A UN special advisor expressed deep concern over the escalating threat of genocide and its associated crimes in Ethiopia. UN Under-Secretary-General and Special Advisor on the Prevention of Genocide, Alice Wairimu Nderitu, drew attention to the unending tussles between government military forces and local militias, emphasizing the urgent need to address grave human rights violations including mass executions, sexual assault, and property destruction.
In the words of Nderitu, “The suffering of innocent civilians should never be accepted as inevitable; instead, it should enhance our commitment to ensure impunity doesn’t prevail, and all possible preventive actions are prioritized.”
Ethnic violence against Tigrayan citizens, including gang rapes and usage of derogatory language during attacks, was also highlighted by Nderitu. Additionally, she expressed concern about reports of Eritrean forces in Ethiopia and called for accountability actions against them.
The conflict, which originated from tensions between the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) and government forces in November 2020, resulted in a spate of horrific human rights violations and war crimes, including ethnic cleansing and militarized drone attacks. This violence ceased only in November 2022, when a Cessation of Hostilities Agreement (COHA) was signed by the warring parties.
However, the peace accord has had limited success, as evidenced by reports detailing multiple instances of sexual assaults on women in the Tigray region, typically perpetrated by several people. The Ethiopian Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has also reported a large number of civilians being injured and killed due to heavy artillery firing in the Amhara region.
In 2021, the UN created a body to investigate the human rights breaches in the Ethiopia-Tigray conflict, named the International Commission of Human Rights Experts on Ethiopia (ICHREE). On October 3, the ICHREE issued a statement warning of a “high risk of further atrocity crimes in the country.” They stated, “[O]ther armed actors continue to commit atrocities in parts of the Tigray region, key provisions of the ceasefire have not yet been implemented, and the national human rights situation has abruptly worsened.” Despite international appeals for the ICHREE’s mandate to be continued, its term ended earlier this month.
Nderitu stressed that Ethiopia has many potential triggers for genocide and other atrocities, and emphasized the critical need for regional and international communities to collaborate in order to halt the violence and mitigate its deleterious impacts.