Pasant Essam: The Ethiopian government denies addressing the humanitarian situation in Ethiopia

Milat Hapto: We demand the withdrawal of Eritrean forces from Ethiopia to start a serious dialogue to calm the situation

Vana Pillai: We demand that the Tigray Liberation Forces be removed from the list of designated terrorist organizations in Ethiopia

Suleiman Abdullah: We recommend humanitarian organizations to shed light on the violations carried out in Benishangul-Gumuz

 

Maat for Peace, Development and Human Rights organized a webinar entitled "Human Rights Violations in Ethiopia… Escalating Crisis and Limited Efforts", with the aim of providing a vision of the impact of the conflict on Ethiopia, and how these effects can be addressed and overcome, on the sidelines of its participation in the activities of the 71st session of the African Commission human and people’s rights.

The session was moderated by Pasant Essam El-Din, deputy director of the African Affairs and Sustainable Development Unit at Maat, who emphasized the suffering of more than one million Ethiopians due to the ongoing civil war, as a result of the damage to social and political life, while the Ethiopian government denies addressing these humanitarian conditions.

Millat Hapto, the representative of the Tigray Youth Network (TYN) in the United Kingdom, explained that the Tigrayans are subjected to humanitarian violations on various levels, including food insecurity. Since mid-December 2021, no humanitarian aid was delivered to the Tigrayans until April 2022. Although Tigray needs 4,675 tons of aid per week, only 3,400 tons were delivered from April 1-25. In addition, air transport was inefficient and failed to meet the needs.

The number of women raped by the Ethiopian-Eritrean forces and their allied forces reached over 120,000 women and girls, causing a sharp increase in the number of cases with sexually transmitted diseases, Hapto added. In addition, the Eritrean forces committed major crimes, including environmental crimes. They destroyed agricultural lands and occupied the city of Irob, western Tigray. The Eritrean forces are considered a major factor impeding the national dialogue. Milat Hapto recommended the necessity of depoliticizing humanitarian aid, and also calls on the peacekeeping forces of the African Union to deploy in the areas through which humanitarian aid passes to secure it, and also called for the Eritrean forces to leave Ethiopian territory, in order to start a serious dialogue to calm the situation.

Vana Pillai, a participant form the Tigray, pointed out that the people of Tigray have been subjected to a variety of economic and social violations, such as social profiling, the spread of mass graves, enforced disappearances, the ban on opening bank accounts in Tigray, as well as restrictions on the people’s business and the spread of hate speech through the media. Detention centers, she added, are overcrowded with thousands of detainees who are subject to rape and abuse in detention centers. There are more than 17,000 Tigray Liberation Forces detainees, including 16 pilots. Although these conditions have triggered a large number of citizens to flee their homes and seek refuge in neighboring countries, the refugees in Kenya and Djibouti were subjected to violations by Ethiopian Ethiopian forces and local citizens.

Finally, the human rights activist called on civil society organizations and humanitarian organizations to shed light on the violations carried out in the Benishangul-Gumuz area in order to uncover the facts and bring all perpetrators to justice.

"Abdullah" added, "We have more than 700 people detained in prisons without legal basis, and thousands of refugees on the Sudanese borders are suffering from hunger, poverty and lack of basic needs." Finally, the human rights activist called on civil society organizations and humanitarian organizations to shed light on the violations facing Benishangoul in order to uncover the facts and bring them justice.