Ethiopia

Though many political detainees were freed Friday evening, some decided to wait until Saturday out of safety fears surrounding being out later in the day.

The Ethiopian Human Rights Commission said the new team's creation is "repetitive" and "further delays redress for victims and survivors."

The Ethiopian government has deemed the Tigray region's attempt to gain greater regional independence from the larger state illegal.

Ethiopian authorities have detained Amir Aman Kiyaro under the country's newly enacted state of emergency that includes powers of detention.

OCHA officials believe there will be a 17 percent increase of people in 2022 who need immediate humanitarian aid.

"If (Abiy) gets hurt or killed, it's not just the federal government that will collapse, the army will as well," said an International IDEA researcher.

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed is preparing for rival Tigray forces as they move closer to Addis Ababa.

The United States warned pilots they could be directly or indirectly exposed to ground weapons fire at the busiest airport in Africa from the Ethiopian war.

The detainment comes after conflict heightened in recent weeks in the yearlong war between the Ethiopian government and Tigray forces.

Joe Biden wrote a letter to Congress saying Ethiopia was in "gross violations of internationally recognized human rights" as scores of people starve to death.

The world cannot turn away from Africa's new nightmare of famine and war.

The presidents seek to find a solution for the starvation crisis without military force.

U.N. deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said the U.N. policy on "persona non grata" only applies to states, and therefore does not apply to U.N. personnel.

Martin Griffiths of the U.N. said the crisis in Ethiopia is a "stain on our conscience" as the Tigray blockade continues to cause starvation and death.

"The attack on Sept. 4 was the most severe one, especially in Chenna Teklehaymanot village," Sewunet Wubalem, administrator for the Dabat woreda, said.

Estimates suggest that 100,000 to 300,000 Afghan nationals need to be evacuated due to their work with the U.S. and its allies.

"Instead of coordinating aid, (they) are widely engaged in coordinating, from a distance, campaigns of propaganda to harass and defame the Ethiopian government," said an Ethiopian spokesman.

Bridges were destroyed in Ethiopia, preventing aid from the embattled region. United Nations and other aid have not been able to fly in since June 22.

The loss of the Tekeze River bridge eliminates a route to deliver food and relief to an area contending with the world's worst hunger crisis in a decade.

"There is no access to clean water; electricity, phone communication, banking, health care, and access to humanitarian aid are blocked," the Tigray leader wrote in a letter.

Tigray fighters called Ethiopia's cease-fire a "sick joke," vowing to continue fighting and remove Ethiopian and Eritrean forces from the area.

The swift turn in the nearly eight-month war in Ethiopia has left people scrambling to understand the implications for the region of 6 million people.

As hundreds of thousands face the world's worst famine crisis in a decade, Ethiopia issued the cease-fire through the end of the planting season in September.

Medical workers say they were repeatedly denied access to the Tigray region, where Ethiopia's military confirmed it was responsible for the deadly airstrike on a marketplace.

A health official said ambulances and medical workers were blocked from reaching Togoga by soldiers. "We have been asking, but until now we didn't get permission to go, so we don't know how many people are dead," one of the doctors in the capital, Mekele, said.

For the good of Tigray, Ethiopia, the East Africa region and the world, we ask Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed to work toward a political solution as fast as possible.

"You cannot destroy all the people, you cannot destroy all the population in Tigray," the European Union's special envoy to Ethiopia said.

Addis Ababa says Secretary of State Antony Blinken's description of the unrest in the north of Ethiopia was "unfounded."

Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has accused fighters from the Tigray People's Liberation Front of the mass killing.

A Kenyan plane carrying humanitarian medical supplies to help aid the COVID-19 pandemic in Somalia was reportedly been shot down earlier this week by the Ethiopian army.