In particular, right now the Security Council needs to pay attention to deeply disturbing reports of mass sexual violence occurring in Ethiopia’s Tigray region. We as a Council must address reports of women being forced by military elements to have sex for basic commodities, and reports of sexual violence against women and girls in refugee camps, among other horrific information. The international community must work to ensure that all those involved respect their obligations under international human rights law and international humanitarian law. And the international community must establish immediate protection mechanisms, humanitarian aid, and other needed services for survivors. Independent, credible investigations must be conducted to hold perpetrators of these, and other human rights abuses and violations committed in Tigray, accountable.
Category: Human Rights
msf: Ethiopia: Tigray’s cities fill with displaced people fleeing insecurity and in need of aid
“I only have the clothes you see here,” she says. “I can’t even cook for myself as I don’t have any utensils. I don’t even own a blanket. At one point I was given four bedsheets by local people, but I gave them to the pregnant women. We feel forgotten by the international community and the Ethiopian government. Nobody reaches us. Even after such a long time, we have nothing.”
National Post: Health official alleges ‘sexual slavery’ in Tigray
Some women were held captive for extended periods, days or weeks at a time, said Dr Fasika Amdeselassie, the top public health official for the government-appointed interim administration in Tigray.
“Women are being kept in sexual slavery,” Fasika told Reuters. “The perpetrators have to be investigated.
reliefweb: UNHCR Regional Update #14: Ethiopia Situation (Tigray Region), 16 March – 7 April
On 18 March, UNHCR and partners were able to access Shimelba and Hitsats refugee camps for the first time since November 2020. The mission confirmed the destruction of all infrastructure and the absence of refugees in the two camps. The mission was able to briefly visit Sheraro where they received reports of both IDPs and refugees in and around the town. A follow-up mission to Sheraro is planned.
the irish times: War in Tigray threatens to end Ethiopian PM Abiy Ahmed’s dream of unity
“They put a gun in my mouth,” he adds, before stabbing him and leaving him for dead in the street.
Abiy himself conceded recently that the war had dragged on much longer than he expected. TPLF fighters, he said, had dispersed “like flour in the winds”. He added that the federal army was fighting a guerrilla war on at least eight separate fronts across the country.
minnpost: Thousands of Falash Mura, caught up in violence in Ethiopia, seek entry into Israel
Ethiopia is in turmoil. In November 2020, fighting in the Tigray region erupted between Ethiopian government troops and militias in Tigray known as the TPLF. The violence has been horrific.
Crimes reportedly include genocide, ethnic cleansing, war crimes, rape and other sexual violence, and crimes against humanity. At least 2.2 million people have been displaced, many of them women and children, and an estimated 60,000 people have fled into neighboring Sudan. The need for food, water, shelter, and medical aid is at catastrophic levels, while access to those in need is either limited or nonexistent. U.N. watchdogs have been denied observation. The internet has been shut down since November, and journalists have been arrested.
INTERNATIONAL POLICY DIGEST: Is Ethiopia at Risk of Genocide?
Over the course of six days in November 2020, Ethiopian government forces and allies executed two hundred civilians in Adi Hageray, a town in Ethiopia’s Tigray region. Eyewitnesses report indiscriminate house-by-house killings, with victims ranging from children to ninety-year-olds.
Standing alone, this atrocity deserves international outrage – but in reality, the Adi Hageray massacre is just one tragedy within an ongoing war that has killed over 50,000 civilians and involved over 150 mass killings since November.
Irob and Kunuma communities: Petition launched against Tigray genocide amid extreme danger of being wiped out
Omna Tigray, a nonprofit founded by a collective of Tigrayan professionals recently launched a Twitter campaign and a petition campaign in hope of garnering protection for the Irob and Kunuma communities which have been ravaged by a genocidal war in the region in Ethiopia.
Since November 2020, these communities have faced atrocities at the hands of Ethiopian, Eritrean and Amhara forces. Through this campaign, the non-profit aims to draw attention to the human rights violations taking place and ask for the UN to uphold the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
Dyer: Another Nobel Peace Prize winner goes rogue
Ethiopia’s prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize winner, waited the statutory two years before launching his genocidal war in Tigray last November.
Ethiopia’s other conflicts
Analysts fear the conflict in Tigray could fuel violence in other parts of the country.
The conflict in Ethiopia’s Tigray region has cost hundreds of lives and sent tens of thousands of people fleeing to Sudan over the past three weeks. But the region is just one of several in the country experiencing violent unrest amid a fraught political transition.
Some analysts fear the conflict in Tigray – which pits the northern region’s heavily armed leadership against the authority and forces of the central government – could fuel conflict in other parts of the country, which is divided into 10 ethnically-based regions. Armed violence may increase due to opportunism or a heightened sense of grievance.