Queen honours Philip’s closest aides in rare set of awards to mark day he would have turned 100

 Her Majesty also recognised others who played key roles in the Duke of Edinburgh's funeral including the Land Rover crew.

The Queen has honoured the Duke of Edinburgh’s most loyal and trusted aides, some of whom had key roles in his funeral, in a rare set of awards to mark what would have been her late husband’s 100th birthday.

The rare Demise awards have been issued in the wake of the duke’s death to recognise the service of those closest to Prince Philip.

The duke’s long-serving private secretary Brigadier Archie Miller-Bakewell was made a Commander of the Royal Victorian Order (CVO).

Brig Miller-Bakewell, who was also Philip’s treasurer, was the duke’s right hand man for 11 years, taking on the role in 2010.

William Henderson, who was the duke’s page, has become a Lieutenant of the Royal Victorian Order (LVO).

Philip’s valet David Berwick, who worked for the Queen‘s consort for 46 years, joining his staff in 1975, has been made a Member of the Royal Victorian Order (MVO).

All three devoted years of service to the duke and Royal Family, and were invited to process behind his coffin as it was transported through the grounds of Windsor Castle on a Land Rover hearse.

The Queen last awarded Demise honours 19 years ago in 2002, in a combined list following the deaths of her mother Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother and sister Princess Margaret, honouring those such as private secretaries, ladies in waiting and the bearer party.

She has recognised others who played key roles at Philip’s funeral including the Land Rover crew.

The duke designed a custom-built Land Rover Defender TD5 130 as his own hearse and the vehicle was used to transport his coffin from the castle to the chapel.

Meanwhile, almost 100 honours recipients have backed a campaign calling for the government to replace “Empire” with “Excellence” to sever the system’s link to Britain’s colonial past.

Public figures from charities and civil society who have previously been recognised are calling for part of the system to be renamed so that it becomes an “inclusive source of recognition, celebration and patriotism”.

They would like to see the wording changed for the Order of the British Empire, which covers the ranks of DBE, KBE, CBE, OBE, and MBE.

The #ExcellenceNotEmpire campaign has written to the government asking that its request be considered for future recipients.

The Cabinet Office said there are no plans to change the wording.

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G-7 nations expected to pledge 1B vaccine doses for world

 ST. IVES, England (AP) — The Group of Seven nations are set to commit to sharing at least 1 billion coronavirus shots with the world, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced Thursday, with half coming from the U.S. and 100 million from the U.K. as President Joe Biden urged allies to join in speeding the pandemic’s end and bolstering the strategic position of the world’s wealthiest democracies.

Johnson’s announcement on the eve of the G-7 leaders’ summit in England came hours after Biden committed to donating 500 million COVID-19 vaccine doses and previewed a coordinated effort by the advanced economies to make vaccination widely and speedily available everywhere.

“We’re going to help lead the world out of this pandemic working alongside our global partners,” Biden said, adding that on Friday the G-7 nations would join the U.S. in outlining their vaccine donation commitments. The G-7 also includes Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan.

The prime minister’s office said the first 5 million U.K. doses would be shared in the coming weeks, with the remainder coming over the next year. Biden’s own commitment was on top of the 80 million doses he has already pledged to donate by the end of June.

“At the G7 Summit I hope my fellow leaders will make similar pledges so that, together, we can vaccinate the world by the end of next year and build back better from coronavirus,” Johnson said in a statement referencing the U.S. president’s campaign slogan.

Earlier Thursday, French President Emmanuel Macron welcomed the U.S. commitment and said Europe should do the same. He said France would share at least 30 million doses globally by year’s end.

“I think the European Union needs to have at least the same level of ambition as the United States,” he said at a news conference. He added that time was of the essence, saying, “It’s almost more important to say how many (doses) we deliver the next month than making promises to be fulfilled in 18 months from now.”

The G-7 leaders have faced mounting pressure to outline their global vaccine sharing plans, especially as inequities in supply around the world have become more pronounced. In the U.S., there is a large vaccine stockpile and the demand for shots has dropped precipitously in recent weeks.

Biden predicted the U.S. doses and the overall G-7 commitment would “supercharge” the global vaccination campaign, adding that the U.S. doses come with no strings attached.

“Our vaccine donations don’t include pressure for favors or potential concessions,” Biden said. “We’re doing this to save lives, to end this pandemic, that’s it.”

