Tag Archive for: war-crimes

FP – The U.N. Must End the Horrors of Ethiopia’s Tigray War

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Foreign Policy | Recent human rights investigations confirm the atrocities that journalists reported in November. A strong multilateral push can force an Eritrean withdrawal and put the region on the path to peace.

In November 2020, as war broke out in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region, the scale of the suffering was already apparent to anyone on the Ethiopian-Sudanese border. As the Ethiopian National Defense Force and allied Amhara militias and Eritrean soldiers swept through the region in a pincer movement, Tigrayans began to flee en masse, walking for days without water to get to safety in neighboring Sudan.

Hundreds of refugees made an almost biblical sight as they traversed the Hamdayet River crossing that separates the two countries. Small boats laden with men, women, and children pushed against the current, ferrying people to safety every few minutes.

On the Sudanese side, middle-class Tigrayan women stood shaded under brightly colored umbrellas, desperately peering into every boat to look for their loved ones they had lost on the other side.

One woman’s anxiety was palpable. She had stood at the river in the beating sun with her baby strapped to her back for several days waiting for her family—and fearing the worst. “Please, help us,” she said. “Take their names and write about them.”

The refugees’ testimonies all pointed to indiscriminate artillery fire on civilian areas, massive looting, machete-wielding ethnic militiamen, and summary executions. 

At one point, dozens of refugees fresh from the desert march and fearful of disclosing their identities started to shout out names of people they’d seen killed. One of us, reporting at the border, wrote down six names before the cacophony became overwhelming.

The refugees’ testimonies all pointed to indiscriminate artillery fire on civilian areas, massive looting, machete-wielding ethnic militiamen, and summary executions.

Around 50,000 people from bordering Tigrayan towns made it into Sudan before the Ethiopian army began stationing men in federal army uniforms at intervals along the border, sealing it off.

Some refugees said they had been threatened with death if they kept going. “They threatened to cut our heads off if we kept trying to leave Tigray,” one mother of five said in late November.

Online trolls and officials in Ethiopia’s capital of Addis Ababa then launched a systematic campaign to discredit refugees’ accounts, claiming that agents of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) had infiltrated the Sudanese camps to spread disinformation about atrocities.

Over the last four months, Tigray’s continued communications blackout has made it incredibly difficult to confirm accusations of potential war crimes committed by forces on both sides. Amnesty International says Eritrean troops systematically killed hundreds of unarmed civilians in the northern city of Axum last November.

Yet information has slowly slipped out from behind the curtain. In December 2020, a news team from Belgium’s VRT News gained rare access to Tigray. They found medical centers ransacked for medication and saw patients, including a small girl, covered in debilitating infections from bullet and shrapnel wounds.

About two dozen photos—far too graphic to publish—sent to journalists by a resident of the regional capital Mekele who escaped Tigray show the bodies of children and adolescents blown to pieces by the government’s artillery barrage of the city.

The United Nations special advisor on the prevention of genocide, Alice Wairimu Nderitu, said she has received reports of extrajudicial killings, sexual violence, looting of property, mass executions, and impeded humanitarian access. Nderitu warned that without taking urgent measures, the risk of atrocity crimes “remains high and likely to get worse.”

In February, the Telegraph was sent four-minute-long video of fighters in Ethiopian federal army uniforms walking past dozens of dead men and boys. The clip is the first video evidence to emerge from Tigray, implicating the Ethiopian army in war crimes.

In the clip, which has been geolocated to a village on the outskirts of the 14th-century Debre Abbay monastery in central Tigray and verified as undoctored by the newspaper, soldiers taunt the few Tigrinya-speaking survivors in Ethiopia’s lingua franca, Amharic.

When one adolescent lying on the ground pleads with the soldiers in Tigrinya, one man shouts at him: “Keep talking, I’ll fuck your mother. Keep talking, you son of a bitch.”

With no action, the dire situation in Tigray will only get worse. Humanitarian agencies have been consistently blocked from working in the region and have issued dire statements saying that tens of thousands of people are now facing starvation. Refugees are reportedly turning up to aid centers emaciated. People are reportedly eating leaves to survive, drinking polluted water, and dying of hunger in their sleep.

“There is an extreme urgent need—I don’t know what more words in English to use—to rapidly scale up the humanitarian response, because the population is dying every day as we speak,” Mari Carmen Vinoles, head of the emergency unit for Doctors Without Borders, told the Associated Press in January.

Aid workers have been consistently obstructed from providing emergency relief, however. Even the Ethiopian Red Cross, which has relatively good access compared to other organizations, said earlier this month that it could only reach 20 percent of the people in need in Tigray.

Hard questions need to be asked: Why is the blackout still largely in place, and why are so few aid workers being allowed in? Does Addis Ababa not want people looking into allegations of massive human rights abuses by federal troops? Or is it trying to hide the true extent to which Eritrea is involved in the conflict? Or maybe the federal government simply cannot allow access because it is not in control of vast stretches of the region? The Ethiopian government declined to reply to specific questions from Foreign Policy.

The conflict has a profound impact on Ethiopian public discourse, civil society, and social cohesion. For many non-Tigrayans, it has been a justifiable—even popular—military operation. There is very little love lost for the minority Tigrayans and their past domination of political and economic life in Ethiopia.

While the TPLF’s reign coincided with stunningly high rates of economic growth, the party and its coalition partners ruled with an iron fist. It arrested opposition leaders on trumped-up charges of corruption and erected an extensive network of citizen-spies, who, in a system known as “one to five,” were each responsible for keeping tabs on five other people.

Since the war erupted, triggered by a TPLF strike on the Ethiopian military’s northern command, there has been a deluge of misinformation from online accounts on both sides. In the melee, moderate voices have been squeezed from both sides. If an Ethiopian or international partner has pressed for peace and dialogue, the federal government has denounced them as Tigrayan sympathizers and enemies of the state.

When some have defended Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s response, they have been castigated as warmongers and accused of unwittingly doing Eritrea’s bidding. In this vortex of irreconcilable political differences, ethnic animosities, and regional rivalries, all sides have been accused of perpetrating atrocities.

Ethiopian journalists who dare to report details of the conflict that do not fit the government narrative have been subject to intimidation, hacking attempts, and death threats.

