3ERooh%20Afza%3C%2Fstrong%3E%0D%3Cbr%3E100ml%20contains%20414%20calories%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ETang%20orange%20drink%3C%2Fstrong%3E%0D%3Cbr%3E100ml%20serving%20contains%20300%20calories%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ECarob%20beverage%20mix%3C%2Fstrong%3E%0D%3Cbr%3E100ml%20serving%20contains%20about%20300%20calories%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EQamar%20Al%20Din%20apricot%20drink%3C%2Fstrong%3E%0D%3Cbr%3E100ml%20saving%20contains%2061%20calories%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EVimto%20fruit%20squash%3C%2Fstrong%3E%0D%3Cbr%3E100ml%20serving%20contains%2030%20calories%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
Read more about the coronavirus
BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE
Starring: Winona Ryder, Michael Keaton, Jenny Ortega
Director: Tim Burton
Rating: 3/5
'C'mon C'mon'
Director:Mike Mills
Stars:Joaquin Phoenix, Gaby Hoffmann, Woody Norman
Rating: 4/5
Remaining fixtures
- August 29 – UAE v Saudi Arabia, Hazza bin Zayed Stadium, Al Ain
- September 5 – Iraq v UAE, Amman, Jordan (venue TBC)
