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Category: Human Rights

Across The Culture: Hope and a Hiccup in BLM NY’s Recognition of the Tigray Genocide

Posted on by Tech Support

Chivona Renee Newsome, co-founder of the Greater New York chapter of Black Lives Matter, spoke at a Tigray Genocide protest Sunday morning. This is one of the earliest, if not the first, recorded instances of a BLM representative recognizing the Tigray Genocide as a global Black issue.

In the fiery minute-and-a-half clip, Newsome denounces the intentional blocking of humanitarian aid to Tigray by Ethiopia’s unelected PM Abiy Ahmed. She also condemns the widespread sexual violence being perpetrated by Eritrean soldiers, an issue that seems to grow in scope with every new report.

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Nation: ‘Scores killed’ in anti-government protests in Tigray — Sources

Posted on by Sami Mulaw

Anti-government protests in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region claimed the lives of several people last week, multiple sources from the region confirmed to the Nation.

According to credible sources, at least 28 people were killed since the protests began on February 8 in the regional capital of Mekelle and other towns.

“Five died in Mekelle, 17 in neighbouring Wukiro town. Federal forces are using live bullets to quell the protests,” said one medical worker who declined to be named over security concerns.

“Dozens were injured and many more were arrested” he told the Nation adding, “young protesters who were throwing stones at security forces had been shot dead”

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HRW: Ethiopia – Unlawful Shelling of Tigray Urban Areas

Posted on by Tech Support

Ethiopian federal forces carried out apparently indiscriminate shelling of urban areas in the Tigray region in November 2020 in violation of the laws of war, Human Rights Watch said today. Artillery attacks at the start of the armed conflict struck homes, hospitals, schools, and markets in the city of Mekelle, and the towns of Humera and Shire, killing at least 83 civilians, including children, and wounding over 300.

“At the war’s start, Ethiopian federal forces fired artillery into Tigray’s urban areas in an apparently indiscriminate manner that was bound to cause civilian casualties and property damage,” said Laetitia Bader, Horn of Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “These attacks have shattered civilian lives in Tigray and displaced thousands of people, underscoring the urgency for ending unlawful attacks and holding those responsible to account.”

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LA Times: A rape survivor’s story emerges from a remote African war

Posted on by Tech Support

Mehrawit, 27, was separated from her sister and locked in a room with only a thin, dirty mattress. For two weeks, she said, the Eritrean soldiers gang-raped her repeatedly, fracturing her spine and pelvis and leaving her crumpled on the floor. One day, she counted 15 soldiers who took turns sexually assaulting her over eight hours, her cries of agony punctuated by their laughter.

“I was numb,” she recalled from a hospital bed in the regional capital, Mekele, days after she escaped. “I could see their faces. I could hear them giggle. But after a while, I was no longer feeling the pain.”

Her account is one of few emerging from the murky conflict in Tigray, where human rights groups say pro-government forces are sexually abusing civilians in a remote highland region far from the world’s gaze.

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LA Times: I reported on Ethiopia’s secretive war. Then came a knock at my door

Posted on by Tech Support

A few days earlier, a therapist who has been treating the rape survivor I wrote about told me that the woman had also received a threatening phone call, warning her not to identify Eritreans as her assailants. The therapist told me to take as much care as possible with the woman’s safety, and pleaded with me to reveal little of her identity in the article.

Before the men left, they warned that things would be harder for me the next time. On Thursday the Ethiopian government issued a statement saying I was not a “legally registered” journalist, an attempt to discredit my work.

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Statement by the Special Adviser of the Secretary-General on the Prevention of Genocide, on the situation in Ethiopia.

Posted on by Eyasu Berhe

The United Nations Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, Ms. Alice Wairimu Nderitu, is alarmed by the continued escalation of ethnic violence in Ethiopia and allegations of serious violations of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights in the Tigray region.

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aljazeera: UN says 20,000 refugees missing in Tigray

Posted on by Eyasu Berhe

Two camps destroyed during fighting in November left thousands of mostly Eritrean refugees vulnerable, caught in conflict, says UN.

As many as 20,000 refugees are missing after two camps in Ethiopia’s war-torn Tigray region were destroyed, the United Nations said.

The refugees, most of whom are from neighbouring Eritrea, fled from the Hitsats and Shimelba shelters that were destroyed in fighting that erupted in Tigray in November.

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