Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on May 14, 2021
U.S. Department of State: The Atrocities Being Perpetrated in TigrayAnd The Scale of The Humanitarian Emergency are Unacceptable.
U.S. Concerned About Increasing Political, Ethnic Polarization in Ethiopia
Special Envoy for the Horn of Africa Jeffrey Feltman has just completed his first visit to the region as U.S. Special Envoy for the Horn of Africa, traveling to Egypt, Eritrea, Sudan, and Ethiopia from May 4 to 13, 2021.
The Horn of Africa is at an inflection point, and the decisions that are made in the weeks and months ahead will have significant implications for the people of the region as well as for U.S. interests. The United States is committed to addressing the interlinked regional crises and to supporting a prosperous and stable Horn of Africa in which its citizens have a voice in their governance and governments are accountable to their citizens.
A sovereign and united Ethiopia is integral to this vision. Yet we are deeply concerned about increasing political and ethnic polarization throughout the country. The atrocities being perpetrated in Tigray and the scale of the humanitarian emergency are unacceptable. The United States will work with our international allies and partners to secure a ceasefire, end this brutal conflict, provide the life-saving assistance that is so urgently needed, and hold those responsible for human rights abuses and violations accountable. The crisis in Tigray is also symptomatic of a broader set of national challenges that have imperiled meaningful reforms. As Special Envoy Feltman discussed with Prime Minister Abiy and other Ethiopian leaders, these challenges can most effectively be addressed through an inclusive effort to build national consensus on the country’s future that is based on respect for the human and political rights of all Ethiopians. The presence of Eritrean forces in Ethiopia is antithetical to these goals. In Asmara, Special Envoy Feltman underscored to President Isaias Afwerki the imperative that Eritrean troops withdraw from Ethiopia immediately.
The Special Envoy will return to the region in short order to continue an intensive diplomatic effort on behalf of President Biden and Secretary Blinken.
Ethiopia’s Tigray Conflict: The ‘Twisted Joke’ of Denial in The Violence is Finally Laid Bare
For the past five months the head of the Ethiopian government has adamantly denied the existence of Eritrean troops, together with their military hardware, in the northern region of Tigray.
Today, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed dropped the pretence, admitting in the country’s House of People’s Representatives there were Eritrean soldiers, “guarding the border against the TPLF (Tigray People’s Liberation Front).”
The statement constitutes official acceptance of the blatantly obvious.
The near-ubiquitous presence of Eritrean soldiers within northern Ethiopia has become something of a twisted joke among locals in Tigrayan cities like Shire.
Dressed in distinctive light camouflage, the Eritreans drive into the central business district to buy supplies, get their vehicles fixed or pick up new equipment.
A short drive outside the city brings you into contract with checkpoints manned by surly Eritrean soldiers.
When we tried to visit the remains of the Hitsats refugee camp – one of two camps thought to have been attacked by Eritrean troops in mid-November – we were stopped by a man in an officer’s cap.
“N’tsaeda seb sifkedn” or “no white people allowed” he barked.
Eritrean soldiers giving orders in Ethiopia: we did as we were told and turned the car around.
There was plenty of evidence of extensive co-operation between leaders of Ethiopia and Eritrea before prime minister Ahmed made his announcement today.
Locked in combat for years, the Ethiopian head and Isias Afwerki, the dictatorial leader of Eritrea, inked a peace deal back in 2018. It was a diplomatic breakthrough that bagged Ahmed the Nobel Peace Prize.
Now, Eritrea has partnered up with Abiy Ahmed in his attempt to eliminate the political party – and people – who ran Tigray for over two decades, the TPLF.
A mixture of Ethiopian and Eritrean troops control the main cities and highways in Tigray and we spotted Eritrean tanks, armoured vehicles and trucks crammed with troops populating an area stretching from Shire up to the Eritrean border.
We stopped at a village and began to chat to group of local women.
The attacks on Shimelba and Hitsats, which are believed to have occurred on or around 19 November, took place amid heavy fighting with the TPLF and may constitute the single worst atrocity in this vicious conflict.
I spoke to a man who said he had witnessed the attack.
“What happened to the people who were here?” I asked.
He said: “People were killed by bullets. Heavy weapons and the tanks were firing and the houses were burnt. This is when the people fled. If they caught them, they killed them. It was the Eritrean army doing this.”
Aid officials told us that Eritrean soldiers attacked Hitsats camp at approximately the same time as Shimelba.