Reporters have been hit hard by the extraordinary outpouring of hatred. Ethiopian journalists who dare to report details of the conflict that do not fit the government narrative have been subject to intimidation, hacking attempts, and death threats.

In recent weeks, Ethiopia granted access to a select few outlets to cover Tigray. But almost immediately, translators and fixers for the Financial Times, Agence France-Presse, the New York Times, as well as the BBC’s Mekele reporter, were arrested. (They have since been released.)

Since the conflict began, several journalists have been arrested and one killed. In February, the freelance journalist Lucy Kassa’s house was raided by unknown attackers, most probably for reporting on allegations of mass rapes in Tigray.

Under the massive pressure, much of the Addis Ababa press corps has quietly moved whatever operations they can to Nairobi. “Tough times for us all … the fire and courage is not there anymore,” one journalist told us.

While Ethiopia’s federal forces are tied down in Tigray, other deep-seated problems are rearing their heads across the nation of 110 million people. Indeed, the civil war in Tigray is a symptom and only the most severe manifestation of Ethiopia’s troubles.

Abiy’s ascent and pledge to address long-standing grievances paradoxically reignited tensions between communities about identities, regional borders, and political representation. While the prior regime had locked communities into ethnically defined regions ruled by pliant leaders who only answered to federal authorities, Abiy promised to free Ethiopians from this rigid and repressive system. He permitted the Sidama zone to secede from the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples region, and stood by as communities formed militias and fought to redraw subnational borders.

His vision for a new Ethiopia, which he couldn’t deliver on fast enough, exposed him to withering critiques and turned adoring crowds into angry mobs. Abiy gradually revealed himself to be as intolerant of dissent as his predecessors, and he lashed out at his former allies-turned-rivals. Government forces surrounded the home of Oromo leader Jawar Mohammed and later arrested him.

A prominent protest singer, Hachalu Hundessa, was murdered over the summer, spurring public demonstrations. Before and since the outbreak of hostilities in Tigray, there have been pockets of violence across the country, including ethnic militias in Benishangul-Gumuz, friction on the Somali-Afar and Oromo-Somali borders, and rebel attacks in Oromia.

The country is rapidly unraveling under the stress of Abiy’s reforms and the strain of his rule. The current trajectory does not just promise more deaths and dislocations—it also imperils prospects for a free and fair election now scheduled for June 2021.

Abiy won plaudits from the Norwegian Nobel Committee and others for granting amnesty to political prisoners and legalizing outlawed parties, but he has been unwilling to extend the same olive branch to his opponents. Several parties, including the Oromo Federalist Congress from Abiy’s home region, have questioned whether they can participate in this year’s planned poll.

The conflict is as much a regional threat as it is a domestic one. The fighting in Tigray has engulfed the rest of the Horn of Africa. Abiy’s alliance with Eritrean leader Isaias Afwerki brought Eritrean troops into Tigray to bring the TPLF to heel. Isaias has harbored ill will toward the TPLF since the late 1990s when they fell out and fought a horrific border war, which was never fully resolved until Abiy’s rise to power. With Eritrea entering the fray, the TPLF fired rockets repeatedly into the neighboring country, in part to inflict some pain on Asmara and in part to rally Tigrayan support against a common enemy.

Ethiopia also has stumbled into a series of border skirmishes with another neighbor: Sudan. The two countries have long disputed their shared border in the Fashqa region, but they previously operated under a compromise of a “soft border.” Clashes first flared up late last year, and tensions have continued to escalate. On Feb. 14, the Sudanese government said Ethiopian forces crossed the border in an act of “aggression.”

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s recent call with Abiy is a start, but so far, the international response has been tepid. While most governments have expressed alarm at developments, very few have truly stepped up to stop the unfolding tragedy. Only the European Union has suspended direct budgetary support—some $107 million—until humanitarian agencies are granted access.

While the United States and EU have urged Eritrea to withdraw its troops, the international community has failed to speak in one voice and has ignored some overarching challenges, including the threat to Ethiopia’s nascent democracy. The U.N. Security Council is finally set to discuss Ethiopia on March 11 following four months of relegating Ethiopia to “Any Other Business” rather than as a formal agenda item.

If the international community wants to prevent further atrocities and salvage Abiy’s initial vision of an inclusive Ethiopia, it should take the following steps.

First, there should be no wavering on the issue of delivering life-saving assistance. So far, the Ethiopian government has granted authorization for 84 international staff with 53 applications still pending as of late February. It has been too little too late, and it only applies to government-controlled areas.

The U.N. should insist that its humanitarian agencies be given unfettered access, including in areas controlled by the TPLF. It is indefensible that Ethiopian soldiers and the Amhara militias are blocking access, and that Eritrean and Ethiopian forces have targeted refugee camps filled with Eritreans.

The international community has to do more than sit on the sidelines regarding human rights violations and mass atrocities.

Second, the international community has to do more than sit on the sidelines regarding human rights violations and mass atrocities. Blinken in late February reiterated U.S. support for investigations into human rights violations and abuses, as well as full accountability. The U.N. should start issuing unilateral and multilateral sanctions, as well as consider additional steps to isolate Ethiopia and Eritrea if the governments are determined to be culpable.

Third, there is an urgent need to evict the Eritrean forces and deescalate the border tensions between Ethiopia and Sudan. The United States, which holds the Security Council presidency, plans to address conflict-induced starvation and hunger in Ethiopia in mid-March. It should similarly raise these pressing regional conflicts related to the Ethiopian crisis.

The African Union leadership, including the recently elected chairman, Congolese President Félix Tshisekedi, and incoming Political Affairs, Peace, and Security Commissioner Bankole Adeoye should do the same at the AU. This is also an opportunity to tap the Gulf States, which have influence with all three countries and have no interest in a regional conflagration near their doorstep.

Fourth, the prime minister should reopen a dialogue with the country’s regional administration, political parties, and disparate ethnic communities to recommit to an inclusive and tolerant Ethiopia. While the crisis in Tigray requires urgent attention, the root of the problem is considerably deeper and affects all of Ethiopia. A two-sided conversation between Abiy’s government and the TPLF is insufficient.

