From: Berhane Habtemariam (Berhane.Habtemariam@gmx.de)
Date: Tue Jul 21 2009 - 14:16:54 EDT
Ethiopia suspends 42 NGOs as hunger worsens
By ARGAW ASHINE, NATION CorrespondentPosted Tuesday, July 21 2009 at 15:38
ADDIS ABABA, Tuesday
Ethiopian authorities have suspended the operations of 42 non-governmental
organisations allegedly involved in activities that are "out of their
mandate" in the Southern region of the country.
Ethiopia's Southern regional state justice office chief Mr Yilma Meresa told
this writer that those NGOs were out to interrupt the peace and development
of the region.
Mr Yilma refused to disclose the name of the suspended organisations.
However, he hinted that most of them were local NGOs.
The Nation has learnt that international humanitarian organisation Medecins
Sans Frontieres (MSF) and two local gender rights organisations are among
the suspended NGOs.
The Ethiopian government moved to revoke the licence of the NGOs following
accusation of their alleged involvement in reporting human right abuses in
the rural areas.
Ethiopian government publicly accused some NGOs of supplying "inaccurate"
information to the United States' State Department, which was published in
March 2009.
Food aid
Meanwhile, United Nations humanitarian office in Ethiopia has warned that
the number of people who need food aid in Ethiopia will increase to 6.2
million unless more food aid can be secured.
The recent number of people requiring food aid has been 4.9 million and now
the country needs additional 390,000 metric tonnes of emergency food aid for
the coming three months.
Ethiopia leads the region by registering an average 10 per cent annual
economic growth, has been avowed to end hunger but has achieved less
success.
Landlocked Ethiopia is also facing port congestion at port Djibouti which
delays the flow of food aid to the country.
Recently, World Food Program (WFP) urged Ethiopian authorities to prioritise
the transport of food aid rather than agricultural fertilizer, which is
equally important for the second most populous African nation at 85.2
million (UN, 2008).
According to WFP, Ethiopia government agreed to prioritise transporting food
aid and allocate more berths for ships to offload available food aid at port
Djibouti.
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