Ethiopia's Falash Mura repatriated to Israel

Ethiopia's Jews have waged a long campaign to migrate to Israel

About 450 Ethiopians of Jewish descent have been repatriated to Israel, concluding an Israeli government-backed scheme to relocate the community.

Their migration was "historic", Israel's Minister of Absorption Sofa Landver is quoted as saying.
Many members of the Falash Mura community lived in poor conditions in northern Ethiopia.
The Falash Mura's ancestors converted to Christianity under pressure in the 19th Century.
They have been waging a decades-long campaign to be allowed to settle in Israel.
'Welcomed' Their campaign has been plagued by controversy, as some Israelis questioned their Jewish links while others accused the government of not doing enough to help them.

In 2010, the Israeli government agreed to resume its repatriation programme, dubbed Operation Dove's Wings, after it was halted two years earlier.

The 450 migrants had been living in transit camps in Gondar city in northern Ethiopia, as they waited to go to Israel.

They were the last of some 8,000 Ethiopians who qualified for repatriation under the scheme.

The group flew into Israel's Ben Gurion airport in two chartered flights, with their relatives on hand to welcome them.

"Three years after I advised the prime minister of Israel to bring Operation Dove's Wings to an end, to close the compound in Gondar and to complete the journey of organised aliyah [migration] from Ethiopia, I am proud to take part in this historic event," Ms Landver said, the Jewish Press reports.

Some 12,000 members of the Falash Mura community in Ethiopia have not been granted permission to move to Israel, the Times of Israel newspaper reports.

About 90,000 Ethiopian Jews have immigrated to Israel since it was founded in 1948.

They make up one of the poorest sections of Israeli society

Obama Taps Ethiopia Ambassador for Sudan Post

 

WASHINGTON August 28, 2013 (AP)

By JOSH LEDERMAN Associated Press

President Barack Obama says he's selected his outgoing ambassador to Ethiopia to be the U.S. special envoy to Sudan and South Sudan.

Obama says Donald Booth will lead U.S. efforts to implement security agreements the two countries agreed to last year, including disputes over borders and oil. Booth will also work on human rights issues in Darfur and other areas.
Obama and Booth met in the Oval Office on Wednesday ahead of the announcement. Obama in a statement said the two nations' governments should show political courage and put their people's interests first in the name of peace and progress.
South Sudan peacefully broke away from Sudan in 2011, but tensions between the countries remain high, especially over their intertwined oil industries. The U.N. Security Council last month demanded an end to escalating violence in Sudan's Darfur region and more robust action by peacekeepers
Secretary of State John Kerry says this is a decisive period where Sudan and South Sudan can choose peace or go backward. He says when people voted for South Sudan's independence, they weren't voting to create a failed state or return to longstanding violence.
Kerry says the cause of Sudan and South Sudan is personal to him and to the president's national security adviser, Susan Rice, who worked on Sudan issues in the Clinton administration and as Obama's former U.N. ambassador.
Booth is a career diplomat who has represented the U.S. in multiple African countries. The Senate confirmed him as ambassador to Ethiopia in 2010.

14 victims of massacre in Kofele, Ethiopia identified

 “Wolahi, Wolahi…” swears 85 year old Totolamo village barley farmer and cattle herder Hajji Abdinur Shifa when a reporter asked him if he know  any terrorist hiding in his village. His face looks like a paint of sorrow and grief. His wife affectionately called by the villagers, Adiyo, was too fragile to talk about the August 3 2013 blood bath that turned their agriculture and livestock rich village into an inferno.

“My son took three bullets and died a day later at Sashemene general hospital. The body that was weakening by fasting could not respond well to treatment and he succumbed to his wounds without saying goodbye. His killers (federal police commandos) did not allow us entry to the hospital. My son Abdulkarim is dead but he will live in my heart until I join him in paradise…,” the respected elder said wiping his tears with a piece of garment.

On that fateful day, 3 August 2013, Abdulkarim Abdinur Shifa, 39, was at Erob Gebeya mosque loading onto his van sacks of barley, corn, and potato donated by farmers to be distributed among the needy in the city of Sashemene for Eid celebration.

When he was about to leave, bullets started raining down and the scream of women and children filled the salubrious air of Totolamo. Tigre people Liberation Front gunmen in police uniform massacred eleven people including an elderly imam and an infant.

The tragedy touched every household from Totolamo to Kofele in southwest oromyya.

In the land famed for its sylvan beauty, despite the aroma of ripe corn, the stench of death still hangs in the air. The approach of the delightful month of September did not lift the gloom of the August blood bath. According to our sources from Sashemene general hospital, currently the death toll stands at sixteen- all Muslims and close relatives.

The Horn Times manage to obtain the names of 14 victims of the August 3 slaughter…
1.   Adam Jamal
2.   Lenco Jilcha
3.   Habib Wabe
4.   Gachano Tuse
5.   Muhammad Debel Ouse
6.   Jamal Arsho Arsi
7.   Muhammad Eidao
8.   Amman Buli
9.   Muhamud Hassan
10. Rashid Burka
11. Abush Ebrahim
12. Mamush Ebrahim
13. Tuke Besso
14. Abdulkarim Abdinur Shifa

Furthermore, two hundred young men arrested on 3 August 2013 are still languishing in Kofele town police prison without any charges.

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