Fifth, it is imperative to link the aforementioned dialogue to the election process. The dispute between the federal government and Tigray intensified following the region’s decision to hold unilateral local elections. If the prime minister follows through with his plan to hold an election in June, the vote is unlikely to be credible or free and fair when there is fighting in Tigray, millions of people are displaced, and top opposition leaders are under arrest.

The international community should be wary of pressing for and funding an election without renewed support from key actors and access to the ballot box across the country.

Ethiopia’s descent into violence is a stain on the world’s conscience. The international community must not applaud Ethiopia for its promise and recoil when urgent action is required to prevent its implosion. This is Washington’s chance to show that the last four years of isolationism and callous indifference to conflicts abroad was an aberration. It will not be easy to salve what ails Ethiopia, but it will be catastrophic if global powers and regional leaders do not try.

 

Ethiopia: Eritrean Forces Massacre Tigray Civilians – HRW

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HRW | UN Should Urgently Investigate Atrocities by All Parties

(Nairobi) – Eritrean armed forces massacred scores of civilians, including children as young as 13, in the historic town of Axum in Ethiopia’s Tigray region in November 2020, Human Rights Watch said today. The United Nations should urgently establish an independent inquiry into war crimes and possible crimes against humanity in the region to pave the way for accountability, and Ethiopian authorities should grant it full and immediate access.

On November 19, Ethiopian and Eritrean forces indiscriminately shelled Axum, killing and wounding civilians. For a week after taking control of the town, the forces shot civilians and pillaged and destroyed property, including healthcare facilities. After Tigray militia and Axum residents attacked Eritrean forces on November 28, Eritrean forces, in apparent retaliation, fatally shot and summarily executed several hundred residents, mostly men and boys, over a 24-hour period.

“Eritrean troops committed heinous killings in Axum with wanton disregard for civilian lives,” said Laetitia Bader, Horn of Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “Ethiopian and Eritrean officials can no longer hide behind a curtain of denial, but should allow space for justice and redress, not add to the layers of trauma that survivors already face.”

The attacks in Axum followed weeks of fighting between the Ethiopian military and allied forces from the Amhara region and Eritrean troops against forces affiliated with the region’s former ruling party, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front.

Between December 2020 and February 2021, Human Rights Watch interviewed by phone 28 witnesses and victims of abuses and their relatives in Axum and examined videos of attacks and their aftermath.

Survivors consistently identified Eritrean troops by the vehicles bearing Eritrean license plates, their distinctive uniforms, the spoken dialect of Tigrinya, and their plastic “congo” shoes, worn by Eritrean forces since the liberation struggle.

On November 19, after Tigrayan forces and militia withdrew from Axum, Ethiopian and Eritrean forces began shelling the town around 4 p.m., continuing into the evening. The next day, witnesses saw Ethiopian and Eritrean forces indiscriminately shoot at civilians, including in the town’s Saint Mary’s hospital.

For about a week, the military forces pillaged. While several residents who spoke to Human Rights Watch saw Ethiopian forces participate, most said the soldiers just stood by and watched. “It was painful,” said one man. “I thought the Ethiopian military stood for Ethiopia and its people… but they did nothing as Eritrean forces looted and killed. They just kept silent.”

The abuses generated considerable anger in the town. On November 28, after 7 a.m., a group of Tigrayan militia and town residents attacked Eritrean forces, triggering fighting. That afternoon, Eritrean reinforcements entered Axum and went on a 24-hour killing spree.

Survivors described the horror of Eritrean soldiers moving through the town, going house to house, searching for young men and boys, and executing them. A student described watching helplessly as Eritrean soldiers led six neighbors, including a 17-year-old the witness knew as “Jambo” and another young man, outside. He said: “They made them take off their belts, then their shoes. They lined them up and walked behind them. The Eritrean soldiers fired their guns. The first three then fell. They fired other shots, and the other three fell.”

Eritrean troops shot other civilians on the street. “A group of soldiers killed a man and then forced a pregnant woman and two children that were with him to kneel on the asphalt street beside his body,” said one witness.

Those retrieving bodies for burial did not escape harm. Several residents said Eritrean forces shot at them while they tried to collect the dead on November 28 and 29.

The massacre left the town’s inhabitants reeling. One man visited a relative who lost her children in the house-to-house killings: “They killed her children and locked the compound door behind them, so no one could get in at first. She was left alone with the bodies of her two dead children for a day and a half. She was numb, unresponsive by the time we saw her.”

Human Rights Watch was unable to determine the number of civilian deaths resulting from the joint Ethiopian-Eritrean offensive on Axum and the ensuing massacre. However, based on interviews with elders, community members collecting identification cards of those killed, and those assisting the retrieval of the dead, Human Rights Watch estimates that over 200 civilians were most likely killed on November 28-29 alone. Human Rights Watch also received a list of 166 names of victims allegedly killed in Axum in November, 21 of which correspond to the names of those killed on November 28 and 29 given by witnesses interviewed.

International humanitarian law, or the laws of war, applicable to the armed conflict in Ethiopia’s Tigray region, prohibits deliberate attacks on civilians and attacks that are indiscriminate or cause disproportionate civilian harm. Indiscriminate attacks strike military objectives and civilians or civilian objects without distinction, including those not directed at a specific military target. The laws of war also prohibit all violence against captured combatants and civilians, including murder and torture. Pillage and looting are also prohibited. Individuals who commit serious laws-of-war violations with criminal intent, including as a matter of command responsibility, are liable for war crimes.

Crimes against humanity include murder and other unlawful acts committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack on a civilian population.

The late November attacks were documented by media organizations, as well as by Amnesty International. The Ethiopian Human Rights Commission has also begun investigations. Human Rights Watch provided its findings to Ethiopian and Eritrean government officials on February 18 but received no response. On February 26, the Ethiopian government announced it would thoroughly investigate events in Axum and expressed “readiness to collaborate with international human rights experts.”

While the lack of access to conflict areas has hindered reporting on the conflict, Human Rights Watch and others have reported on other massacres, the indiscriminate shelling of towns, widespread pillaging, including destruction of crops, and the apparent extrajudicial executions by Ethiopian and Eritrean forces, as well as forces from the neighboring Amhara region.

Given the presence of multiple armed forces and groups and the poor track record of the warring parties in investigating grave abuses, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) should conduct an urgent, independent inquiry focused on establishing the facts, collecting forensic and other criminal evidence, and investigating war crimes and possible crimes against humanity in Axum and elsewhere, Human Rights Watch said.

