🔥 Surveillance footage from inside the immigration detention center in northern Mexico near the U.S. border where 38 migrants died in a dormitory fire appears to show guards walking away from the blaze and making no apparent attempt to release detainees.
The fire broke out when migrants fearing deportation set mattresses ablaze late Monday at the National Immigration Institute, a facility in Ciudad Juarez south of El Paso, Texas, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said.
Authorities originally reported 40 dead, but later said some may have been counted twice in the confusion. Twenty-eight people were injured and were in “delicate-serious” condition, according to the National Immigration Institute.
The security footage, which was broadcast and later authenticated by a Mexican official to a local reporter, shows at least two people dressed as guards rush into the frame, then run off as a cloud of smoke quickly filled the area. They did not appear to attempt to open cell doors so migrants could escape the fire.
Authorities were investigating the fire, the institute said. The country’s prosecutor general has launched an investigation, Andrea Chávez, federal deputy of Ciudad Juarez, said in a statement. Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission also was alerted.
Migrants and activists gathered outside an immigration centre in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, where at least 40 people died in a fire to call for justice after CCTV was released appearing to show guards leaving the building while smoke filled a locked cell with detainees inside. Human rights groups have blamed poor conditions and overcrowding for the fire. The Mexican president has said the fire, which broke out late on Monday, was caused by migrants setting fire to mattresses after discovering they were being deported. Activists have frequently called for better conditions in detention centres as the US and Mexico attempt to cope with record levels of border crossings.
💭 My Note: Another Kosovo in the making – this time a drastically diminished and weakened Orthodox Christian one – while The US protecting the genocider fascist Islamo-Protestant Oromo regime!
💭 Ethiopia and Tigray Forces Agree to Truce in Calamitous Civil War
After two years of fighting that left hundreds of thousands dead and millions displaced and facing starvation, the surprise deal came out of peace talks convened by the African Union in South Africa.
After two years of brutal civil war, the Ethiopian government and the leadership of the northern Tigray region agreed to stop fighting on Wednesday as part of a deal that offered a path out of a conflict that has killed hundreds of thousands and displaced millions in Africa’s second-most-populous country.
Senior officials from both sides shook hands and smiled after signing an agreement in South Africa to cease hostilities, following 10 days of peace talks convened by the African Union.
The surprise deal came one day before the second anniversary of the start of the war, on Nov. 3-4, 2020, when simmering tensions between Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed of Ethiopia and the defiant leaders of the country’s Tigray region exploded into violence.
Mr. Abiy, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, initially billed the war as a “law and order” campaign that he promised would be swift, even bloodless. But it quickly degenerated into a grinding conflict accompanied by countless atrocities, including civilian massacres, gang rape and the use of starvation as a weapon of war.
The deal was signed by Getachew Reda, a senior leader in the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, and Redwan Hussien, Mr. Abiy’s national security adviser, in Pretoria, South Africa’s administrative capital.
It contained a raft of provisions for disarming fighters, permitting humanitarian supplies to reach Tigray — where five million people urgently need food aid — and bringing a measure of stability to Ethiopia.
“We have agreed to permanently silence the guns and end the two years of conflict in northern Ethiopia,” the two sides said in a joint statement.
But mediators warned that it was just the first step in what would most likely be difficult negotiations before a permanent peace could be achieved. It was unclear how the deal’s provisions would be monitored or carried out. And negotiators cautioned that forces inside and outside Ethiopia could yet derail the process and tip the country back into war.
Ned Price, a State Department spokesman, welcomed Wednesday’s deal as an “important step toward peace.”
Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House spokeswoman, said, “The United States remains committed to supporting this African Union-led process.”
👉 It is very important that this report is from Africa – because it’s unusual.
👉 ይህ ዘገባ ከአፍሪቃ መሆኑ በጣም አስፈላጊ ነው ፥ ያልተለመደ ስለሆነ
💭 Courtesy: The Nation Africa, Kenya
Africa and the world are staring at a genocide in the Tigray region of Ethiopia similar to that in Rwanda in 1994, UN investigators, local and regional observers have warned.
