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Barbaric Abiy regime in
Ethiopia, today, Tuesday 22nd
June, bombed Tigray civilians |
 Breaking
News:
Barbaric Abiy regime in
Ethiopia, today, Tuesday 22nd
June, bombed Tigray civilians in
a market place, 'Edaga Selus',
(Tuesday Market) near Mekelle.
Sources confirm there are many
casualties. Z regime also denied
access to ICRC ambulances that
were heading to help.
Source |
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"On 4 November 2020 the
Government of the Federal
Democratic Republic of Ethiopia
launched a military offensive
against the Tigray People's
Liberation Front (TPLF)," AU |
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Commission has
been following the developments
in the Federal Democratic
Republic of Ethiopia, with
concern. On 4 November 2020 the
Government of the Federal
Democratic Republic of Ethiopia
launched a military offensive
against the Tigray People's
Liberation Front (TPLF), this
was followed by attacks on the
Northern Command of the
Ethiopian National Defence
Forces by the TPLF on the same
day.
Following reports and
information received regarding
alleged human rights violations
in the Tigray region, the
African Commission on Human and
Peoples' Rights (the ACHPR),
issued a Press Statement on 26
November 2020, condemning the
attack, and reminding the
parties of their obligations
under international humanitarian
law and international human
rights law. The said Press
Statement also urged parties to
engage in dialogue with a view
to finding lasting, peaceful and
mutually acceptable solutions in
the best interests of the
population.
Noting that the situation
continued to unfold without any
signs of abating, during its
67th Ordinary Session held
virtually, the ACHPR adopted a
Resolution: ACHPR/Res.469 (LXVII)
2020 on the Situation in the
Federal Democratic Republic of
Ethiopia, condemning the use of
force, and calling on the
Government of Ethiopia to take
actions to protect the human
rights of the populations
affected and to take concrete
steps to end the conflict.
On 9 March 2021, following a
meeting of the African Union
Peace and Security Council (PSC)
held, in which the Prime
Minister of Ethiopia, His
Excellency Mr. Abiy Ahmed
expressed its willingness to
engage the ACHPR to conduct
investigations into the ongoing
crisis in the Tigray Region,
jointly with its Ethiopian
National Human Rights
Institution, the African Union
Commission (AUC) Chairperson His
Excellency Mr. Moussa Faki
Mahamat (Chairperson) invited
the ACHPR to exercise its
mandate to initiate an
investigation.
During its 32nd Extra-Ordinary
Session, held virtually on 12
May 2021, the ACHPR adopted a
Resolution on the Fact-Finding
Mission to the Tigray Region of
the Federal Democratic Republic
of Ethiopia, (see Website), and
decided pursuant to Article
45(2) read together with Article
46 of the African Charter on
Human and Peoples' Rights (The
African Charter), to establish a
Commission of Inquiry (COI) into
the situation in the Tigray
Region.
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"When
I met the Ethiopian leadership
in February they really used
this kind of language, that they
are going to destroy the
Tigrayans, they are going to
wipe out the Tigrayans for 100
years and so forth" |
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EU envoy:
Ethiopian leadership vowed
to 'wipe out' Tigrayans
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) -
Ethiopia's leaders in
closed-door talks with a
European Union special envoy
earlier this year said 'they
are going to wipe out the
Tigrayans for 100 years,"
the envoy said this week,
warning that such an aim
'looks for us like ethnic
cleansing."
The remarks by Pekka
Haavisto, Finland's foreign
minister, describing his
talks with Ethiopian Prime
Minister Abiy Ahmed and
other ministers in February
are some of the most
critical yet of the
Ethiopian government's
conduct of the conflict in
Ethiopia's northern Tigray
region. They came in a
question-and-answer session
Tuesday with a European
Parliament committee.
Ethiopia's foreign ministry
dismissed Haavisto's
comments as 'ludicrous" and
a 'hallucination of sorts or
a lapse in memory of some
kind."
Haavisto's special adviser,
Otto Turtonen, told The
Associated Press that the
envoy 'has no further
comment on this matter."
For months, Haavisto has
served as the EU's special
envoy on Ethiopia. In
February he said he had 'two
intensive days in
substantive meetings" with
Abiy - the Nobel Peace Prize
winner in 2019 - and other
'key ministers" about the
growing humanitarian crisis
in Tigray, where thousands
of civilians have been
killed and famine has begun
in a region of some 6
million people. Ethiopian
and allied forces from
neighboring Eritrea have
been accused of atrocities
while pursuing fighters
supporting Tigray's former
leaders.
It is not clear from
Haavisto's remarks this week
which Ethiopian officials
made the comments about
wiping out ethnic Tigrayans.
'When I met the Ethiopian
leadership in February they
really used this kind of
language, that they are
going to destroy the
Tigrayans, they are going to
wipe out the Tigrayans for
100 years and so forth," the
envoy said.
'If you wipe out your
national minority, well,
what is it?" Haavisto added.
'You cannot destroy all the
people, you cannot destroy
all the population in Tigray.
And I think that's very
obvious, that we have to
react, because it looks for
us like ethnic cleansing. It
is a very, very serious act
if this is true."
In comments shortly after
those February meetings,
Haavisto had warned that the
crisis in Tigray appeared to
be spiraling out of control.
The United Nations human
rights office has said all
sides in the conflict have
been accused of abuses, but
witnesses have largely
blamed Ethiopian and
Eritrean forces for forced
starvation, mass expulsions,
gang rapes and more.
Haavisto's remarks emerged
as Ethiopia prepares to vote
in a national election on
Monday, the first major test
at the polls for Abiy as he
seeks to centralize power
under his Prosperity Party.