He added: “Our values call on us to do everything that we can to vaccinate the world against COVID-19.″

The U.S. commitment is to buy and donate 500 million Pfizer doses for distribution through the global COVAX alliance to 92 lower-income countries and the African Union, bringing the first steady supply of mRNA vaccine to the countries that need it most.

The Pfizer agreement came together with some urgency in the last four weeks at Biden’s direction, said a senior White House official, both to meet critical needs overseas and to be ready for announcement at the G-7. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal plans, added that the Biden administration was to apply the same wartime posture applied to the vaccine rollout in the U.S. to its effort to share vaccines globally.

Biden said the 500 million U.S.-manufactured vaccines will be shipped starting in August, with the goal of distributing 200 million by the end of the year. The remaining 300 million doses would be shipped in the first half of 2022. A price tag for the doses was not released, but the U.S. is now set to be COVAX’s largest vaccine donor in addition to its single largest funder with a $4 billion commitment.

The well-funded global alliance has faced a slow start to its vaccination campaign, as richer nations have locked up billions of doses through contracts directly with drug manufacturers. Biden’s move, officials said, was meant to ensure a substantial amount of manufacturing capacity remains open to the wealthy nations. Just last month, the European Commission signed an agreement to purchase as many as 1.8 billion Pfizer doses in the next two years, a significant share of the company’s upcoming production — though the bloc reserved the right to donate some of its doses to COVAX.

COVAX has distributed just 81 million doses globally and parts of the world, particularly in Africa, remain vaccine deserts.

White House officials said the ramped-up distribution program fits a theme Biden plans to hit frequently during his week in Europe: that Western democracies, and not authoritarian states, can deliver the most good for the world.

U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters Wednesday that G-7 leaders are “converging” around the idea that vaccine supply can be increased in several ways, including by countries sharing more of their own doses, helping to increase global manufacturing capacity and doing more across the “chain of custody” from when the vaccine is produced to when it is injected into someone in the developing world.

Biden, in his remarks, harked back to the Detroit-area workers who 80 years ago built tanks and planes “that helped defeat the threat of global fascism in World War II.”

“They built what became known as the arsenal of democracy,” Biden said. “Now a new generation of American men and women, working with today’s latest technology, is going to build a new arsenal to defeat the current enemy of world peace, health and stability: COVID-19.”

He noted that Pfizer’s main COVID-19 vaccine plant in Kalamazoo, Michigan, is not far from Detroit.

Last week, the White House unveiled plans to donate an initial allotment of 25 million doses of surplus vaccine overseas, mostly through the World Health Organization-backed COVAX program, promising infusions for South and Central America, Asia, Africa and others.

Officials say a quarter of that excess will be kept in reserve for emergencies and for the U.S. to share directly with allies and partners, including South Korea, Taiwan and Ukraine. Johnson said the U.K. would follow a similar model with its doses, holding 20% in reserve for bilateral agreements but sending the vast majority to COVAX.

China and Russia have shared their domestically produced vaccines with some needy countries, often with hidden strings attached. Sullivan said Biden “does want to show — rallying the rest of the world’s democracies — that democracies are the countries that can best deliver solutions for people everywhere.”

The U.S.-produced mRNA vaccines have also proven to be more effective against both the original strain and more dangerous variants of COVID-19 than the more conventional vaccines produced by China and Russia. Some countries that have had success in deploying those conventional vaccines have nonetheless seen cases spike.

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Nigeria: Police fire tear gas in ‘Democracy Day’ protests

 Nationwide protests were called over bad governance, insecurity and recent Twitter ban, among other issues.

Nigerian police have fired tear gas to disperse anti-government protesters in Lagos and the capital, Abuja, with reports of arrests and injuries.

Activists had called for nationwide protests on Saturday on Democracy Day, which marks Nigeria’s move to civilian rule more than 20 years ago, over what they criticise as bad governance and insecurity, as well as the recent Twitter ban by the government of President Muhammadu Buhari.

There were also pockets of protests in Ibadan, Osogbo, Abeokuta and Akure, all in southwestern Nigeria.

The protests were the first to take place simultaneously in several cities since the #EndSARS movement against police brutality in October grew into the largest anti-government rallies in Nigeria’s modern history.

Hundreds of protesters gatheredin Lagos, a sprawling megalopolis of more than 20 million people, and police fired tear gas to disperse the crowd. The protesters carried banners and placards saying “Buhari Must Go”, calling for reforms.

Al Jazeera’s Ahmed Idris, reporting from Lagos, said the protest march in Lagos “started peacefully and in an organised fashion, with demonstrators chanting pro-democracy songs”.