The groups say the Ethiopia National Defence Forces (ENDF), Eritrea Defence Forces (EDF) and allied militias on one side and the Tigrayan forces have separately committed atrocities against civilians that violate international human rights, humanitarian and criminal law populations, with Tigrayans bearing the brunt of the attacks.
A report from the United Nations International Commission of Human Rights Experts on Ethiopia released at the UN General Assembly on Thursday reveals that rights violations have been committed since fighting erupted in Tigray in November 2020.
“The report concludes that there are reasonable grounds to believe that violations, such as extrajudicial killings, rape, sexual violence, and starvation of the civilian population as a method of warfare have been committed in Ethiopia since 3 November 2020,” the report says.
“The Commission finds reasonable grounds to believe that, in several instances, these violations amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity.”
The continued blockade of the Tigray region by the ENDF that has blocked access to essential services such as food, healthcare, telephone, banking and restricted humanitarian assistance, and the shelling of farmlands have left more than 20 million people in need of assistance and protection, the investigators said.
The UN commission was convinced that the blockade was deliberate, and that the denial of food and healthcare to the Tigray population violates the prohibition against the use of starvation of civilians as a method of warfare, as well as the obligation of each party to a conflict to allow and facilitate the delivery of impartial humanitarian relief.
UN chairperson of Ethiopia Commission Betty Murungi describes the humanitarian crisis in Tigray as “shocking, both in terms of scale and duration”.
“The widespread denial and obstruction of access to basic services, food, healthcare, and humanitarian assistance is having a devastating impact on the civilian population, and we have reasonable grounds to believe it amounts to a crime against humanity,” she said.
In an attempt to uncover what is going on in Tigray, a region closed to local and international media since the war started, Nation.Africa on Thursday hosted a Twitter Space discussion with researchers, human rights activists, the media, and security experts on the challenges facing Ethiopia.
Since the war resumed on August 24 after five months of a humanitarian truce, most of the speakers concurred that the world does not know the exact suffering of the people of Tigray.
“What the world is listening to is basically from the government side, which exposes only what it believes favours them. Not much is known about the war in Tigray,’ said Basha Desta, a Tigrayan human rights activist.
Local militias
“For two years, the people have experienced intense war waged against them by the federal government, the Eritrean army, and the local militias from Amhara. The Tigray people are fighting to defend themselves and their survival, which they are entitled to.”
The federal government under Prime Minister Ahmed Abiy initially allowed international journalists into Tigray, only to kick them out after they exposed widespread human rights violations, said According to Meaza Gebremedhin, an independent human rights researcher and advocate.
“The government has intimidated both local and international media by insisting that the Tigray region is a war zone and they could not guarantee their safety. What we are seeing is an intended genocide, where Eritrean has joined hands with the federal government in an effort to exterminate the people of Tigray.”
She added: “They now want to invade all parts of Tigray and are using drones to attack even hospitals and kindergartens on top of the hate speech that is being spread around against the people of Tigray including national television stations.”
She argued that the government used the five-month humanitarian truce to regroup.
While those from Tigray, such as Mr Desta, insist that the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) is a political party that has no military capabilities, those supporting the federal government argued that TPLF is a criminal organisation that triggered the war by attacking the ENDF in the northern command on November 4, 2020.
“Calling TPLF a criminal and vile organisation does not amount to hate speech, because TPLF is not the people of Tigray, who are our sisters and brothers,” said MIMI, an Ethiopian national.
Eritrea re-entered the war after allegedly withdrawing last year but experts say its forces never actually left the Tigray region.
There are questions about the real interests of Asmara in the Ethiopian civil war. Some analysts believe Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki is taking advantage of the situation to take revenge against his arch-enemy, the TPLF, which frustrated him during the two-year war with Ethiopia between 1998 and 2000 over the border town of Badme.
When Dr Abiy made peace with Eritrea after coming to power in 2018, many of the Tigrayans saw this as an ominous sign, said William Davidson, a senior researcher on Ethiopia for the International Crisis Group.
