‘Lost generation’: millions of Ethiopian children deprived of school

‘Lost generation’: millions of Ethiopian children deprived of school
Children play inside the unfinished structure of a school ground used as shelter at the NSPS internally displaced persons (IDPs) camp in Adwa, Tigray region, on July 17, 2024. (File/AFP)
Short Url
Updated 11 December 2024
Follow

‘Lost generation’: millions of Ethiopian children deprived of school

‘Lost generation’: millions of Ethiopian children deprived of school
  • Amhara is Ethiopia’s second most populous region, home to some 23 million people, but has been roiled by conflict since April 2023

ADDIS ABABA: “I don’t know when I’ll be able to go back to school,” 14-year-old Desta said, one of millions of children in northern Ethiopia’s Amhara region deprived of school.
Desta has not been in a classroom for nearly four months and now divides his time between farming duties and household chores at home — yet another silent casualty of the armed clashes in the country’s restive north.
Until September, the teenager — whose name has been changed over security fears — walked the 10 kilometers or so to school from his village roughly 250 kilometers (155 miles) east of Bahir Dar, the regional capital.
But after fighting broke out in the area, Desta’s father Tesfaye refused to send him to class.
“I don’t want my son to risk his life by going to school,” he told AFP by phone from the village.

Amhara is Ethiopia’s second most populous region, home to some 23 million people, but has been roiled by conflict since April 2023.
The Fano “self-defense” militia took up arms against the state after authorities attempted to disarm them.
Although a state of emergency ended in June, Addis was forced to deploy troops in September, with the unrest continuing.
Federal authorities said last month that the humanitarian situation was “catastrophic.”
The UN Office for Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) estimated that more than 4,000 schools have closed in the region due to the clashes and 300 others have been damaged.
Some children have been without formal education for years, rights groups say, because of the double-punch of the war in Tigray and Covid shuttering schools.
“When war rages, women and children are the most vulnerable, and this war has really affected children who can no longer go to school,” said Yohannes Benti, head of the Ethiopian Teachers’ Association, which has some 700,000 members nationally.
Of the seven million children who should have enrolled for the last school year in Amhara, only three million were able to do so, he said.
The impact was felt not just in the restive north, he added.
Millions of other children were deprived of schooling in Tigray and in Oromia, Ethiopia’s most populous region.
“When you miss even one day of school, you already miss a lot, so imagine over several months, several years,” he said, adding that the impact falls hardest on the youngest.
“This is a lost generation.”

Desta hopes his classmates will soon be together and learning again.
“What I miss most is spending time with my friends and I hope to see them again soon,” he said.
“I don’t know when I’ll be able to go back to school, but if they tell me it’s possible tomorrow, I’ll go.”
But teachers like Dawit, who taught in the northern Amhara town of Dessie for 17 years, have lost the optimism of youth.
Over the decades, Dawit said he had seen his life’s work disappear.
“Last year we were only able to teach for a month” due to the fighting, he told AFP.
He described how the numerous government and Fano roadblocks deter parents from sending their children to school.
“There’s fighting every day, and we’re caught in a vice between the government, which wants us to continue teaching, and the Fano, who are trying to stop us,” he said.
“We’ve lost hope.”


Saudi ambassador to Kabul meets Afghan foreign minister, discusses bilateral ties

Saudi ambassador to Kabul meets Afghan foreign minister, discusses bilateral ties
Updated 34 min 4 sec ago
Follow

Saudi ambassador to Kabul meets Afghan foreign minister, discusses bilateral ties

Saudi ambassador to Kabul meets Afghan foreign minister, discusses bilateral ties
  • The development comes week after the Kingdom’s embassy in Kabul resumed its diplomatic activities in Afghanistan
  • Saudi Arabia has continued to provide consular services in Afghanistan since Nov. 2021 as well as humanitarian aid

