Meseret, from the Lalibela district in northern Ethiopia, was only 13 when she became pregnant. Married at 12, her underdeveloped body was not ready for the stress of giving birth. After six days of gruelling labour her child was finally born, but it was dead. As a result of the long labour, Meseret suffered crippling injuries.

The international medical relief organisation Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) and the Tigray Regional Health Bureau this week launched the first programme of free anti-retrovirals (ARVs) for the treatment of HIV/AIDS patients in Ethiopia, according to a press statement issued by MSF on Tuesday. The first 13 patients at the Kahsay Abera hospital in the northwestern town of Humera had started receiving their ARVs, it said.

An international advocacy group has criticised Ethiopia for its continuing human rights abuses and condemned foreign donors for failing to help prevent them. Human Rights Watch (HRW) says the government "continues to deny" its citizens their basic human rights while the international community takes no action. In its 2004 World Report, the New York-based group said foreign donors who were pouring about US $1 billion into Ethiopia each year were focused on other issues.

Former Canadian Foreign Minister Lloyd Axworthy has been officially appointed UN special envoy to help defuse the standoff between Ethiopia and Eritrea. A statement released by Secretary-General Kofi Annan's spokesman on Friday said Axworthy would help to overcome the current deadlock in their peace process.

The latest U.S. State Department call for progress in the stalled Ethiopia-Eritrea peace accord - issued this week and coming on the heels of similar expressions of concern by European diplomats last week - is welcome news for those fearing the renewal of war. But it doesn't go nearly far enough. The absence of even the barest suggestion of consequences to either party for blocking the accord renders the statement toothless, charges a briefing from the think-tank Foreign Policy in Focus. Four years ago, Eritrea and Ethiopia agreed to put the border dispute that triggered what became one of the most costly conflicts in African history to binding arbitration. “Today, with Ethiopia balking at the results, the two states are on the verge of going back to war, as the U.S. twiddles its political thumbs in the hope that the problem will somehow go away,” says the briefing.

A World Health Organisation official in Ethiopia has dismissed an article in a respected British medical journal that claimed the United Nations agency was undermining the fight against malaria. "The Lancet" accuses the agency of approving cheap drugs that do not work, and blocking the use of a newer -- albeit more expensive -- treatment to combat the disease. This comes as Ethiopia is experiencing a malaria epidemic. According to a joint report by government and the UN, 46.2 million Ethiopians are living in malaria-prone areas, out of a population of 70 million.

'Horn of Africa Journal of AIDS' a biannual magazine was launched in Addis Ababa on Tuesday with a view to fostering health care education in a more organized and systematic fashion to make a difference in the lives of the victims in the region. People to people, an International humanitarian organization has sponsored the journal to be distributed freely to the medical communities and medical schools in Africa.

The Ethiopian Ministry of Justice last Sunday appointed a so-called "new Executive Committee" for the Ethiopian Free Press Journalists' Association (EFJA). "The ministry's action is undemocratic and has no legal basis. We therefore urge international press institutions of which EFJA is a member, press organisations, human rights activists, professional associations, civic associations and concerned individuals to strongly condemn this action which contravenes EFJA members' legitimate rights," said the EFJA.

Since a spate of killings in mid-December, about 5,000 Sudanese and Ethiopian Anyuaks, including about 100 unaccompanied children, have fled from western Ethiopia to Pachala in southern Sudan, according to the UN and aid agencies. "Residents say some 100 to 200 people are arriving daily," Ron Redmond, a spokesman for the Office of the United High Commissioner for Refugees, told IRIN. "They report walking for a week or more to reach the border and appear to be in reasonably good health. However, they are arriving with no possessions, not even to carry water [in]," he said, noting that most of them were young men aged between 14 and 25. "Local residents are providing some help to the new arrivals, who are also foraging in the countryside for food," he added.

Western powers are stepping up mediation to end a simmering border row between Eritrea and key American ally Ethiopia less than four years after the Horn of Africa neighbours fought a brutal border war. The latest official to ask the former foes to cool months of angry rhetoric is Britain's Minister for Africa Chris Mullin, who met Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi in Addis Ababa late on Friday after talks in Eritrea and Djibouti.

Rains have improved the situation in eastern Ethiopia’s drought-stricken Somali region, but fears remain of major water and food shortages, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in its monthly report, issued on Tuesday. It warned that a "critical situation seems imminent" during the early months of 2004.

More than 2 million people - 200,000 of them children - are living with HIV in Ethiopia, according to the government. Some of these people living in Addis Ababa can now expect to receive assistance from community groups such as Idir’s. Idirs are community groups to which people pay subscriptions towards meeting funeral and mourning costs. They have a very long reach among communities and are found in almost all parts of the country. The increasing numbers of people living with AIDS has encouraged them to change their mandate and will focus on caring for those still alive as well as their more traditional roles.

Ethiopia is ranked as having the fourth highest number of deaths due to neonatal tetanus in the world with over 40,000 estimated infant deaths. The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has initiated a new tetanus campaign targeting 2.6 million women in Ethiopia. It is targeted at women of childbearing age between the ages of 15 and 49 in the Oromiya and Amhara regions.

Violence in western Ethiopia erupted in December when the Anyuak were blamed for an attack on a UN-plated vehicle carrying government officials to Odier, a proposed site for a camp for Dinka and Nuer Sudanese refugees. Since then, it is estimated that about 15,000 members of the Anyuak community have fled to Sudan. If the refugees stay in Pachala, it will result in a 30 to 50 % increase in the county's population, according to World Relief.

Ethiopia’s health ministry has clashed with the aid agency Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) over malaria treatment in the midst of a major epidemic threatening 15 million people. MSF is urging the government to implement a cocktail of drugs which have been given preliminary approval by the World Health Organisation (WHO). But the ministry says that calls by the NGO to change anti-malarial drugs during an epidemic were potentially dangerous.

Almost half a million children in Ethiopia are dying each year from easily preventable diseases, international health officials revealed on Tuesday. Ethiopia has the sixth largest number of children dying annually – with only India, Nigeria, China, Pakistan, and the Democratic Republic of Congo faring worse.

The UN refugee agency has evacuated its non-essential staff from western Ethiopia after violence that left an estimated 30 people dead and dozens injured. UNHCR spokesman Kris Janowski said the local hospital had been “overwhelmed” after a weekend of fighting in Gambella, 800 km west of Addis Ababa.

Fighting in the town of Gambella in western Ethiopia has left at least 21 people dead, after Ethiopian troops moved into the city over the weekend in response to the killing of seven men, including three government officials, on Saturday, allAfrica.com reports. The seven men were allegedly ambushed by members of the Anuak ethnic group. According to Ethiopian officials, the event provoked clashes between Anuak and Nuer, the largest ethnic groups in the area.

The Ethiopian government, in flagrant violation of the Constitution and international human rights declarations has suspended the Ethiopian Free Press Journalists' Association (EFJA) and the EFJA's executive committee, which was elected by the organisation's general assembly. EFJA has called on the Ethiopian people and the international community to strongly condemn the measures taken by the government.

Africa is facing an enormous water crisis afflicting 300 million Africans and claiming 6,000 lives a year, a major summit heard on Monday. Water scarcity is also rapidly increasing the dangers of “social and political conflict” among booming city populations, senior United Nations officials warned.