“President Afwerki saw this as a good opportunity to [take] revenge against TPLF. What we are seeing is that Tigray nationalism cannot coexist with Eritrean nationalism. Many in Tigray see Eritrea as the real threat and the power behind Dr Abiy,” he said.
The presence of Eritrean troops in Ethiopia only serves to complicate matters and to inflame an already tragic situation, Mike Hammer, the US Special Envoy for the Horn of Africa told a digital media briefing on September 20.
Despite the release of the UN commission report, Mr Davidson said, the Ethiopian government is highly resistant to any investigation or judicial process, given that the government has been implementing a siege regime and using starvation as a weapon.
“There will be no form of cooperation, even if the government said they had said they will cooperate with independent investigations,” he said.
“We are seeing lip service to the concept of accountability, which also extends to the Tigray regional administration, which has also been accused by the commission of committing atrocities. The only hope is if the UN agency comes back with the intention to bring the culprits to book.”
Dr Abiy has set up an inter-ministerial task force to investigate allegations of crimes against humanity.
He has also established a National Dialogue Commission to resolve the “difference of opinions and disagreements among various political and opinion leaders, and also segments of society in Ethiopia on the most fundamental national issues … through broad-based inclusive public dialogue that engenders national consensus”.
However, UN investigators and speakers in the Nation Twitter Space forum concurred that the steps taken by the Addis Ababa administration appear to be mere “PR exercises”, with the UN team punching holes in their composition and the execution of their mandates.
On the inter-ministerial commission, the investigators said: “The Commission was not able to corroborate the number of interviews, prosecutions, trials, and convictions; nor that the redress measures regarding victims are under way.
“The draft new transitional justice policy, while a potentially important initiative, is not public nor was it shared with the Commission. The Commission was also unable to confirm that the training of investigators or military personnel is in progress”.
The transitional justice process, which should be transparent and open to the public is opaque, the team found.
It its report, the Commission said: “The IMTF did not include critical information regarding transparency in the presentation of its work, such as information about the ethnicities and genders of interviewees or convicted persons; the methods by which it obtains preliminary information about events in Tigray; and how it is obtaining information from victims and witnesses who have left the country”.
Dr Muliro Nasongo, who lectures on international relations and security at Technical University of Kenya, said the continued conflict in Ethiopia bodes ill for the stability of the Horn of Africa.
He noted that Ethiopia is not just any other African country as it hosts the headquarters of both regional and continental bodies, including the African Union.
If Ethiopia disintegrates into small states, he said, it would have a domino effect on countries that are federal states such as Somalia.
Secondly, it could exacerbate the problem of refugees in the region and see a rise in transnational crimes such as money laundering, and human and drug trafficking that feeds into terrorism.
“There had been hopes that stability in Ethiopia and Kenya would consolidate Somalia and South Sudan because Khartoum is already fragile. Instability in Ethiopia will contribute to violent extremism that contributes to terrorism,” he said.
Dr Nasongo’s main concern is that the region should address the issue of the regional interests of global powers scrambling for resources in Africa, given that Ethiopia is one of the epicentres in the scramble.
He says the US, China and countries in the Middle East have a hand in what is going on in Ethiopia.
“While we might handle Ethiopia with kids’ gloves because it is a major ally in the war against terrorism, there is the challenge which most African countries suffer from, because to the global players, the state and the stability of the country are more important than anything else, so other aspects such as human rights abuses might be neglected,” Dr Nasongo said.
Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on September 19, 2022
🛑 My Note:Probablytoo little, too late! Look how the international community has been quick to use the language of international criminal law in describing events in Ukraine, in stark contrast to the tendency to avoid such language in other situations of mass atrocities like in Tigray, Ethiopia – Given the size of Tigray and its population, the genocidal war has had a much more devastating effect than the Russian onslaught on Ukraine..