“Condemnations are not enough to bring justice to the victims of grave abuses committed by both Ethiopian and Eritrean forces in Tigray,” Bader said. “Attention and action by UN member states is needed now to ensure those responsible for these grave abuses are held accountable. So far, reports of these chilling abuses have been met by shameful silence.”

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9 Things To Know About The Unfolding Crisis In Ethiopia’s Tigray Region

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NPR | For months, a conflict in Ethiopia between the government in Addis Ababa and a defiant region has cost thousands of lives and displaced at least a million people.

Despite the increasing brutality of the conflict in Tigray, until now, it has been largely overlooked by the outside world. But attention and concern is growing with news of alleged atrocities and a worsening refugee crisis.

We’ve put together nine things you should know about the situation in the Horn of Africa.

Where is Tigray and what is going on there?

Tigray is Ethiopia’s northernmost region. Bordering Eritrea, it is home to most of the country’s estimated 7 million ethnic Tigrayans. The ethnic group, which accounts for about 6% of Ethiopia’s population, have had an outsized influence in national affairs.

In early November, the regional government — controlled by the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, a leftist political party — launched a full-scale siege of a key Ethiopian military base at Sero, using tanks, heavy guns and mortars.

Calling the TPLF assault a “treason that will never be forgotten,” Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed ordered a federal offensive against the region, setting off the conflict.

How bad is the humanitarian crisis?

Bad. But the scope of the problem is still unclear. The United Nations says the humanitarian community has been largely unable to get outside the major cities, such as the regional capital of Mekele, to see what’s happening in the countryside.

So far, the conflict has killed thousands of people, many of whom allegedly died as a result of indiscriminate shelling of cities in Tigray by Ethiopian forces. A local official told Reuters in January that more than two million people have been displaced by fighting, far exceeding previous estimates. The conflict also threatens a regional humanitarian disaster.

In January, the U.N. refugee agency said some 56,000 people had fled the fighting in Tigray, many of whom have ended up in neighboring Sudan.

Last month, The New York Times published a story citing an internal U.S. government report that described a systematic campaign of ethnic cleansing in Tigray.

Fighters supporting Addis Ababa’s side in the conflict were “deliberately and efficiently rendering Western Tigray ethnically homogeneous through the organized use of force and intimidation,” the Times quoted from the report, which also said that, “Whole villages were severely damaged or completely erased.”

What is the Tigray People’s Liberation Front?

The TPLF originally formed in the 1970s to push for Tigrayan self-determination, a goal it later moved away from. In a remarkable twist, it eventually found itself at the center of national politics. It became the dominant player in a coalition of ethnic political parties known as the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front, or EPRDF, which led Ethiopia’s government for nearly three decades.

Abiy came to power in 2018 as the head of the EPRDF. But a year later, he dissolved the party, saying he hoped to put the party’s history of ethnic divisiveness behind it. Instead, Abiy sought to fold the EPRDF’s constituents into a new political party. But the TPLF refused to go along, instead retreating to its power base in Tigray, where it enjoys widespread support.

What led up to the current conflict?

After it was sidelined at the national level, the TPLF was accused by Abiy’s government of seeking to destabilize Ethiopia by orchestrating ethnic violence across the country.

Abiy had promised to hold the country’s first truly democratic elections last summer. However, citing the COVID-19 pandemic, he postponed them.

The TPLF said that delaying the vote amounted to an unconstitutional extension of Abiy’s presidential term. The group then held its own regional elections anyway, claiming a decisive win. Abiy’s government subsequently declared the Tigray elections invalid.

The two sides called each other illegitimate in the lead-up to the TPLF attack on the Sero base. In response, the government sent the Ethiopian National Defense Forces, backed by soldiers from the Amhara region, which borders Tigray.

Who has the upper hand in the fighting?

After fighting commenced in November, the Ethiopian National Defense Forces quickly captured many of Tigray’s main cities, including the regional capital, Mekele, with approximately a half-million people. Abiy declared the main phase of the conflict over; however, the TPLF still controls large swaths of Tigray. Ethiopia has said it is waging a “final offensive” against the group.

What role has Eritrea played?

Eritrea, which was once part of Ethiopia, fought and won a brutal, decades-long war of independence that ended in 1991. The two countries went to war again in 1998 in a territorial conflict that ended inconclusively in 2000, claiming an estimated 100,000 lives.

However, shortly after taking office, Abiy reached out to Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki, and the two forged a historic peace accord aimed at putting the countries’ mutual enmity in the past. Abiy won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019 for his efforts to resolve the long-standing conflict.

Abiy appears to have won a staunch ally in Isaias. Eritrean forces are reportedly engaged in the Tigray fight, backing Ethiopia. The Associated Press reported that Eritrean soldiers were involved in a massacre of civilians in the town of Axum in the early days of the conflict. Amnesty International has also blamed Eritrea for the mass killing at Axum. Eritrean forces also reportedly carried out a similar attack on civilians at a church in the Tigrayan town of Dengelat.

Both governments have denied that Eritrean troops are even in Ethiopia. In an interview with state media last month, Isaias didn’t comment on the presence of Eritrean forces in Tigray, but he appeared to hint at it. He expressed concern over the Tigray situation and said Eritrea was “trying our level best” to help Ethiopia “in accordance to our obligation,” the BBC reported.

Abiy, speaking to parliament in November, called the Eritrean people “our brothers,” and friends “who stood by our side on a tough day.”

What does the U.N. say?

The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet, has asked Ethiopia for access to Tigray to investigate possible war crimes there, after reports of extrajudicial killings and sexual violence.

Bachelet says her office has verified some atrocities in Tigray, including ones committed by Eritrean forces, as well as the “indiscriminate shelling in Mekele, Humera and Adigrat towns in Tigray region.”

What has the U.S. said?

The Biden administration describes the situation in Tigray as “a deepening humanitarian crisis.”

Secretary of State Antony Blinken, citing “credible reports” of human rights abuses, has pressed Addis Ababa to end the conflict, State Department spokesperson Ned Price said.

“The secretary urged the Ethiopian government to take immediate, concrete steps to protect civilians, including refugees, and to prevent further violence,” he said in a statement.