“The police were deployed in large numbers here in Lagos and in other parts of Nigeria in anticipation of trouble on this day,” he added. “When the demonstrators breached the first line of defence of the police, the second and the third, the police started firing tear gas at them and journalists at the scene. Later, there were live rounds fired in the air.”

Anti-riot policemen detain a protester during a demonstration at Ojota in Lagos [Pius Utomi Ekpei/AFP]

In Abuja, a similar scenario played out as the protesters gathered as early as 7am (06:00 GMT).A detachment of police and army broke up the crowd using tear gas, AFP news agency reporters at the scene said, adding that some journalists were harassed by the security forces.

Police had said the protests were unauthorised and AFP reporters said they saw several people being detained.

“We cannot continue like this … all the bad governance must stop,” said protester Samson Okafor in Lagos, where tear gas canisters smouldered in the street as police shouted at demonstrators to leave the scene.

Officers were also seen smashing mobile phones confiscated from protesters, some of whom criticised the government’s decision to suspend access to Twitter after the social media platform removed a post by Buhari.

Protesters carry placards and banners during a June 12 Democracy Day rally in Abuja [Afolabi Sotunde/Reuters]

Buhari, a former general first elected as president in 2015, has been under pressure over growing insecurity in Africa’s most populous nation, home to more than 200 million people.Security forces are battling an armed uprising in the northeast, a surge in mass kidnappings and attacks by criminal gangs in the northwest, and a rise in separatist tensions in the southeast.

The government also triggered an outcry a week ago when it indefinitely suspended Twitter in the country, saying the platform was used for activities aiming to destabilise Nigeria.

Saturday’s demonstrations were called to coincide with “Democracy Day”, marking the anniversary of Moshood Kashimawo Abiola’s election as Nigerian president in 1993.

Abiola’s victory was annulled by the then military government, plunging Nigeria into months of civil unrest.

Nigeria returned to civilian rule in May 1999, but Buhari chose June 12 as Democracy Day after becoming president to honour Abiola and other heroes of the struggle.

SOURCE: AL JAZEER AND NEWS AGENCIES

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Hong Kong activist Agnes Chow released on protest anniversary

 The 24-year-old activist served nearly seven months for her role in an unauthorised assembly during anti-government protests in the city in 2019.

Hong Kong democracy activist Agnes Chow was released Saturday from prison on the second anniversary of the city’s huge democracy rallies, with police out in force and protests now all but banned.

Two thousand officers have been placed on standby after social media calls for residents to commemorate the failed democracy demonstrations.

Authorities have maintained a coronavirus prohibition on public gatherings despite the city recording just three local infections in the last month.

A Beijing-imposed national security law has also criminalised much dissent and most of the city’s democracy leaders have been arrested, jailed or fled overseas.

On Saturday morning, one of those figures walked free from prison.

Chow, 24, was mobbed by waiting media but made no comment as she was driven away.

Supporters shouted “Agnes Chow add oil”, a Cantonese-language expression of encouragement that was widely used at the protests that roiled the city.

Some supporters wore black T-shirts and yellow masks and one held a yellow umbrella, a symbol of protests in the former British colony dating back to 2014.

Sweeping crackdown

Chow hails from a generation of activists who cut their teeth in politics as teenagers and became an inspiration for those who chafe under Beijing’s increasingly authoritarian rule.

She spent some seven months behind bars for her role in a 2019 protest outside the city’s police headquarters. Fellow youth activists Joshua Wong and Ivan Lam were sentenced in the same case.

Chow’s release comes at a sensitive time.

Two years ago on June 12, thousands of protesters surrounded the city’s legislature in an attempt to stop the passage of a bill that could have allowed extraditions to mainland China’s judicial system.

Riot police used tear gas and rubber-coated bullets to disperse the huge crowds.Footage of the clashes deepened public anger, and fuelled what became an increasingly violent movement calling for full democracy that raged for seven straight months.

Huge crowds rallied week after week in the most serious challenge to China’s rule since Hong Kong’s 1997 handover.

Beijing’s leaders have dismissed the call for democracy, portraying those who protested as stooges of “foreign forces” trying to undermine China.

They have since overseen a sweeping crackdown that has successfully curbed dissent and radically transformed the once outspoken semi-autonomous city.

The spear tip of that crackdown has been the national security law.

More than 100 people have been arrested under the new law, including Chow, although she has not yet been charged.

