For more than two years now, in Ethiopia’s northern region of Tigray, a well-organized campaign of ethnic cleansing has been taking place, while some are referring to genocide. According to a report that Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have released, responsible for this action are new administrators in the area along with officials and security forces from the neighboring Amhara region. Since November 2020, when the war started, Amhara forces have been in close collaboration with the federal government to control the area and gradually claim the land. Early in the conflict, the Amhara forces managed to take control of the region, and soon after, they made pretty clear their plan to push Tigrayans out of the land.
During this period, several hundred Tigrayans were forced to leave their homeland while their properties were pillaged and occupied. Several war crimes and crimes against humanity are still carrying out against the population, with unlawful killings, mass detention, and sexual violence against women and girls becoming regular. In addition, the authorities and the Amhara forces have restricted the movement in the area and obstructed the access of Tigrayans to humanitarian aid, including food, fuel, and medicine. Because of this “de facto humanitarian aid blockade” by the government, as the situation has been called by the United Nations, the region is facing an unprecedented humanitarian crisis with 5 million people in need of emergency food assistance. These illegal restrictions include the shutdown of telecommunications, fuel, banking services, and electricity.
Many of these atrocities have been kept from the public eye, as Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has implemented communication restrictions and impeded the investigations of journalists and the efforts of humanitarian workers. The government has repeatedly denied the accusations of intentional ethnic cleansing against the population in the region and has kept an opposing viewpoint.
An end to these atrocities will come only if the international community takes action and halt the abuses still being committed against the Tigrayans. Up to now, neither the African Union’s Peace nor the UN Security Council has acted to protect the people and prevent the mass atrocities that have been carried out in the region. The priority of these international bodies should be to guarantee unhindered access to humanitarian assistance for the vulnerable population and provide them with basic needs like food, clean water, and medicine. The international community should call for independent investigations of the human rights violations in the region and the documentation of such abuses. The perpetrators should be held responsible, even if that means that the prosecution of the country’s high-ranking officials is necessary.
By The European Institute for International Law and International Relations.