Yet, in Ukraine’s case talk of “war crimes” and “crimes against humanity” has been pervasive and potentially consequential. In April, Canada’s House of Commons unanimously passed a non-binding declaration that Russia is committing genocide in Ukraine. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and U.S. President Joe Biden, among other prominent politicians, have both suggested that Russia’s treatment of Ukrainian civilians is genocide.
By August 2022, 43 state parties to the Rome Statute, including Canada, made requests to the ICC to investigate alleged international crimes by Russian forces in Ukraine. This is an unusual show of unity in support of Ukraine, and a rare show of solidarity with the ICC, which has experienced considerable criticism, threats from powerful nations like the U.S., and departures and/or departure threats from some state parties in relation to other situations. The ICC is currently investigating allegations of crimes by both sides, and it has sent a contingent of 42 people to Ukraine, its largest investigation team ever. The ICC prosecutor has said the ICC will open an office in Ukraine.
These international narratives have been accompanied by action. The International Criminal Court (ICC) has opened an investigation relating to any potential crimes committed on the territory of Ukraine.
Compare all these efforts with the unbelievably very dire situation in Tigray, Ethiopia! 😠😠😠 😢😢😢
👉 “UN investigators say they believe Ethiopia’s government was behind ongoing crimes against humanity in the Tigray region and warned that the resumption of the conflict there increased the risk of “further atrocity crimes”.”
👉 “The report said there were “reasonable grounds to believe that the Federal Government and allied regional State governments have committed and continue to commit the crimes against humanity of persecution on ethnic grounds and other inhumane acts.””
👉 “We also have reasonable grounds to believe that the Federal Government is using starvation as a method of warfare,”
💭 In its first report, the Commission of Human Rights Experts on Ethiopia said it had found evidence of a wide range of violations in the country by all sides since fighting erupted in the northern Tigray region in November 2020.
The commission, created by the UN Human Rights Council last year and made up of three independent rights experts, said it had “reasonable grounds to believe that, in several instances, these violations amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity”.
The experts highlighted the horrifying situation in Tigray, where the government and its allies have denied around six million people access to basic services, including the internet and banking, for over a year, and where severe restrictions on humanitarian access have left 90% of the population in dire need of assistance.
The report said there were “reasonable grounds to believe that the Federal Government and allied regional State governments have committed and continue to commit the crimes against humanity of persecution on ethnic grounds and other inhumane acts.”
They were “intentionally causing great suffering or serious injury to body or to mental or physical health based on their ongoing denial and obstruction of humanitarian assistance to Tigray,” the report said.
In a statement, commission chair Kaari Betty Murungi described the humanitarian crisis in Tigray as “shocking, both in terms of scale and duration.”
“The widespread denial and obstruction of access to basic services, food, healthcare, and humanitarian assistance is having a devastating impact on the civilian population, and we have reasonable grounds to believe it amounts to a crime against humanity,” she said.
“We also have reasonable grounds to believe that the Federal Government is using starvation as a method of warfare,” she added, calling on the government to “immediately restore basic services and ensure full and unfettered humanitarian access.”
Ms Murungi also called on Tigrayan forces to “ensure that humanitarian agencies are able to operate without impediment.”
Tigray has been bombed several times since fighting resumed in late August between government forces and their allies, and rebels led by the TPLF, which ruled Ethiopia for decades before Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed took office in 2018.
The return to combat shattered a March truce and dashed hopes of peacefully resolving the war, which has killed untold numbers of civilians and triggered a humanitarian crisis in northern Ethiopia.
“With a resumption of hostilities in northern Ethiopia, there is a very real risk of further civilian suffering and further atrocity crimes,” Ms Murungi warned.
“The international community should not turn a blind eye, and instead increase efforts to secure a cessation of hostilities and the restoration of humanitarian aid and services to Tigray,” she said.
“Failure to do so would be catastrophic for the Ethiopian people, and has wider implications for peace and stability in the region.”
Mark Lowcock, former UN humanitarian chief, claimed the system to declare famine is broken and was manipulated by Ethiopia in 2021
The international system for declaring a famine is broken, the former humanitarian chief of the United Nations has warned, implying that the alert system is being manipulated by governments trying to hide their abuses.