The Biden administration has repeatedly called for the immediate withdrawal of Eritrean soldiers and Amhara regional forces. It has also asked for the African Union to help resolve the crisis.

Echoing comments made by Blinken, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., said “The onus to prevent further atrocities and human suffering falls squarely on the Ethiopian government shoulders.”

“We urge the Ethiopian government to support an immediate end to the fighting in Tigray,” she said. “To that end, the prompt withdrawal of Eritrean forces and Amhara regional forces from Tigray are essential steps, and we urge the broader region to work fast and together toward a peaceful solution.”

What is at stake in the conflict?

With the apparent involvement of Eritrea, and a flood of refugees into Sudan, the situation threatens to become both a wider conflict and a deepening humanitarian crisis in a part of the world that has seen more than its share of human misery in recent decades.

For Abiy, the Nobel laureate, and Eritrea’s Isaias, their reputations as peacemakers have taken a severe hit. Allegations of atrocities and possible war crimes could effectively end whatever international good will they enjoyed.

Meanwhile, for President Biden, the conflict could prove a difficult balancing act.

On the one hand, the Biden administration has shown an eagerness to reassert the U.S.’s role as an international champion of human rights, after such considerations took a back seat under former President Donald Trump.

But by shunning Addis Ababa, the administration would risk decades of close U.S.-Ethiopia ties and cooperation in fighting regional terrorism. Since the end of its conflicts with Eritrea, Ethiopia has played a stabilizing role in the Horn of Africa region — most notably making up the backbone of the African Union Mission in Somalia, where peacekeeping forces have sought to tamp down a resurgence of the Islamist insurgent group al-Shabab.

Ethiopia: Persistent, credible reports of grave violations in Tigray underscore urgent need for human rights access – Bachelet 

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OHCHR | GENEVA (4 March 2021) – UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet on Thursday stressed the urgent need for an objective, independent assessment of the facts on the ground in the Tigray region of Ethiopia, given the persistent reports of serious human rights violations and abuses she continues to receive.

“Deeply distressing reports of sexual and gender-based violence, extrajudicial killings, widespread destruction and looting of public and private property by all parties continue to be shared with us, as well as reports of continued fighting in central Tigray in particular,” Bachelet said. “Credible information also continues to emerge about serious violations of international human rights law and humanitarian law by all parties to the conflict in Tigray in November last year.”

“Without prompt, impartial and transparent investigations and holding those responsible accountable, I fear violations will continue to be committed with impunity, and the situation will remain volatile for a long time to come.”

The UN Human Rights Office has been receiving information about ongoing fighting across the region, particularly in the centre of Tigray region, as well as incidents of looting by various armed actors. Reliable sources have shared information about the killing of eight protestors by security forces between 9 and 10 February in Adigrat, Mekelle, Shire and Wukro. More than 136 cases of rape have also been reported in hospitals in Mekelle, Ayder, Adigrat and Wukro in the east of Tigray region between December and January, with indications that there are many more such unreported cases. The Government has said investigations are under way into the cases of sexual violence.

The Office has also managed to corroborate information about some of the incidents that occurred in November last year, indicating indiscriminate shelling in Mekelle, Humera and Adigrat towns in Tigray region, and reports of grave human rights violations and abuses including mass killings in Axum, and in Dengelat in central Tigray by Eritrean armed forces.

A preliminary analysis of the information received indicates that serious violations of international law, possibly amounting to war crimes and crimes against humanity, may have been committed by multiple actors in the conflict, including: the Ethiopian National Defence Forces, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, Eritrean armed forces, and Amhara Regional Forces and affiliated militia.

“With multiple actors in the conflict, blanket denials and finger-pointing, there is a clear need for an objective, independent assessment of these reports – victims and survivors of these violations must not be denied their rights to the truth and to justice. We urge the Government of Ethiopia to grant my Office and other independent monitors access to the Tigray region, with a view to establishing the facts and contributing to accountability, regardless of the affiliation of perpetrators,” Bachelet said.

Bachelet also expressed concern at detentions this week in Tigray of journalists and translators working for local and international media. While the journalists have now been released, there have been worrying remarks by a Government official that those responsible for “misleading international media” would be held responsible.

“Victims and witnesses of human rights violations and abuses must not be hindered from sharing their testimony for fear of reprisals,” the High Commissioner said.

Bachelet welcomed recent statements by the Government on accountability and measures taken on access for humanitarian actors. She urged the authorities to ensure that those commitments are translated into reality, and stressed that the UN Human Rights Office stands ready to support efforts at advancing human rights, including efforts by the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission aimed at ensuring accountability.

For more information and media requests, please contact:
Rupert Colville + 41 22 917 9767 / rcolville@ohchr.org or
Ravina Shamdasani – + 41 22 917 9169 / rshamdasani@ohchr.orgor
Liz Throssell + 41 22 917 9296 / ethrossell@ohchr.org or
Marta Hurtado – + 41 22 917 9466 / mhurtado@ohchr.org

World Bank concerns about ‘unrest in Ethiopia’

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Anadolu Agency | It would engage with relevant officials ‘to safeguard the rights and interests of all Ethiopians,’ says World Bank Group-

The World Bank Group (WBG) on Friday expressed “great concern” about unrest in Ethiopia, saying the situation would undermine economic and social development outcomes achieved in the African nation in recent years.

“Ethiopia is currently facing challenging times and the World Bank Group is keenly following the latest developments in the country. The unrest in Ethiopia is unfortunate and of great concern,” it said in a statement. “The World Bank does not have the mandate to get involved in the internal governance issues of its member states. However, human rights principles are prominently embedded in our Environmental and Social Framework through explicit requirements for nondiscrimination, meaningful consultation, effective public participation, property rights, accountability, transparency and good governance.”

It said as a member of the Development Assistance Group, it would keep engaging in dialogue with relevant Ethiopian authorities “to safeguard the rights and interests of all Ethiopians.”

The Tigray region has been the scene of fighting since November when Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed announced military operations against the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), who he accused of attacking federal army camps.

Government troops took control of the regional capital, Mekele, in late November, but the TPLF vowed to fight, and clashes have persisted in the Horn of Africa country, hampering efforts to deliver humanitarian aid.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet said on Thursday that her office received information about ongoing fighting across the region, particularly in the center of Tigray region, as well as incidents of looting by “various armed actors.”