Abiy was awarded the Nobel a
year after he took office
and introduced dramatic
political reforms while
sidelining Tigray leaders
who had dominated Ethiopia's
government for years in a
coalition with other
ethnic-based parties. Months
of growing tensions between
Abiy's government and
Tigray's ruling party
followed, and the prime
minister in November accused
Tigray forces of attacking a
military base.
The EU and the United States
have been outspoken about
Tigray, with the U.S. last
month announcing it has
started restricting visas
for government and military
officials of Ethiopia and
Eritrea who are seen as
undermining efforts to
resolve the fighting.
The U.S. earlier this year
asserted that ethnic
cleansing is occurring in
western Tigray. The term
refers to forcing a
population from a region
through expulsions and other
violence, often including
killings and rapes.
'It is critical that leaders
within the EU are raising
the alarm bell," Human
Rights Watch researcher
Laetitia Bader told the AP.
'There is now ample evidence
of widespread atrocities
having been committed
against civilians in Tigray.
... But so far the
international response is
nowhere near matching the
magnitude of the crisis."
She called on the EU to take
'further concrete steps,
bilaterally and in
international fora, to
prevent further atrocities
and human suffering."
Source
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The Post's View
Opinion: Starvation has become a
weapon of war in Ethiopia. U.S.
action is urgent. |
Opinion by the
Editorial Board
June 15, 2021 at 1:31 p.m. EDT
 FOR
MONTHS, humanitarian agencies
have been warning that famine
could spread in the Ethiopian
region of Tigray if government
forces and allied troops from
neighboring Eritrea did not end
a brutal campaign to subjugate
the area. Now that emergency has
arrived. U.N. agencies reported
last week that more than 350,000
of Tigray's 6 million people are
living in famine conditions, and
2 million more are at risk. Some
140,000 of those facing
starvation are children,
according to UNICEF, which says
33,000 are at imminent risk of
death.
This humanitarian catastrophe,
which U.N. officials say could
rival the epic Ethiopian famine
of 1984 if not arrested, is a
deliberate result of the
military campaign waged in
Tigray since late last year by
the government of Abiy Ahmed and
the allied Eritrean regime of
Isaias Afwerki. According to
U.S. and U.N. officials and
press reporting, the forces of
the two governments have burned
farmers' fields and stores and
slaughtered or stolen livestock.
They have also systematically
blocked aid deliveries to the
parts of Tigray not under
government control. Eritrean
forces, the U.N. humanitarian
coordinator Mark Lowcock said
last week, are "trying to deal
with the Tigrayan population by
starving them." Food, he told
the Reuters news agency, "is
definitely being used as a
weapon of war."
Forced starvation of children is
only the latest atrocity
Ethiopian and Eritrean forces
have resorted to in what, so
far, has been a failed effort to
crush the Tigray People's
Liberation Front (TPLF), which
has controlled the region for
decades and dominated Ethiopia's
government until Mr. Abiy came
to power in 2018. The United
Nations has also reported mass
rapes of women, massacres of
civilians and ethnic cleansing.
More than 2 million people have
fled their homes, leaving their
fields behind. Tigrayan men are
being rounded up and summarily
executed.
The United States and other
Western governments have
attempted in vain to stop this
scorched-earth assault.
Secretary of State Antony
Blinken began publicly demanding
the withdrawal of Eritrean and
Ethiopian militia forces from
Tigray soon after taking office;
Sen. Christopher A. Coons
(D-Del.), a confidant of
President Biden, was sent to
lobby the Ethiopian ruler. Last
month, Mr. Blinken announced
visa sanctions against Ethiopian
and Eritrean officials involved
in abuses or the blocking of
food aid. The European Union and
United States have suspended
hundreds of millions of dollars
in aid.
None of it has worked. Mr. Abiy
promised in March that Eritrean
troops would leave Tigray, but
they are still there. So are
Amhara militias from a
neighboring Ethiopian region
that have engaged in ethnic
cleansing as well as blocking
food. Journalists reporting on
the atrocities have been
arrested or expelled from the
country. Meanwhile, China and
Russia have blocked action by
the U.N. Security Council, which
- to its shame - has yet to
publicly meet on the Tigrayan
crisis.
The U.S. ambassador to the
United Nations, Linda
Thomas-Greenfield, is among
those warning of another massive
Ethiopian famine. "We cannot
make the same mistake twice,"
she said last week. "We cannot
let Ethiopia starve." Mr.
Blinken pledged "further actions
from the United States" if
"those responsible" for the
crisis did not "reverse course."
Though Ethiopia has been a
valuable U.S. ally, the Biden
administration now has no choice
but to take that action. |
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G7 calls for immediate cessation
of hostilities in Tigray region
|
 Sun,
June 13, 2021, 9:17 AM
CARBIS BAY, England, June 13
(Reuters) - The Group of Seven
wealthiest economies called on
Sunday for an immediate end to
hostilities in Ethiopia's Tigray
region.
"We are deeply concerned by the
ongoing conflict in Ethiopia's
Tigray region and reports of an
unfolding major humanitarian
tragedy," said a communique
issued following a leaders'
summit in Britain.
"We call for an immediate
cessation of hostilities,
unimpeded humanitarian access to
all areas and the immediate
withdrawal of Eritrean forces."
Fighting broke out in the region
in November between government
troops and the region's former
ruling party, the Tigray
People's Liberation Front (TPLF).
Troops from neighboring Eritrea
also entered the conflict to
support the Ethiopian
government. (Reporting by
William James, editing by
Elizabeth Piper)
Read More:
https://www.urdupoint.com/en/world/g7-leaders-deeply-concerned-over-humanitari-1276410.html
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