We spoke to man who was living in Hitsats when the troops moved in and he told us he was absolutely terrified.
He said: “When we heard the gunshots, people were running all over, to the left and right. I was (living) in ‘Zone D’ and my friend in Zone A was killed.”
“Sammy” says he was interrogated by troops who accused him of working for anti-government parties and an opposition media organisation called ASENA.
He survived several rounds of questioning and was held with other camp residents for the next two months without food and clean water to drink.
“I cry when I think of it. We ate moringa leaves. We passed our time by eating moringa, crushing and eating the leaves. We were really starving,” he said.
“There was no food or water. I wish I’d never been a refugee.”
In late January, the residents of Shimelba were ordered to leave the camp and ordered to walk 100km to the Eritrean border.
Sammy, who had fled the country in 2019 to avoid mandatory, life-time service in the Eritrean military, realised he was going to be forcibly returned.
“I was limping, there was blisters on my feet. We were injured,” he said.
“We would have preferred to die. It was difficult.”
When he arrived in the border town of Sheraro, the refugee concocted a plan to escape.
He asked a soldier if he could approach a local household and beg for scraps of food as the Eritrean Army had not provided them with anything to eat on their three-day march.
The soldier acquiesced and Sammy used the opportunity to slip away.
The majority were less fortunate.
Aid officials told Sky News they believe thousands of camp residents from Shimelba and Hitsats were forced to return to Eritrea with some required to sign “confession documents” on the way.
The present status of these individuals in unknown.
Sky News understands there were approximately 35,000 residents in both camps but only 7,000 have re-registered as refugees in Ethiopia.
Of this group, the majority have relocated to two other camps in western Tigray (Adi Harush and Mai Aini).
We also know that several hundred Eritreans escaped to Sudan, a thousand or so may be living in Shire and a small number have travelled to cities like the capital Addis Ababa.
That leaves a large number of refugees from both camps unaccounted for – with aid officials here in Ethiopia hugely concerned for their safety.
They fear that many thousands have been killed or abducted back to Eritrea – the country the risked their lives to flee.
USCRI Statement Calling for an Independent United Nations Investigation into the Disappearance of Refugees from the Tigray Region of Ethiopia
The U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI) demands accountability of the Ethiopian and Eritrean governments for the lives of the 20,000 disappeared refugees
The U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI) is an international non-governmental organization that has advocated for the human rights of refugees and immigrants for 110 years. USCRI is gravely concerned about the United Nations’ report that 20,000 Eritrean refugees from the refugee camps in the Tigray region of Ethiopia have disappeared and cannot be found. There is strong evidence that some of the missing have been detained, killed, or forcibly repatriated to Eritrea in violation of international refugee law. USCRI calls for an immediate independent United Nations investigation into these disappearances.
Until November of 2020, the Hitsats and Shimelba refugee camps in northern Tigray were home to over 25,000 refugees from Eritrea. After the Ethiopian government launched a military offensive against the Tigray Regional Government in November, about 4,000 of these refugees fled to other camps in southern Tigray. The rest— over 20,000 people— are unaccounted for, and the U N believes they are dispersed in areas to which it does not have access. Credible accounts indicate that at least some of the missing are in critical danger, as refugees have reported that armed actors infiltrated the camps, killed, raped and abducted people, and Eritrean troops have forced some of the refugees back to Eritrea.
Satellite imagery from the Hitsats and Shimelba camps indicates that the camps were systematically destroyed by military forces over a two-month period, although it is unclear whether the destruction was caused by Eritrea’s military or Ethiopia’s. The Ethiopian government has denied the presence of Eritrean forces in Tigray, despite reports that they are “everywhere” in the region. In addition to forced repatriations by Eritrea, in December the Ethiopian government began returning fleeing Eritrean refugees back to the camps in Tigray, causing international concern for their safety.
The Ethiopian government has also prohibited journalists and humanitarian actors, including the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (U N C H R), from accessing the Hitsats and Shimelba refugee camps to investigate the situation or provide humanitarian aid. This has led to grave concerns for the wellbeing of the refugees still living in the camps. When Ethiopia finally granted access to the Mai-Aini and Adi-Harush refugee camps in southern Tigray in January, UNHCR found refugees in need of food and other necessities.