Bachelet’s office said it has information about the killing of eight protestors by security forces on Feb. 9-10 in Adigrat, Mekelle, Shire and Wukro.

More than 136 cases of rape have also been reported in hospitals in Mekelle, Ayder, Adigrat and Wukro in the eastern Tigray region between December and January, said the office.

Washington’s United Nations Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield, said on Thursday that the US has deployed a disaster assistance response team to Ethiopia to bolster the humanitarian response, “and our hope is that others will join us in this urgent, necessary life-saving effort.”

Brookings – Investigations into The Deteriorating Situation in Ethiopia Continue

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Brookings | On Thursday, March 4, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet called for an independent assessment amid reports of a quickly deteriorating situation for human rights in the conflict in the Tigray region of Ethiopia this year. Justifying the probe, Bachelet said, “Deeply distressing reports of sexual and gender-based violence, extrajudicial killings, widespread destruction and looting of public and private property by all parties continue to be shared with us, as well as reports of continued fighting in central Tigray in particular. … Credible information also continues to emerge about serious violations of international human rights law and humanitarian law by all parties to the conflict in Tigray in November last year.”

On March 3, the government of Ethiopia announced an investigation into an alleged massacre of several hundred people in the city of Axum last November, reversing a firm denial issued just a few days before. The presence of Eritrean troops in Tigray is disputed by the Ethiopian government, though even government-appointed interim Tigray leaders confirmed their presence back in January.

In February, the Eritrean government had rejected a story about the incidents in Tigray reported by the Associated Press as “outrageous lies.” In late February, Amnesty International firmly disputed that account, stating, “The evidence is compelling and points to a chilling conclusion. Ethiopian and Eritrean troops carried out multiple war crimes in their offensive to take control of Axum. Above and beyond that, Eritrean troops went on a rampage and systematically killed hundreds of civilians in cold blood, which appears to constitute crimes against humanity.” Around the same time, the independent Ethiopian Human Rights Commission stated that its preliminary investigations had similarly confirmed lootings and sexual violence in the region.

New U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s call this week for Ethiopian troops to withdraw from Tigray was rejected by the Ethiopian government. The situation has increasingly drawn attention from the new Biden administration: In February, Blinken called on the African Union to investigate the allegations. Around the same time, The New York Times reported that an internal U.S. government report says that the Ethiopian government has engaged in “a systematic campaign of ethnic cleansing” in Tigray.

For more on the complex crisis unfolding in Ethiopia, see the November 2020 event, “Crisis in Ethiopia and its regional repercussions,” as well as Zach Vertin’s Brookings blog, “Averting civil war in Ethiopia: It’s time to propose elements of a negotiated settlement.”

UN rights chief alarmed at abuses in restive Tigray

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Anadolu Agency | Urging urgent assessment, Michelle Bachelet cites ‘distressing reports of sexual violence, looting’ in Ethiopian region

Expressing concern over persistent reports of serious human rights violations and abuses in Ethiopia’s Tigray region, the UN human rights chief said Thursday there is an urgent need for an objective and independent assessment of facts on the ground.

Michelle Bachelet, the high commissioner for human rights, said her office had received information about ongoing fighting across the region, particularly in the center of Tigray region, as well as incidents of looting by “various armed actors.”

“Deeply distressing reports of sexual and gender-based violence, extrajudicial killings, widespread destruction and looting of public and private property by all parties continue to be shared with us, as well as reports of continued fighting in central Tigray in particular,” said Bachelet in a statement.

“Credible information also continues to emerge about serious violations of international human rights law and humanitarian law by all parties to the conflict in Tigray in November last year.”

She said that without prompt, impartial, and transparent investigations and holding those responsible accountable, she feared violations would continue “with impunity,” and the situation will remain volatile for a long time.

The rights office said it has information about the killing of eight protestors by security forces on Feb. 9-10 in Adigrat, Mekelle, Shire, and Wukro.

Sexual violence

More than 136 cases of rape have also been reported in hospitals in Mekelle, Ayder, Adigrat, and Wukro in the east of the Tigray region between December and January, said the office.

It said there are indications that there are many more such unreported cases.

“The government has said investigations are underway into the cases of sexual violence,” said the rights office, adding it had information about indiscriminate shelling in the Tigray towns of Mekelle, Humera, and Adigrat in November.

It also had reports of grave human rights violations and abuses, including mass killings by armed forces from the neighboring country of Eritrea in Axum and Dengelat in central Tigray.

“A preliminary analysis of the information received indicates that serious violations of international law, possibly amounting to war crimes and crimes against humanity, may have been committed by multiple actors in the conflict,” said the office.

These include the Ethiopian National Defense Forces, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, Eritrean armed forces, and Amhara regional forces and affiliated militia.

“With multiple actors in the conflict, blanket denials, and finger-pointing, there is a clear need for an objective, independent assessment of these reports – victims and survivors of these violations must not be denied their rights to the truth and justice,” said Bachelet.

“We urge the government of Ethiopia to grant my office, and other independent monitors access to the Tigray region, with a view to establishing the facts and contributing to accountability, regardless of the affiliation of perpetrators,” she said.

Threat to journalists

The UN rights chief also expressed concern at detentions this week in Tigray of journalists and translators working for local and international media.

While the journalists have been released, the office said there have been worrying remarks by a government official that those responsible for “misleading international media” would be held accountable.

The Tigray region has been the scene of fighting since November when Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed announced military operations against the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), who he accused of attacking federal army camps.

Government troops took control of the regional capital, Mekele, in late November, but the TPLF vowed to fight, and clashes have persisted in the Horn of Africa country, hampering efforts to deliver humanitarian aid.

 

CNN: UN rights chief says war crimes may have been committed in Ethiopia after CNN reveals Tigray massacre

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CNN | The UN’s high commissioner for human rights has called for an independent investigation into human rights violations that may amount to war crimes in Ethiopia’s Tigray region, days after CNN published an exclusive report about a massacre in a village there.

On Thursday, Michelle Bachelet said there was a need for an “independent, objective assessment” of the situation on the ground in Tigray, given the “deeply distressing reports of sexual and gender-based violence, extrajudicial killings, widespread destruction and looting of public and private property by all parties.”

