The first overland relief supplies for tens of thousands of victims of fatal flash floods reached devastated southern Ethiopia on Tuesday, amid fears of a sharp rise in the death toll. In addition to the 626 people known so far to have been killed across the country, thousands of heads of valuable livestock have drowned.
Emergency workers in south-west Ethiopia scrambled on Thursday to rescue thousands marooned by the latest in a series of deadly flash floods across the nation feared to have killed nearly 900 people. With 876 people in southern, eastern and northern Ethiopia already reported dead or missing, officials warned that the toll was likely to climb higher.
The death toll from weekend Ethiopia floods that devastated an eastern town rose to 250 on Thursday as rescue efforts entered a fourth day, making it the worst flooding disaster to date in the impoverished Horn of Africa nation, the government and police said. About 10 000 people are still displaced.
Hopes faded on Tuesday for finding survivors from hundreds of people missing after murderous weekend flash floods devastated a town in eastern Ethiopia, officials and residents said. With the death toll from flooding in and around Dire Dawa hovering at 206, they said frantic rescue efforts were continuing but conceded chances were slim.
Rescuers clawed through mud and debris with their hands, garden tools and heavy equipment in eastern Ethiopia on Monday, searching for hundreds of people missing after lethal flash floods. Officials said 206 bodies had been recovered but the toll was expected to climb as 300 people were still unaccounted for.
At least 72 people were killed early on Sunday in flash floods after an intense, sudden downpour pounded eastern Ethiopia, many of the victims swept away while asleep, medical officials and rescue workers said. Doctors said they had received bodies from villages that were inundated in the country’s Dire Dawa region.
An Ethiopian court on Tuesday postponed its verdict in the marathon genocide trial of former dictator Mengistu Haile Miriam until next year, saying it had to consider new defence evidence. After 12 years of hearing testimony and evidence, the court heard that the long-awaited ruling would be delayed until January 23 2007.
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/ 19 January 2006
Halima Abdullah Aden was just a teenager when she watched her father and two brothers die during the last famine that hit Ethiopia’s remote south-east Somali state six years ago. Now in her 20s, she is haunted by memories of the gnawing hunger that engulfed the region in 1999-2000 claiming tens of thousands of lives, and fears for the health of her own children as famine looms once more.
An Ethiopian court on Wednesday denied bail to a group of 131 detained Ethiopian opposition figures and journalists who face treason and other charges relating to an alleged plot to overthrow the government after disputed elections. Judge Adil Ahmed said the counts were too serious to allow their release and adjourned the case until next month to give the defendants time to consult with lawyers.
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/ 25 December 2005
The African Union said on Saturday it had sent a delegation to Chad and Sudan in a bid to defuse rapidly escalating tensions between the neighbours marked by Ndjamena’s accusation that Khartoum was trying to destabilise its government. The team travelled to Ndjamena on Friday.