Dozens more have been charged, including jailed pro-democracy media tycoon Jimmy Lai.

Most have been denied bail and they face up to life in jail if convicted.

Protests have been extremely restricted for the last year in Hong Kong, but anniversary events have tended to focus attention.

On Friday, two activists from Student Politicism, a pro-democracy group, were arrested on suspicion of advertising an unauthorised assembly.

Last week, authorities banned an annual candlelight vigil to commemorate victims of Beijing’s deadly 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown.

However, many in Hong Kong still quietly signalled defiance by turning on mobile phone lights and lighting candles that evening.

SOURCE: AFP, REUTERS

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Saudi Arabia bars foreign pilgrims from Hajj due to COVID

 Saudi Arabia says this year’s pilgrimage will be limited to 60,000 citizens and residents.

No foreign pilgrims will be allowed to perform the Hajj once again this year after Saudi Arabia restricted the annual pilgrimage to citizens and residents, and set a maximum of 60,000 pilgrims in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

“Those wishing to perform the hajj must be free of chronic diseases and be vaccinated” and between the ages of 18 and 65, the ministry said in a statement on Saturday.

“In light of what the whole world is witnessing with the coronavirus pandemic … and the emergence of new variants, the relevant authorities have continued to monitor the global health situation,” the statement added.

Last year, the kingdom reduced the number of pilgrims to about 1,000 Saudi citizens and residents to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus, after barring Muslims abroad from the rite for the first time in modern times.

Two-thirds were residents from among the 160 different nationalities that would have normally been represented at the Hajj. One-third were Saudi security personnel and medical staff. This year the pilgrimage is expected to start in mid-July.

Hajj, a once-in-a-lifetime duty for every able-bodied Muslim who can afford it, is a major source of income for the Saudi government.

Before the pandemic enforced social distancing globally, some 2.5 million pilgrims used to visit the holiest sites of Islam in Mecca and Medina for the week-long Hajj, and the lesser, year-round Umrah pilgrimage, which altogether earned the kingdom about $12bn a year, according to official data.

The congregation of millions of pilgrims from around the world could be a major cause of coronavirus transmission.

Saudi Arabia has so far recorded more than 463,000 coronavirus infections, including 7,536 deaths.

The health ministry says it has administered more than 15 million coronavirus vaccine doses, in a country with a population of about 34 million.

In a relaxation of coronavirus curbs last October, Saudi Arabia opened the Grand Mosque for prayers for the first time in seven months and partially resumed the Umrah pilgrimage.

The limit on Umrah pilgrims is 20,000 a day, with a total of 60,000 worshippers allowed to perform daily prayers at the mosque.

The Umrah usually attracts millions of Muslims from across the globe each year. Authorities said the Umrah would be allowed to return to full capacity once the threat of the pandemic has abated.

General view of the Kaaba at the Grand Mosque, which is almost empty of worshippers, after Saudi authorities suspended Umrah in 2020 amid fears of a coronavirus outbreak [File:Reuters]

SOURCE: NEWS AGENCIES

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‘Torture’ complaint filed in France against UAE official

 Complaint by Lebanon-based NGO accuses Ahmed al-Raisi, a candidate for president of Interpol, of playing role in torture of jailed activist Ahmed Mansoor.

An NGO campaigning for human rights in the Gulf has filed a complaint in France against a top UAE official running to be president of Interpol, accusing him of being responsible for the torture of a prominent dissident, its lawyer said on Friday.

The Lebanon-based Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR) filed its complaint against Major General Ahmed al-Raisi, inspector general at the UAE interior ministry, at a Paris court on Monday.

The complaint accuses al-Raisi, who is a member of Interpol’s executive committee, of being responsible for “torture and barbaric acts” against the prominent UAE dissident Ahmed Mansoor who it says is being held in an Abu Dhabi jail in “mediaeval conditions”.

Mansoor was arrested in 2017 and sentenced to 10 years in prison the following year on charges of criticising the UAE authorities and tarnishing the image of the country on social media.

Amnesty International describes Mansoor as a prisoner of conscience [File: Nikhil Monteiro/Reuters]

Amnesty International describes Mansoor as a prisoner of conscience.

According to the complaint, he has since March 2017 been held in solitary confinement in Al-Sadr prison in a tiny cell “without access to a doctor, hygiene, water and sanitary facilities”.

Al-Raisi was accused last year of being responsible for the torture of a British academic and a football fan.

He is regarded as a possible figure to become president of the France-based global police body, Interpol, when candidacies are presented at its general meeting in November, a prospect that has horrified activists.