“Credible information also continues to emerge about serious violations of international human rights law and humanitarian law by all parties to the conflict in Tigray in November last year,” Bachelet added.

A CNN investigation published on Friday revealed a massacre which took place during a religious festival in the town of Dengelat late last year. Eyewitnesses told CNN that a group of Eritrean soldiers opened fire at church whilst mass was underway, claiming the lives of priests, women, entire families and a group of more than 20 Sunday school children.

The UN Human Rights Office said it had “managed to corroborate information” about the massacre in Dengelat, along with other incidents including indiscriminate shelling in Mekelle, Humera and Adigrat.

“A preliminary analysis of the information received indicates that serious violations of international law, possibly amounting to war crimes and crimes against humanity, may have been committed by multiple actors in the conflict, including: the Ethiopian National Defence Forces, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, Eritrean armed forces, and Amhara Regional Forces and affiliated militia,” Bachelet’s office said in a statement.

Amnesty International charged in a report Friday that Eritrean forces killed hundreds of unarmed civilians in the city of Axum in November through indiscriminate shelling and shooting and extrajudicial killings, in what the human rights organization said could amount to a crime against humanity.

Eritrea’s government denied involvement in the atrocities reported by Amnesty, but has yet to respond to CNN’s request for comment in relation to the Dengelat massacre.

Thousands of civilians are believed to have been killed since Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed launched a military operation against leaders in the Tigray region. CNN has previously reported that soldiers from neighboring Eritrea have perpetrated many of the extrajudicial killings, assaults and human rights abuses in the Tigray region.

More recently, the UN Human Rights Office said it had received reliable information from sources regarding the killing of eight protesters by security forces between February 9 and 10 in Adigrat, Mekelle, Shire and Wukro.

More than 130 cases of rape have also been reported in eastern region hospitals in Mekelle, Ayder, Adigrat and Wukro between December and January, the UN statement said.

Bachelet called on the Ethiopian government to “grant my Office and other independent monitors access to the Tigray region, with a view to establishing the facts and contributing to accountability, regardless of the affiliation of perpetrators.”

Whilst welcoming statements by the Ethiopian government on accountability, Bachelet “urged the authorities to ensure that those commitments are translated into reality and stressed that the UN Human Rights Office stands ready to support efforts at advancing human rights.”

Amnesty International joined Bachelet’s call for an independent investigation on Thursday.

“The UN High Commissioner’s statement today underscores the gravity of the alleged crimes being committed by all sides in the Tigray conflict, and the urgency of the UN acting now,” Sarah Jackson, Amnesty’s deputy regional director for East Africa, the Horn, and the Great Lakes, said in a statement.

“Given the complexity and gravity of the situation, a UN-led investigation, rather than a joint investigation with Ethiopian institutions, is urgently needed to establish the truth and lay the foundations for accountability. There is no time to lose — work on this must begin now, before evidence could be destroyed and memories begin to fade.”

US Secretary of State Tony Blinken spoke Tuesday with Abiy “to emphasize the United States’ concern about the humanitarian and human rights crisis in Ethiopia’s Tigray region,” the State Department said.

In response to CNN’s investigation, Ethiopia’s government said it would “continue bringing all perpetrators to justice following thorough investigations into alleged crimes in the region,” but gave no details about those investigations

FP – From Pariah to Kingmaker

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Foreign Policy | Eritrea’s Isaias Afwerki is fueling bloodshed in Tigray—and offering other regional leaders lessons in authoritarianism.

BY Alex de Waal  | March 3, 2021

After months of bloodshed in Tigray, a region of Ethiopia claiming the right of self-determination, the United States is ramping up pressure to end hostilities, protect civilians, facilitate an independent investigation of atrocities, and permit humanitarian access to starving populations. In a call to Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Ali on March 2, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken repeated his call for the immediate withdrawal of all Eritrean troops from Tigray that are operating there as part of the Ethiopian effort to quash the rebellion. This last point is emerging as a central demand, since most of the crimes in Tigray documented by journalists and human rights groups were carried out by Eritrean forces.

These atrocities are ongoing. On March 1, leading Tigrayan scholar Mulugeta Gebrehiwot, in a rare phone call from the mountains, described how Eritrean troops had razed villages, cut down mango orchards, destroyed irrigation systems, and slaughtered dozens of people from young children to grandparents in the town of Samre and the villages of Gijet, Adeba, and Tseada Sare in recent days. “Famine is coming,” he said. We should heed Mulugeta’s warning: Action now is essential to stop further crimes and a vast humanitarian catastrophe.

Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki rules a tiny nation of 3.5 million people, with a GDP of $2 billion as of 2018. But the country’s military is vast; its army has an astonishing 200,000 people, most of them enrolled in compulsory and indefinite national service on reaching eleventh grade. Eritrea doesn’t publish a budget, but an estimated 20 percent of the country’s GDP is spent on the military as well as an undisclosed sum on Isaias’s much-feared national security and intelligence services.

Several recent reports make clear just what Eritrean security and military forces are capable of. Over the last week, three different reports attributed atrocity crimes in the war in Tigray to Eritrean forces. Amnesty International documented a November 2020 massacre in a cathedral in Axum, where hundreds of civilians were slaughtered. CNN compiled and cross-checked reports of a mass killing at a monastery called Maryam Dengelat, where more than 100 people died. And VICE World News matched satellite photos of destroyed villages with eyewitness accounts to detail other atrocities.

And the fighting, burning, and forced starvations continue. Last week, satellite imagery showed at least 508 buildings burning in and around the town of Gijet in southern Tigray. This is close to the area where Tigray’s defense forces destroyed an Ethiopian armored division two weeks earlier, and in phone calls to me from the area, Tigrayans reported five Eritrean divisions—about 10,000 soldiers with tanks backed by both Ethiopian and Eritrean combat aircraft—converging on the area conducting what they called a “scorched earth” operation.

