[citation needed] The Gumuz number around 200,000 individuals. The growth in refugee numbers has not been matched by a growth in resources, forcing WFP to make difficult decisions about who receives food assistance and who goes without. Ethiopians know that state institutions are weak and can easily imagine how the justice system in a place like Benishangul-Gumuz would be ill-equipped to investigate mass killings and bring perpetrators of atrocities to full account. In the absence of effective responses and with such a weak negotiation, popular trust in regional authorities, the command post, and government institutions has been diminished. Klausberger, Friedrich. Assosa Zone makes less than half of constituencies, which does not guarantee the establishment of a regional government. But attacks and tensions remain high. In 2021, Egypt and Sudan held joint military exercises to showcase security ties between the two countries in response to the ongoing conflict, the Associated Press reported. Box 61 Assosa, Ethiopia Telephone: +25125-7-754738 . Unfortunately, in the last two years, the people in Metekel are enduring terrible shortages, and famine looms ahead due to a manmade crisis. The Benishangul-Gumuz conflict was an armed conflict mostly in the Metekel Zone of the Benishangul-Gumuz Region in Ethiopia that started in 2019, until peace agreement signed between the rebel groups and the government of Ethiopia in October 2022. The area comprising Benishangul-Gumuz formally became part of Ethiopia under the terms of a Nile-focused 1902 treaty signed by Emperor Menelik II with Great Britain, which ruled Sudan. Survivors and refugees of the Benishangul-Gumuz massacre walk through the displaced persons camp in the city of Chagni, Ethiopia, Dec. 31, 2020. Those who supported the agreement argued that negotiation and compromise are positive by their nature and should be appreciated. Killings were committed by representatives of different ethnic groups, each seeking revenge for violence suffered. Villages have been razed to the ground. Metekel Zone, located in Benishangul Gumuz Region of Ethiopia, is home to many ethnic groups, such as the Gumuz, the Amharas and the Shinashas. UNHCR and partners have moved refugees from Sudan and South Sudan to safety in Ethiopia's Benishangul Gumuz region. As "Shanquella", they are already mentioned by Scottish explorer James Bruce in his Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile, published in 1790. Addis Ababa and Asmara both deny that Eritrean forces are involved in the conflict, contradicting witness reports from civilians, aid workers and some military and government officials in Tigray. "The sea is rising in the Mediterranean Sea, and the land is sinking in the Nile Delta. What are the historical and social contexts? and militarization in Ethiopia's Benishangul-Gumuz Region led to the closure of the . Ethiopia may not have control over the behavior of Egypt and Sudan. At the same time as Ashadli Hassan, the regional president, and the command post were signing agreements with unnamed leaders of the Gumuz militia in Gilgel Beles and the administrative center of Metekel Zone, militia members were attacking the Almahal town in Guba Wereda. The Abay River (Blue Nile) divides Benishangul-Gumuz, and there was no bridge crossing it until 2012. Analysts say the campaign in Tigray has hampered Mr. Abiys ability to stem clashes like the recent one in Benishangul-Gumuz, because it has forced him to divert soldiers from across Ethiopia to Tigray. Aside to inserting new jaw dropping territorial claims including Benishangul-Gumuz region, Sudan also announced that it possesses documents confirming Ethiopia's recognition of the disputed . In a statement on 1 May, the government of Sudan claimed Benishangul-Gumuz as potentially its territorya provocation which the Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign Affairs quickly condemned. But it also unleashed simmering ethnic tensions. The massacre in Benishangul-Gumuz region, along the border with Sudan, is the latest challenge to the regime of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, who came to power in 2018 promising to unite. Built on the Blue Nile in Ethiopia's Benishangul-Gumuz region, just 30 km from the border with Sudan, the GERD is nearing completion, with the Ethiopian government announcing in March 2023 that 90 per cent of the dam was finalized. Government safety-net programs were essentially unknown by the residents. UNHCR, the UN refugee agency, and the UN World Food Programme (WFP) said that spiralling costs of food and fuel were adding to the toxic mix. In the previous census, conducted in 1994, the region's population was reported to be 460,459 of which 233,013 were men and 227,446 were women. Intimate in-person access to policy and business VIPs. The Gumuz have traditionally been grouped with other Nilotic peoples living along the Sudanese-Ethiopian border under the collective name Shanqella (Pankhurst 1977). Ahmed said that these parties seek to plunge the country into chaos. Note Etnografiche. Food insecurity is likely to rise by seven per cent across South Sudan in the coming months, compared to last year, according to a new UN report on food security, issued on Wednesday, leading humanitarians to renew their call for more humanitarian and livelihoods assistance to stave off looming hunger and enhance resilience. It was previously known as Region 6. Benishangul-Gumuz Regional state, Western Ethiopia Research Article Volume 25 Issue 5 - September 2020 . The region has faced major challenges to economic development, due to lack of transportation and communications infrastructure. I have no confidence in the proposed solution. Since then, death from violence been rampant in the whole region. 