Ethiopia is a party to both the 1951 U N Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees (Refugee Convention) and the 1967 U N Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees. Article 33 of the Convention requires that states adhere to the principle of “non-refoulement,” that no state “shall expel or return… a refugee against his or her will, in any manner whatsoever, to the frontiers of territories where his life or freedom would be threatened on account of his race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion.” Ethiopia must prevent the forced repatriation of Eritrean refugees from Ethiopia. The government must also commit to not returning refugees to the camps in Tigray, where they will be susceptible to abduction and forced repatriation.
Article 35 of the Refugee Convention and Article II of the Protocol require states to cooperate with UNHCR to allow it to respond to refugee crises. The Ethiopian government has clearly violated this provision by withholding access to Tigray. USCRI calls on the Ethiopian government to provide immediate and unfettered access to Tigray for UNHCR, other humanitarian aid and human rights organizations, and journalists.
“USCRI demands accountability of the Ethiopian and Eritrean governments for the lives of the 20,000 disappeared refugees. Both countries must commit to upholding the rights of refugees under the Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol. As such, USCRI urges the United Nations to immediately open an independent investigation into these disappearances,” said Eskinder Negash, president and CEO of USCRI.
Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on February 2, 2021
As many as 20,000 refugees are missing after two camps in Ethiopia’s war-torn Tigray region were smashed, the United Nations said.
The refugees, most of whom are from neighboring Eritrea, fled from the Hitsats and Shimelba shelters which were destroyed in fighting that erupted in Tigray in November. In January, satellite images showed the destruction of two refugee camps sheltering thousands of Eritreans in the region.
About 3,000 people made it to another camp in Mai-Aini, which the United Nations has access to, according to Filippo Grandi, the UN’s High Commissioner for Refugees. Many refugees “were caught in crossfire, abducted and forced to return to Eritrea under duress by Eritrean forces,” Grandi said, citing testimony presented to him at a visit to the camp while on a four-day trip for meetings with officials in Ethiopia.
The situation in Tigray is extremely grave and urgent support is necessary to prevent the situation worsening, Grandi said. “Our main priority is to gain access to deliver aid and protection.” Communications in the region remain impeded by a government shutdown of telecommunications networks. Relief agencies including the International Committee of the Red Cross have said they’re unable to access
👉 The head of the U.N. refugee agency said on Friday it had received an “overwhelming” number of reports of Eritrean refugees in Tigray, Ethiopia being killed, abducted or forcibly returned to Eritrea over the last month.
“If confirmed, these actions would constitute a major violation of international law,” Filippo Grandi, U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, said in a statement.
👉 Ethiopia Returning Eritrean Refugees to Tigray Camps; The United Nations Calls Move “Unacceptable”
Ethiopia’s government said on Friday it was returning Eritrean refugees to camps in the northern Tigray region, a move that the United Nations refugee agency said was “absolutely unacceptable”.
The refugees are being taken from the capital Addis Ababa back to two camps they had fled from during a month of fighting between the military and a rebellious regional force because it is now safe and stable in Tigray, the government said in a statement.
“A large number of misinformed refugees are moving out in an irregular manner,” the statement said. “The government is safely returning those refugees to their respective camps.”
United Nations officials have expressed concern about reports of continued clashes in the region.
“We have not been informed by the government or any other authorities or other partners about a planned relocation,” Babar Baloch, spokesman for the United Nations refugee agency, said at a news conference in Geneva. He called the reports “alarming” and said, “Any planned relocation would be absolutely unacceptable.”
There are 96,000 Eritrean refugees registered in Ethiopia. Most live in Tigray, which borders Eritrea.
👉 Statement by Commissioner Lenarčič on the killing of Danish Refugee Council and International Rescue Committee aid workers in Tigray, Ethiopia
“I strongly condemn the killing of four humanitarian workers in a refugee camp in the Tigray region of Ethiopia, including three staff members from the Danish Refugee Council (DRC) and one from International Rescue Committee (IRC). My deepest condolences go to their loved ones and to all the staff of the Danish Refugee Council and the International Rescue Committee at these difficult times.
I pay tribute to these humanitarian workers who have been saving lives and helping those less fortunate in times of crisis. We salute their courage and passion.
As I outlined in my recent visit to Ethiopia last week, the Ethiopian authorities should ensure immediate, unconditional and unrestricted access for humanitarian workers to all areas affected by fighting in accordance with International Humanitarian Law.
Now, more than ever, it is a matter of urgency to cease all hostilities.”
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