In July 2018, when Abiy flew to the Eritrean capital, Asmara, to sign a long-overdue peace agreement between the two countries, citizens of both countries hoped the occasion would push Isaias to at last begin to demobilize his army; redirect his national budget to spending on health, education, and development; and liberalize his politics. None of that happened. It’s now clear that Isaias saw the peace deal as a security pact with Ethiopia to eliminate the Tigray People’s Liberation Front’s (TPLF) leadership, which is leading the uprising in Ethiopia—and inflict such damage on the Tigrayan people that they could never again challenge either country.

Isaias’s animosity to the TPLF dates back to a dispute between him and TPLF leaders, then-Ethiopia’s leaders, which led to a border war in 1998 that he lost. The Ethiopian army under the TPLF didn’t march all the way to Asmara and impose regime change, but it might as well have.

In the wake of defeat, Eritreans themselves clamored for change: First, a group of democracy activists petitioned for reform, and then 15 of the most senior Eritrean politicians—known as the G-15—followed suit. In the brief “Asmara Spring” of 2001, an independent press flourished, and Eritreans demanded that all freedoms promised after the country’s independence eight years earlier—and contained in the new constitution finalized in 1997 but never adopted—should be realized.

The G-15 included Isaias’s oldest comrades-in-arms and all heroes of the war for independence, including former foreign ministers and defense ministers and some of the founders of the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front. Likely feeling encircled, Isaias’s response to demands for reform was to clamp down. On Sept. 18 and 19, 2001, he arrested 11 of the G-15 and consigned them to literal oblivion; they have not been seen or heard from since. Neither have Eritreans seen or heard of their cherished constitution and freedoms. Instead, all independent media were closed, journalists were imprisoned, and religious freedoms were circumscribed. Compulsory national service for all school leavers was introduced.

To divert attention from his own military adventurism and growing authoritarianism, Isaias tried to blame his nation’s ills on Ethiopia—and especially the TPLF. And he supported any opposition group ready to wage war against Ethiopia, including Somali jihadists. That last venture prompted a fierce U.S.-led backlash that included placing the country under sanctions in 2007 before lifting them in 2018.

In all this, Isaias did have one legitimate complaint. The peace deal that ended the 1998-2000 war between TPLF-led Ethiopia and Eritrea set up an independent boundary commission, and that commission awarded a small but symbolic piece of land—the village of Badme—to Eritrea. A dispute over Badme had been the spark for the war, but Ethiopians repeatedly stalled on implementing the decision. On that single grievance, Isaias kept his people in a state of emergency, mobilized against Ethiopia, and cultivated a national paranoia, schooling Eritreans in the view that both Ethiopia and the entire world were conspiring against them.

Young Eritreans fled abroad rather than endure military service or the hopelessness of life in a police state with a stagnating economy. The country is one of the world’s largest generators of refugees proportionate to its size. Only a (mostly illegal) tax on diaspora Eritreans plus royalties from cobalt, gold, and potash mining kept the country afloat—until the conflict in nearby Yemen offered a lifeline. Eritrea’s Red Sea coast suddenly became a strategic asset, and Isaias leased out the port and airbase at Assab to the United Arab Emirates to use as a forward base. That not only brought in much-needed cash but also a political opening to the Gulf states.

It’s notable that when Isaias and Abiy signed their peace deal in 2018, they didn’t attend the African Union summit—even though the continental organization was the official custodian of the treaty, signed under its auspices in Algiers. Instead, they flew to Abu Dhabi, UAE and then to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Eritrea was becoming a willing junior partner in the transactional politics of the Arabian peninsula, sidelining the African Union and its carefully crafted peace and security architecture.

More remarkable has been Isaias’s emergence as kingmaker in the Horn of Africa.

More remarkable has been Isaias’s emergence as kingmaker in the Horn of Africa.

He has been shrewdly offering two things to the region’s insecure rulers. One is practical advice on political survival against the odds—specifically, how to face international pressure to democratize. The other is a model of military training that transforms high school students into obedient fighting machines.

In this regard, Eritrea is now the senior partner in the Ethiopian war in Tigray. Eritrean troops are also reported to be stationed in al-Fashqa, the disputed border area between Ethiopia and Sudan—quietly exacerbating the conflict between those two countries. Isaias is confidante and supporter of Somali President Mohamed Abdullahi, commonly known as Farmaajo. In February, political crisis in Somalia intensified as Farmaajo’s presidential term expired without either an election or an agreement with the opposition on how to handle the interregnum. Farmaajo is determined to hang on, and on one occasion, his forces fired into a crowd of peaceful demonstrators. Worryingly, Somali special forces trained in Eritrea were flown back to Mogadishu last month.

Isaias is constructing a three-cornered axis of autocracy in the Horn of Africa with him as its leader and Abiy and Farmaajo as junior partners.

Isaias’s public relations strategy is simple. He says as little as possible. Four months after the war erupted in Tigray, he hasn’t told the Eritrean people that as much as half of the country’s army is currently conducting operations inside Ethiopia. In fact, he has made just one public statement: a long speech disguised as an interview in which he covered world affairs but said only that Eritrea was “fulfilling its responsibilities” with respect to Ethiopia. He has said nothing about his war aims, but decades of unremitting ruthlessness tell their own story.

Alex de Waal is the executive director of the World Peace Foundation and a research professor at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.

Secretary Blinken’s Call with Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy

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READOUT | OFFICE OF THE SPOKESPERSON | MARCH 2, 2021

The below is attributable to Spokesperson Ned Price:‎

Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken spoke today with Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed to emphasize the United States’ concern about the humanitarian and human rights crisis in Ethiopia’s Tigray region.  Noting the growing number of credible reports of atrocities and human rights violations and abuses, the Secretary urged the Ethiopian government to take immediate, concrete steps to protect civilians, including refugees, and to prevent further violence.  Secretary Blinken pressed for the immediate end to hostilities and the withdrawal of outside forces from Tigray, including Amhara regional security forces and Eritrean troops.  Secretary Blinken also asked that the Government of Ethiopia work with the international community to facilitate independent, international, and credible investigations into reported human rights abuses and violations and to hold those responsible accountable.  Secretary Blinken acknowledged Ethiopia’s recent announcement of full and unhindered humanitarian access in Tigray.  He stressed the need for the Government of Ethiopia to honor its commitments around access, reiterated that the United States remains ready to assist in resolving the conflict, and highlighted the United States’ commitment to provide life-saving humanitarian assistance to vulnerable populations throughout Ethiopia.