2023-09-18 15:21:47
The peace agreement was not enough to silence differences and put an end to violence in Ethiopia. Serious human rights violations continued to be committed in the north of the country, a group of UN experts warned in a report on Monday. This commission of experts indicates that “atrocities, war crimes and crimes against humanity continue to be committed in the country”. “If the signing of the agreement made it possible to silence the guns, it did not resolve the conflict in the north of the country, in particular in Tigray, and did not bring global peace,” declared the chairman of the commission, Mohamed Chande Othman.
According to the report, “hostilities in Ethiopia are now spreading nationally, with significant violations increasing, notably in the Amhara region, but also in Oromia and elsewhere.” “There are indicators that further atrocities could take place,” said another commission member, Radhika Coomaraswamy. “What is needed is a comprehensive peace agreement involving all Ethiopians.”
Systemic rape and sexual violence
The conflict in northern Ethiopia, which pitted the rebel authorities of Tigray against the Ethiopian federal government, supported by militias from the neighboring regions of Amhara and Afar as well as the army of Eritrea, has been marked by countless atrocities attributable to all the belligerents.
On November 2, 2022, the federal government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), the party of authorities in the Tigray region who had entered into rebellion, signed a “Cessation of Hostilities Agreement” ending two years of war . But according to the UN commission, “Eritrean troops”, who had come to support the Ethiopian army, “and members of the Amhara militias continue to commit serious violations in Tigray”, including rape and systematic sexual violence against women and girls.
Violence against civilians
The commission, whose mandate expires next month but which has drawn up a confidential list of alleged perpetrators of violations, also indicates that government forces continue to carry out arrests, detention and torture of civilians in the Oromia region. She also explains that she has received numerous credible reports of violations committed against civilians in the Amhara region since the federal government declared a state of emergency there last August.
The commission thus received reports of mass arbitrary detentions of civilians in this region and at least one drone attack carried out by the State. On Friday, the Ethiopian human rights organization accused federal security forces of carrying out extrajudicial killings in the troubled regional state of Amhara.
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