In a joint statement last month, Human Rights Watch and the GCHR warned that his candidacy “may jeopardise the global police organisation’s commitment to its human rights obligations”.

Mansoor “has been detained in inhumane conditions since 2017, more than four years,” William Bourdon, lawyer for GCHR, told AFP.

“What can only be qualified as acts of torture must today be firmly denounced and condemned by the courts.”

He said an “imminent visit” of al-Raisi to France as “part of his (Interpol) campaign” could make prosecution in France possible on the basis of universal jurisdiction.

French judicial authorities can in theory judge crimes against humanity, war crimes and torture under universal jurisdiction if suspects are on French territory, regardless of where the crimes took place.

According to the complaint, al-Raisi’s role in the alleged torture of Mansoor is “established” due to his position which puts him in control of the UAE security forces.

An Interpol spokesman told AFP that candidacies for president would only be presented when the general assembly takes place but there was no obligation for hopefuls to come to France to make their case.

Contacted by AFP, the UAE embassy in Paris said its staff were not authorised to speak to the press.

SOURCE: AFP

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In Tigray, food is often a wapon of war as famine looms

 ABI ADI, Ethiopia (AP) — First the Eritrean soldiers stole the pregnant woman’s food as she hid in the bush. Then they turned her away from a checkpoint when she was on the verge of labor.

So she had the baby at home and walked 12 days to get the famished child to a clinic in the northern Ethiopian region of Tigray. At 20 days old, baby Tigsti still had shriveled legs and a lifeless gaze — signs of what the United Nations’ top humanitarian official calls the world’s worst famine conditions in a decade.

“She survived because I held her close to my womb and kept hiding during the exhausting journey,” said Abeba Gebru, 37, a quiet woman from Getskimilesley with an amulet usually worn for luck around her left wrist.

Here, in war-torn Tigray, more than 350,000 people already face famine, according to the U.N. and other humanitarian groups. It is not just that people are starving; it is that many are being starved, The Associated Press found. In farming areas in Tigray to which the AP got rare access, farmers, aid workers and local officials confirmed that food had been turned into a weapon of war.

Abeba Gebru, 37, from the village of Getskimilesley, holds the hands of her malnourished daughter, Tigsti Mahderekal, 20 days old, in the treatment tent of a medical clinic in the town of Abi Adi, in the Tigray region of northern Ethiopia, on Tuesday, May 11, 2021. She had the baby at home and walked 12 days to get the famished child to a clinic in the northern Ethiopian region of Tigray. “She survived because I held her close to my womb and kept hiding during the exhausting journey.” (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)

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This story was funded by a grant from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.

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Ethiopian and Eritrean soldiers are blocking food aid and even stealing it, they said, and an AP team saw convoys with food and medical aid turned back by Ethiopian military officials as fighting resumed in the town of Hawzen. The soldiers also are accused of stopping farmers from harvesting or plowing, stealing the seeds for planting, killing livestock and looting farm equipment.

More than 2 million of Tigray’s 6 million people have already fled, unable to harvest their crops. And those who stayed often cannot plant new crops or till the land because they fear for their lives.

“If things don’t change soon, mass starvation is inevitable,” said a humanitarian worker in the region, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to escape retaliation from armed groups. “This is a man-made disaster.”

A farmer uses oxen to plough terraced land by the side of a road leading to the town of Abi Adi, in the Tigray region of northern Ethiopia, on Tuesday, May 11, 2021. The war in Tigray started in early November, shortly before the harvest season, as an attempt by Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed to disarm the region’s rebellious leaders. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)

Tigrayans stand in line to receive food donated by local residents at a reception center for the internally displaced in Mekele, in the Tigray region of northern Ethiopia, on Sunday, May 9, 2021. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)

Ethiopian women work to turn over the soil and remove weeds from a field of onions near the village of Merebmieti, an area relatively unaffected by the current conflict, south of Mekele, in the Tigray region of northern Ethiopia, on Wednesday, May 12, 2021. The war in Tigray started in early November, shortly before the harvest season, as an attempt by Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed to disarm the region’s rebellious leaders. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)

The full extent of the hunger is hard to pin down because officials — and food aid — still cannot get into the remotest parts of a region known for its rugged inaccessibility even in the best of times. The U.N. World Food Program on Thursday said it had gotten aid to 1.4 million people in Tigray, “barely half of the number we should be reaching,” in part because armed groups were blocking the way.