Mark Lowcock, who was the UN undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs until last year, said that Ethiopia had managed to block a declaration of famine in the Tigray region in 2021.
“At the end of my time in the UN, it was clear to me that there was famine in Tigray, and the only reason it wasn’t declared was because the Ethiopian authorities were quite effective in slowing down the whole declaration system,” he said at an online event on Tuesday.
“You have to fight your way through the [IPC’s] Famine Review Committee, and you can be blocked by the authorities of the country that you’re engaging with. And that’s what’s happened in Tigray,” he said, according to the outlet Devex. “The current system is not functional.”
The lack of a formal declaration forced humanitarians to use euphemistic phrases like “famine-like conditions”, which in turn dulled the international outcry to the humanitarian crisis.
At the end of his term at the UN, Mr Lowcock broke ranks and told the Telegraph that starvation was being “used as a weapon of war” in the conflict.
“People need to wake up,” he said in early June 2021. “There is now a risk of a loss of life running into the hundreds of thousands or worse.”
About half a million children are estimated to not have enough food in the region including more than 100,000 who are severely malnourished.
The UN estimates that carrying food and essential supplies need to arrive in the region every day to meet current needs but only a fraction of that is making it through.
The Ethiopian government has consistently denied claims that it is blocking aid. Instead, it blames Tigrayan forces for the humanitarian crisis.
💭 The question now is why didn’t/ doesn’t the TPLF-lead Tigrayan government make a declaration of famine in the Tigray region? What is going on? What are they all hiding?
💭 Starving people based on their ethnicity, covering up atrocities by disinformation and evading accountability have become acceptable norms and values in Ethiopia. I’m not sure we will ever recover from this.
💭 Ethnic Cleansing Documented in Western Tigray – Amnesty and HRW accused Amhara forces and officials of denying humanitarian aid to civilians in western Tigray
Ethiopian paramilitaries have carried out a campaign of ethnic cleansing in Tigray, forcing hundreds of thousands of people from their homes using threats, killings and sexual violence, according to a joint report by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.
The rights groups accuse officials and paramilitaries from the neighbouring Amhara region of war crimes and crimes against humanity in western Tigray, in northern Ethiopia.
“Since November 2020, Amhara officials and security forces have engaged in a relentless campaign of ethnic cleansing to force Tigrayans in western Tigray from their homes,” said Kenneth Roth, director of HRW.
According to the report, militias from Amhara joined the Ethiopian armed forces and its allies to seize western Tigray in the first few weeks of the war, using indiscriminate shelling and execution to force people to leave.
The report said these forces also put up signs in towns demanding that people leave and made threats to kill civilians who wanted to stay.
Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s secretary general, said the level of abuse of civilians had not been taken seriously enough internationally. “The response of Ethiopia’s international and regional partners has failed to reflect the gravity of the crimes that continue to unfold in western Tigray,” she said.
“Concerned governments must help bring an end to the ethnic-cleansing campaign, ensure that Tigrayans are able to safely and voluntarily return home, and make a concerted effort to obtain justice for these heinous crimes.”
Amnesty and HRW also accused Amhara forces and officials of denying humanitarian aid to civilians in western Tigray, an issue the UN has raised concerns about in recent months.
💭 Abuses “amount to crimes against humanity as well as war crimes,” according to a report from Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.
Widespread abuses against civilians in the western part of Ethiopia’s embattled Tigray region amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have charged in a new report.
The crimes were perpetrated by security officials and civilian authorities from the neighboring Amhara region, sometimes “with the acquiescence and possible participation of Ethiopian federal forces,” the rights groups say in the report released Wednesday.
The abuses are “part of a widespread and systematic attack against the Tigrayan civilian population that amount to crimes against humanity as well as war crimes,” the report says.
Two human rights groups have accused armed forces from Ethiopia’s Amhara region of waging a campaign of ethnic cleansing against Tigrayans. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch accused Amhara officials and regional special forces and militias fighting in western Tigray of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity. They also accuse Ethiopia’s military of complicity in those acts. For more on the report we are now joined via Zoom by Laetitia Bader, Expert and Senior Researcher in the Africa division at Human Rights Watch.