ISLAMABAD: Saudi Arabia’s Ambassador to Afghanistan Faisal bin Talaq Al-Baqmi has met Afghan Foreign Minister Mawlawi Amir Khan Muttaqi and discussed with him bilateral relations between the two countries, the Saudi embassy said on Sunday.
The development comes week after the Kingdom’s embassy in the Afghan capital of Kabul resumed diplomatic activities to provide services to the Afghan people.
The Afghan foreign ministry had welcomed Saudi Arabia’s decision to resume diplomatic operations in Kabul, more than three years after Riyadh withdrew its staff during the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan.
The meeting between the Saudi ambassador and the Afghan foreign minister was held in Kabul, according to the Saudi embassy. It was also attended by Deputy Head of Mission Mishaal Mutlaq Al-Shammari.
“The meeting discussed bilateral relations, ways to enhance them, and topics of common interest,” the Saudi embassy said on X.


Ties between Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan date back to 1932, when the Kingdom became the first Islamic country to provide aid to the Afghan people during their ordeals.
In recent years, Saudi Arabia has launched numerous projects in Afghanistan through the King Salman Humanitarian Aid & Relief Center (KSrelief), focusing on health, education services, water and food security. Riyadh has also participated in all international donor conferences and called for establishing security and stability in Afghanistan following years of armed conflicts.
Saudi Arabia has continued to provide consular services in Afghanistan since November 2021 and provided humanitarian aid through KSrelief.


Sri Lankans rally to stop deportation of Rohingya refugees to Myanmar

Sri Lankan rights activists demonstrate in front of the president’s office in Colombo on Jan. 10, 2025. (AFP)
Sri Lankan rights activists demonstrate in front of the president’s office in Colombo on Jan. 10, 2025. (AFP)
Updated 12 January 2025
Follow

Sri Lankans rally to stop deportation of Rohingya refugees to Myanmar

Sri Lankan rights activists demonstrate in front of the president’s office in Colombo on Jan. 10, 2025. (AFP)
  • Activists stage protests in northeastern Mullaitivu district and capital Colombo
  • Rohingya risk deadly sea crossings as fighting intensifies in Myanmar

COLOMBO: Sri Lankan civil society groups and activists are mobilizing to save more than 100 Rohingya refugees rescued off the Indian Ocean island nation last month following a government announcement that they will be deported. 

A group of about 100 Rohingya refugees, which reportedly included over two dozen children, was rescued off the coast of the northeastern Mullaitivu district on Dec. 19. 

Several protests were recently organized in Mullaitivu and the capital Colombo after Sri Lanka’s Minister of Public Security and Parliamentary Affairs Ananda Wijepala announced on Jan. 3 that the government was in talks with Myanmar authorities over the deportation of the Rohingya refugees. 

“These are stateless people, they don’t have a home to go to,” social activist Thasneema Dahlan, who took part in a protest in Colombo on Friday, told Arab News.

“The Rohingya are massacred and chased and terrorized in their own home, and that is why they fled their own country looking for greener pastures elsewhere.”  

The mostly Muslim Rohingya — the “world’s most persecuted minority,” according to the UN — have faced decades of oppression in Myanmar. 

In 2017, more than 730,000 Rohingya from Rakhine State were forced to flee to neighboring Bangladesh to escape a brutal military crackdown that UN experts have referred to as a “genocidal campaign,” amid evidence of ethnic cleansing, mass rape, and killings. 

As Rakhine became a focal point in Myanmar’s intensifying nationwide civil war, hundreds of Rohingya have been fleeing the country in recent weeks through dangerous sea crossings, often on rickety boats. Last year, more than 7,800 people made such attempts, according to the UN refugee agency — an 80 percent increase compared with 2023. 

“Their objective wasn’t to get to Sri Lanka. Their objective was to get somewhere, anywhere where they could survive,” Dahlan said. “We are urging the government to … please not send them back, not repatriate them, not deport them, because that is just sending them back to death.”