1939-40. Some of the reasons for the attacks include neighbouring Amhara states claim to ownership of the Metekkel zone. In the absence of any official Egyptian comment on the developments in Benishangul-Gumuz and the Ethiopian accusations, Egyptian media outlets lashed out at Addis Ababa and backed the rebellion in the region. But if the ethnic federal framework is altered by the Prosperity Party, that would affect the interests of the majority Gumuz community profoundly. The situation [in Metekel] has rapidly escalated in the past three months, Babar Baloch, UNHCR spokesman, told reporters in Geneva. Ethiopia's new party is welcome news, but faces big hurdles. Text Alerts - Be the first to get breaking news, exclusives, and PRO content. Luxury goods such as textiles and glass beads were imported via Sudan. Relatively low-lying but with an annual rainfall in excess of 1,000mm, this remote and poorly developed area . [7] According to the 1994 census 44.1% of inhabitants were Muslim, 34.8% Orthodox Christians, 13.1% followers of traditional religions and 5.8% Protestants. What we need from the Ethiopian government is the green light to the humanitarian community to negotiate access to the Eritrean-controlled areas, to the opposition-controlled areas, he said. Disarming the armed group could have been a better solution than arming the unarmed group which will likely fuel further conflict, putting the area into a vicious cycle of conflict. The remaining four seats belong to the Mao Komo Special Wereda. Trading in slaves in Bela-Shangul and Gumuz, Ethiopia: border enclaves in history, 1897-1938. Aaron Maasho, a spokesman for the government-funded Ethiopian Human Rights Commission, which reported the killings on Wednesday, urged Mr. Abiy to deploy extra security forces to keep the peace in the troubled region. Terms of the agreement that seemingly aimed at appeasing the militias included, among others, sharing power with militia members at the wereda, zonal and regional levels, creating job opportunities, offering access to financial support services, and giving urban and rural land to the members of the militias. Try it for free and cancel anytime. More than 80 civilians were killed in an attack on Tuesday in the Benishangul-Gumuz region on Ethiopia's border with Sudan, the state-appointed Ethiopian Human Rights Commission said on Wednesday. It was fighting the government of Ethiopia for more than 17 years and committed hundreds of deaths and huge number of displacements in the region until peace deal . Various trade routes met in Benishangul, and local gold and Ethiopian amole (salt bars) were exchanged for slaves, cattle, horses, iron, civet, musk, coffee, ivory and honey (which also came from the Oromo areas of Sibu and Leeqaa). Read more: The Benshangul/Gumuz Region lies on Ethiopia's western border with Sudan, and shares internal borders with Amhara and Oromia Regions. Thisis the first time, however, that an armed group takes full control of several cities in the region, in light of the security forces failure to counter it. Out of this, the Assosa Zone has 42 seats while Metekel and Kamashi zones have 33 and 20 seats respectively. The region's capital is Assosa. Following the adoption of the 1995 constitution, the region was created from the westernmost portion of the Gojjam province (the part north of the Abay River), and the northwestern portion of the Welega Province (the part south of the Abay). Why Ethiopia's new leader could be a game changer. Bambasi (also known as Abba Moti) is a town in western Ethiopia. The country is facing an annual water deficit and is estimated to be categorized as water scarce by 2025, according to the United Nations. With widespread instability and difficulty reaching IDPs, victims of violence are out of arms reach from humanitarian assistancewhether from the regional government or from national and international non-governmental organizations. TV host Ahmed Moussa, who is close to security quarters in Egypt, broadcast on Sada el-Balad channel on April 25 video segments of Ethiopians chanting slogans against their prime minister and tearing up his photo. The Gumuz speak the Gumuz language, which belongs to the Nilo-Saharan family (Bender 1979). Most Gumuz members live in a bush-savanna lowland environment. From aboriginal to frontier society in western Ethiopia. Before picking a side, it is important to put the agreement between the militias and the regional government into perspective. Climate change, population growth and a regional fight for water resources are all contributing to the risk of water imbalance, experts say. Berta is spoken in the Sherkole woreda, Gumuz is spoken along the western boundary of Guba and Dangur woredas and in the Sirba Abbay woreda, and the Shinasha are a displaced people of Kaffa scattered across Welega and Gojjam. Unless the government and concerned parties give their attention to Benishangul-Gumuz, the country and the Horn of Africa as a whole is likely to soon feel the awful effects of an out-of-control conflict. He added, "Despite the plots and pressure, Ethiopia will fill the GERD reservoir on time. UNHCR is working to install basic. This is a good article. On Dec. 22, Mr. Abiy took time out from the campaign in Tigray to visit Benishangul-Gumuz and calm tensions in the area. But over the next two years, experts say Egyptians could approach a state of "absolute" water scarcity. Getting people out of harms way and shielding them from serious protection risks also requires that their food needs are adequately addressed.. Amnesty International reported in December that members of the ethnic Gumuz community the ethnic majority in the region attacked the homes of ethnic Amhara, Oromo and Shinasha. Besides the country is on the verge of being labeled as a pariah state, due to the conflict it has been ignited with western powers.It could be wise of the government, to step down from its rigid and jingoistic stance and try to accommodate to a certain degree, the interest of these three entities. There have been repeated episodes of intercommunal violence over the years. [16], The area lay as a "buffer zone" or "no man's land" between southern Sennar and Damot in the highlands. Opposition political parties, like the Boro Democratic Party (BDP), rejected the 18 May agreement between the regional government and the leaders of the militias, which included power-sharing elements, as illegitimaterecalling that the only way to assume power should be through an election. Unseth, Peter. To do so, its necessary to assess the success and failure of the previous strategies attempted by the command post in an effort to end fighting. The Region hosts Ethiopia's Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) and has been the site of intense ethnic killings throughout the past year. Haavisto repeated urgent calls from the international community for the Ethiopian government to grant full humanitarian access to Tigray, including areas beyond its control. [1] Around 67,000 Gumuz also lived in Sudan. In the chaos that followed, houses were torched and an old man was beheaded outside his house, Mr. Sebsibie said. The command post set a deadline for the militias to lay down their arms and surrender on 8 December 2020. 1986. James, Wendy. What are their hopes and their fears? By drawing a bad lesson, other groups may also end up emulating similar measures. [citation needed].