For every mother like Abeba who makes it out, hundreds, possibly thousands, are trapped behind the front lines or military roadblocks in rural areas.

“Most of the malnourished children, they die there,” said Dr. Kibrom Gebreselassie, chief medical director of Ayder Hospital in Mekele. “This is a tip of the iceberg.”

The grinding war in Tigray started in early November, shortly before the harvest season, as an attempt by Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed to disarm the region’s rebellious leaders.

On one side are guerrillas loyal to the ousted and now-fugitive leaders of Tigray. On the other are Ethiopian government troops, allied troops from neighboring Eritrea and militias from the Amhara ethnic group. Trapped in the middle are the civilians of Tigray.

Tekien Tadese, 25, wearing an Ethiopian Orthodox Christian cross, holds her baby, Amanuel Mulu, 22 months old, who is suffering from malnutrition and weighs only 6.7 kilograms (14 pounds and 12 ounces), at the Ayder Referral Hospital in Mekele, in the Tigray region of northern Ethiopia, on Monday, May 10, 2021. The child was unconscious when he was first admitted in April, severely malnourished and anemic after losing half his body weight. Two weeks in intensive care saved his life. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)

Abeba Gebru, 37, from the village of Getskimilesley, sits with her malnourished daughter, Tigsti Mahderekal, 20 days old, in the treatment tent of a medical clinic in the town of Abi Adi, in the Tigray region of northern Ethiopia, on Tuesday, May 11, 2021. For every mother like Abeba who makes it out, hundreds, possibly thousands, are trapped behind the front lines or military roadblocks in rural areas. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)

The war has spawned massacres, gang rapes and the widespread expulsion of people from their homes, and the United States has declared “ethnic cleansing” in western Tigray. Now, on top of those atrocities, Tigrayans face another urgent problem: hunger and starvation.

The deputy CEO of the region, Abebe Gebrehiwot, echoed the assessment of “ethnic cleansing” and said combatants are blocking food aid from reaching those who need it. He said the region’s interim administration, appointed by Abiy, is desperately trying to forestall a famine, including in the areas where Eritrean forces remain in charge.

“There are some players who don’t want us to…plow the land,” he said in a recent interview. “There are some players who (prevent) us from distributing the seeds.”

Ethiopia’s government strongly disputes that starvation is being used as a weapon of war. Mitiku Kassa, an official with the National Disaster Risk Management Commission, said Wednesday that the U.N. and nonprofit groups have “unfettered access” to Tigray, and that food aid worth about $135 million has been distributed.

An Ethiopian woman scoops up portions of yellow split peas to be allocated to waiting families after it was distributed by the Relief Society of Tigray in the town of Agula, in the Tigray region of northern Ethiopia, on Saturday, May 8, 2021. The war in Tigray has spawned massacres, gang rapes and the widespread expulsion of people from their homes, and the United States has declared “ethnic cleansing” in western Tigray. Now, on top of those atrocities, Tigrayans face another urgent problem: hunger and starvation. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)

“We don’t have any food shortage,” he declared.

That’s not what the AP found out on the ground.

Teklemariam Gebremichael and his neighbors said he and his neighbors were no longer allowed to farm. When Eritrean soldiers came upon him looking after his cattle and harvesting crops, they shot both him and his cows, he said.

He survived. The cows didn’t. With food in short supply, his wound is slow to heal.

“I call on the world has to take immediate action to help Tigray, because we can’t live on our own land anymore,” he pleaded.

Another farmer, Gebremariam Hadush, and his five children said they were taking their chances anyway, racing against time as the wet season approached.

A young boy looks up as displaced Tigrayans line up to receive food donated by local residents at a reception center for the internally displaced in Mekele, in the Tigray region of northern Ethiopia, on Sunday, May 9, 2021. The 15 kilograms of wheat, half a kilogram of peas and some cooking oil per person, to last a month — was earmarked only for the most vulnerable. That included pregnant mothers and elderly people. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)

“We should be tilling this land for the second or third time,” he said. “But we couldn’t till at all until now because we haven’t had peace. So now all we can do is just scrape the surface.”

Hunger is particularly sensitive for Ethiopia, where images of starving children with wasting limbs and glassy eyes in the 1980s led to a global outcry. Drought, conflict and government denial all played a part in that famine, which killed an estimated 1 million people.

The situation now is also drawing concern from the world — although not enough of it, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, U.S. ambassador to the U.N., said Thursday. She called for the U.N. Security Council to hold a meeting on Tigray.

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