Sri Lanka, which is not a signatory to the 1951 UN Refugee Convention and its 1967 protocol, is a transit point for refugees until the UNHCR helps them resettle in another country. 

In 2022, its navy also rescued about 100 Rohingya refugees, who have been under the care of local NGOs as they await resettlement. 

Sri Lankan activists have also filed petitions with the government, urging authorities to relocate the new group of refugees from the Keppapulavu Air Force base in Mullaitivu, where they have stayed since Dec. 23. According to protesters, aid agencies, including the UN, have been stopped from meeting the Rohingya. 

“Sheltering the refugees under a militarized environment is incompatible with international humanitarian norms and basic human values,” the North-East Coordinating Committee, which organized the Mullaitivu protest on Thursday, said in a letter. 

Ruki Fernando, a human rights activist based in Colombo, said the Rohingya refugees should be “kept in a place under civil administration,” not military. 

“Many Sri Lankans have been refugees. We need to help others. It’s our legal obligation … under customary international law, non-refoulement is prohibited. It means no one fleeing a well-founded fear of persecution should be sent back,” Fernando told Arab News, referring to the hundreds of thousands of Sri Lankan Tamils who fled the country’s civil war between 1983 and 2009. 

“We also have moral, ethical obligations to welcome, care and support those in distress. Our religious and spiritual values teach us this.”  


Islam ‘places no restrictions’ on girls’ education, forum told

Pakistan and the MWL co-hosted the two-day conference “Girls’ Education in Muslim Communities: Challenges and Opportunities.”
Pakistan and the MWL co-hosted the two-day conference “Girls’ Education in Muslim Communities: Challenges and Opportunities.”
Updated 12 January 2025
Follow

Islam ‘places no restrictions’ on girls’ education, forum told

Pakistan and the MWL co-hosted the two-day conference “Girls’ Education in Muslim Communities: Challenges and Opportunities.”
  • Muslim World League, global leaders focus on gender equality at Islamabad meeting

ISLAMABAD: Islam places no restrictions on girls’ education, Dr. Mohammed Al-Issa, secretary-general of the Muslim World League, told an international conference in Pakistan on Saturday focusing on the issue.

The MWL leader added that anyone opposing education for women deviates from the global Muslim community.

Pakistan and the MWL co-hosted the two-day conference, “Girls’ Education in Muslim Communities: Challenges and Opportunities,” under the patronage of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif in Islamabad.

Sharif commended the MWL for its dedication to education, saying that ensuring equal access to education for girls remains one of the most pressing challenges of the present time.

“Entrenched societal norms intensify the problem of a lack of education for girls, leading to a cycle of deprivation that affects more than one generation,” he said.

The initiative aims to raise awareness in Muslim communities about the importance of girls’ education through various themes, joint programs, and collaborative agreements.

“Our Islamic faith has always celebrated the education of every Muslim, both male and female, because the message of Islam was to enlighten all, regardless of gender,” Al-Issa told participants.

“Therefore, Muslim women in Islam have had a significant and active presence in all spheres of life — in religious matters, the sciences, politics, economics, and societal affairs throughout history.”

The MWL chief said any reservations about girls’ education must be understood as stemming from non-Islamic customs that have no basis in the Muslim faith.

He lauded the initiative as a transformative step for advancing girls’ education, emphasizing its practical and results-oriented approach.

The forum addressed the issue by signing a consensus document, “the Islamabad Declaration for Girls’ Education,” reaffirming that Islam does not prohibit women’s education in any way.

It will be presented to international governmental and nongovernment organizations. The declaration calls for the establishment of an international day dedicated to advancing its primary goal.

Al-Issa said that the declaration will serve to solidify and strengthen the initiative.

The initiative also includes the launch of a platform for international partnerships, along with the signing of several agreements with regional and international organizations focused on women’s empowerment and girls’ education.

