By Tesfa-Alem Tekle

May 14, 2013 (ADDIS ABABA) - An Ethiopian federal policeman shot dead 14 innocent people in the northern west city of Bahirdar, a regional police source told Sudan Tribune on Tuesday.

Amhara regional police commissioner, Mulgeta Worku, said the shooter randomly opened fire on Sunday evening at around 9pm local time against residents of Abay Mado vicinity and against passers by.

The dead include children, women and elderly.

By Tesfa-Alem Tekle

March 14, 2013 (ADDIS ABABA) – The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) says it is preparing to relocate thousands of South Sudanese refugees stranded at Ethiopian border villages.

UNHCR’s spokesperson in Ethiopia, Kisut Gebreegziabher, told Sudan Tribune on Thursday that the agency is set to relocate some 16,000 South Sudanese refugees currently settled in the border Wanthowa district to the existing Pugnido camp in Ethiopia’s Gambella region.

December 31, 2012 (KHARTOUM) - More than a million Sudanese currently live in constant fear of bombing and artillery attacks in the country’s rebel-held territories, an aid organisation linked to one of Sudan’s main rebel groups said in a report published on 30 December.

The report, compiled by the Sudan Relief and Rehabilitation Agency (SRRA), paints a horrifying picture of the fate of more than one million Sudanese reportedly living in the Sudanese states of South Kordofan and Blue Nile.

October 23, 2012 (KHARTOUM) – The rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Movement North (SPLM-N) has disputed allegations by the Sudanese army (SAF) about the death of civilians during a new bout of mortar attack it launched on the capital of South Kordofan State on Tuesday, saying it only targeted positions of government forces.

SAF’s spokesperson Al-Sawarmi Khalid Saad said that two children died and 8 civilians sustained injuries as a result of the new attack SPLM-N carried out on Kadugli town.

By Tesfa-Alem Tekle

August 20, 2012 (ADDIS ABABA) – The Ethiopian government last week signed a peace accord with rebel group, Benishangul People’s Liberation Movement (BPLM) to end the latter’s two decades of insurgency.

Minister of federal affairs, Shiferaw Teklemariam, and Jafar Mustafa, deputy chairperson of the BPLM inked the peace agreement on Wednesday at Ghion Hotel in the capital, Addis Ababa.

The breakthrough was reached following two years of negotiations, government officials said.

June 4, 2012 (PARIS) – Sudan People’s Liberation Movement – North (SPLM-N) leadership discussed with new French government officials on Wednesday the political situation in Sudan and humanitarian crisis in South Kordofan and Blue Nile.

Agar and Arman are in Paris for the first time since the election of Socialist President François Hollande last May to brief the French officials about the deteriorating humanitarian situation in the southern Sudan states where the rebels fight against Khartoum government.

May 24, 2012 (JUBA) - Members of the sub-committee on refugees, returnees and internationally displaced people within the African Union (AU) Permanent Representative Committee (PRC) are currently in South Sudan to assess the conditions in which these people live.

The delegation, in South Sudan from 20-24 May is led by Vivienne Wreh, the Liberian Ambassador to Ethiopia who is accompanied Macrine Mayanja, a senior political officer from the AU Commission division of humanitarian affairs, refugees and displaced persons.

May 11, 2012 (KHARTOUM) – Continued insecurity in Sudan’s border regions of South Kordofan and Blue Nile has created an additional refugee population in neighboring South Sudan and Ethiopia, the UN reported on Friday.

UN has already estimated that more than 418,000 people have been displaced since fighting between Sudanese government forces and indigenous rebels erupted in South Kordofan in June last year and later spread to Blue Nile in September.

By Tesfa-Alem Tekle

March 30, 2012 (ADDIS ABABA) – Newly displaced Sudanese from the conflict in Blue Nile state continue to arrive in neighbouring Ethiopia despite conflicting reports of improved stability and large-scale refugees repatriation.

Refugees fleeing Blue Nile, Sudan into Ethiopia (UN) Humanitarian aid commissioner in Blue Nile state, Abdel Moneim Abas, on Sunday told Sudanese media 30,000 Sudanese refugees had returned to Blue Nile state after exile in Ethiopia.