💭 Abuses “amount to crimes against humanity as well as war crimes,” according to a report from Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.
Widespread abuses against civilians in the western part of Ethiopia’s embattled Tigray region amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have charged in a new report.
The crimes were perpetrated by security officials and civilian authorities from the neighboring Amhara region, sometimes “with the acquiescence and possible participation of Ethiopian federal forces,” the rights groups say in the report released Wednesday.
The abuses are “part of a widespread and systematic attack against the Tigrayan civilian population that amount to crimes against humanity as well as war crimes,” the report says.
Ethiopian federal authorities strongly refute allegations they have deliberately targeted Tigrayans for violent attacks. They said at the outbreak of the war in Nov. 2020 that their objective was to disarm the rebellious leaders of Tigray.
Ethiopian officials in Addis Ababa, the federal capital, and in Amhara didn’t respond to requests for comment on the allegations in the rights groups’ report.
The report, the result of a months-long investigation including more than 400 interviews, charges that hundreds of thousands of Tigrayans have been forced to leave their homes in a violent campaign of unlawful killings, sexual assaults, mass arbitrary detentions, livestock pillaging, and the denial of humanitarian assistance.
Fighters loyal to the party of Tigray’s leaders — the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, or TPLF — also have been accused of committing abuses as the war spread into neighboring regions. Fighters affiliated with the TPLF deliberately killed dozens of people, gang-raped dozens of women and pillaged property for a period of several weeks last year in Amhara region, Amnesty said in a report released in February.
The new report by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International focuses on attacks targeting Tigrayans in western Tigray and describes them as “ethnic cleansing,” a term that refers to forcing a population from a region through expulsions and other violence, often including killings and rapes.
Publicly displayed signs in several towns across western Tigray urged Tigrayans to leave, and local officials in meetings discussed plans to remove Tigrayans, according to the report. Pamphlets appeared to give Tigrayans urgent ultimatums to leave or be killed, the report says.
“They kept saying every night, ‘We will kill you . Go out of the area,’” said one woman from the town of Baeker, speaking of threats she faced from an Amhara militia group, according to the report.
Western Tigray has long been contested territory. Amhara authorities say the area was under their control until the 1990s when the TPLF-led federal government redrew internal boundaries that put the territory within Tigray’s borders. Amhara officials moved swiftly to take over the region when the war broke out.
The outbreak of the war “brought these longstanding and unaddressed grievances to the fore: Amhara regional forces, along with Ethiopian federal forces, seized these territories and displaced Tigrayan civilians in a brutal ethnic cleansing campaign,” the report says.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken asserted in March 2021 that ethnic cleansing had taken place in western Tigray, marking the first time a top official in the international community openly described the situation as such. That allegation was dismissed by Ethiopian authorities as “a completely unfounded and spurious verdict against the Ethiopian government.”
The new report corroborates reporting by The Associated Press on atrocities in the war, which affects 6 million people in Tigray alone.
In June Ethiopia’s government cut off almost all access to food aid, medical supplies, cash and fuel in Tigray. The war has spilled into Amhara and Afar regions, with Tigrayan leaders saying they are fighting to ease the blockade and to protect themselves from further attacks.
Facing growing international pressure, Ethiopian authorities on March 24 announced a humanitarian truce for Tigray, saying the action was necessary to allow unimpeded relief supplies into the area. Trucks bearing food supplies have since arrived in the region.
The AP last year confirmed the first starvation deaths under the blockade along with the government’s ban on humanitarian workers bringing medicines into Tigray.
Estimated tens of thousands of people have been killed in the war. But there is little hope for peace talks as Ethiopian authorities have outlawed the TPLF, effectively making its leaders fugitives on the run.
Among their recommendations, the rights groups call for a “neutral protection force” in western Tigray, possibly with the deployment of an African Union-backed peacekeeping mission, “with a robust civilian protection mandate.”
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