The summit brought together over 150 dignitaries from 44 Muslim and other friendly states, according to Pakistan’s Foreign Office. It was also attended by Hissein Brahim Taha, secretary-general of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation.

Taha affirmed the organization’s readiness to support the initiative and contribute to its success for the benefit of girls across the Islamic world.

“Education forms the cornerstone of a strong society and represents a shared responsibility that facilitates progress and prosperity. At the OIC, we categorically oppose any policies or practices that violate Islam’s respectful and honorable teachings regarding women,” he said.


Trump calls California leaders ‘incompetent’ over fire response

Trump calls California leaders ‘incompetent’ over fire response
Updated 12 January 2025
Follow

Trump calls California leaders ‘incompetent’ over fire response

Trump calls California leaders ‘incompetent’ over fire response
  • ‘The fires are still raging in L.A. The incompetent pols (politicians) have no idea how to put them out’
  • The fires have so far killed at least 16 people, displaced 150,000 more, and destroyed more than 12,000 structures

LOS ANGELES, United States: US President-elect Donald Trump accused California officials on Sunday of incompetence over their handling of deadly wildfires raging around Los Angeles.
“The fires are still raging in L.A. The incompetent pols (politicians) have no idea how to put them out,” Trump said on his Truth Social platform.
“This is one of the worst catastrophes in the history of our Country. They just can’t put out the fires. What’s wrong with them?” he wrote.
The speed and intensity of the blazes ravaging Los Angeles have tested its firefighting infrastructure and given rise to questions and criticism about the state’s preparedness.
Hydrants ran dry in the Pacific Palisades neighborhood as it was ravaged by one of the region’s five separate fires, while water shortages additionally hampered efforts elsewhere.
With just over a week before he returns to the White House, Trump has launched a series of evidence-free broadsides accusing California’s Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom of failings in response to the blazes.
Newsom has meanwhile invited Trump to visit Los Angeles and survey the devastation with him.
The fires have so far killed at least 16 people, displaced 150,000 more, and destroyed more than 12,000 structures according to state officials.
“Thousands of magnificent houses are gone, and many more will soon be lost. There is death all over the place,” Trump said in his post.
Despite firefighters’ heroic efforts, including precision sorties from aerial crews, the Palisades Fire has continued to push east toward the priceless collections of the Getty Center art museum and north to the densely populated San Fernando Valley.


Manila deploys coast guard ship to counter China patrols

Manila deploys coast guard ship to counter China patrols
Updated 12 January 2025
Follow

Manila deploys coast guard ship to counter China patrols

Manila deploys coast guard ship to counter China patrols
  • Beijing claims most of the strategic waterway despite a 2016 international tribunal ruling that went against it
  • There have been frequent clashes or tense standoffs between Philippine and Chinese vessels

MANILA: The Philippines said Sunday it had deployed a coast guard ship to challenge Chinese patrol boats attempting to “alter the existing status quo” of the disputed South China Sea.
Beijing claims most of the strategic waterway despite a 2016 international tribunal ruling that went against it, and there have been frequent clashes or tense standoffs between Philippine and Chinese vessels.
Brunei, Malaysia, Taiwan and Vietnam also have claims to the waters.
Commodore Jay Tarriela, a Philippine Coast Guard spokesman, said Chinese patrol ships had this year come as close as 60 nautical miles (111 kilometers) west of the main Philippine island of Luzon.
“Their goal is to normalize such deployments, and if these actions go unnoticed and unchallenged, it will enable them to alter the existing status quo,” he said in a statement.
He later told reporters Manila had deployed a coast guard ship to the area to challenge the “unlawful” Chinese patrols.
He said the deployment aimed to ensure Chinese patrols “are not normalized, and that this bullying behavior does not succeed.”
Tarriela said the Chinese coast guard deployed three vessels from its Guangdong and Hainan bases to Philippine waters between December 30 and January 11.
The South China Sea confrontations have sparked concern they could draw the United States, Manila’s long-time security ally, into armed conflict with China.