Nairobi, Kenya (AP) – Ethiopia’s situation is “out of control with a devastating effect on civilians” and urgently needs to be monitored, the UN human rights chief warned on Wednesday, but Ethiopia is rejecting calls for an independent inquiry into its deadly fight. Saying, “He doesn’t need a baby sitter.”
The government’s announcement comes amid international demands for more transparency in the month-long battle. Ethiopian forces and fugitive Tigre regional government troops are believed to have killed thousands, including civilians. At least one large-scale massacre has been documented by human rights groups, and others are feared.
Senior government official Redwan Hussein told reporters Tuesday evening that Ethiopia would invite others to help if it appeared “it failed to investigate.” Assuming that the government would not be able to conduct such an inquiry, “the government is being threatened,” he said.
The Northern Tigris region is experiencing increasing frustration with being cut off from the outside world, with a population of 6 million people in dire need of food and medicine – 1 million of whom are now believed to be displaced.
Lack of transparency by cutting off most communication and transport links is a complex attempt to verify the claims of the warring parties.
On November 4, Prime Minister Abiya Ahmed announced that the fight had begun with the TPLF, which had dominated the Ethiopian government and military for almost three decades before coming to power. .
Every government is now outlawing the other, as the TPLF has been banned due to the Covid-19 epidemic. Objected to postponing the national election until next year and sees Abiya’s order coming to an end.
UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet said the situation was “extremely worrying and volatile” with reports of fighting continuing in the areas around the capital, Macaulay, and the towns of Tigre and Macau, “despite contradictory government claims.”
“We have accurately presented information on human rights violations and abuses, including indiscriminate attacks, robberies, kidnappings and sexual violence against civilians and civilian objects,” Bachelet told reporters. “There are reports of compulsory recruitment of Tigrian youth to fight their own communities.”
However, he said, with limited communication, “we are unable to enter the most affected areas.”
The Ethiopian government is pushing behind it, rather than calling it a tool of deep national pride, to “intervene”, to try to negotiate aid, to draw on its history of a rare African country never being a colony.
The government wants to manage aid distribution, and on Tuesday it said its forces shot and detained UN staff. When trying to reach areas that “didn’t have to go.”
The shooting incident is “really expensive” because it delays humanitarian operations in Tigre for people who have been waiting five weeks for help, UN humanitarian spokeswoman Siviano Abre told the Associated Press.
He said a six-member UN team, detained in Humera and released two days later, was first sent to Tigre and was conducting security assessments on roads previously agreed with the Ethiopian government. Such assessments are crucial before moving aid.
On security in particular, Abrey said: “We will now work out additional operational details with the government.
The shooting came a week after the UN and the government signed an approval deal Humanitarian use. The deal, in turn, allows aid only in areas under the control of the federal government.
The need for help is serious. Robert Mardini, director general of the International Committee for the Red Cross, told reporters on Tuesday that Mikel, a city of one and a half million people, is basically without medical care today. The city’s Eider Referral Hospital has run out of supplies, including fuel for power generation.
“Doctors and nurses are forced to make horrible life and death decisions,” Mardini said. “They have postponed intensive care services and are really struggling to get care like delivering children or providing dialysis treatment.”
A joint ICRC-Ethiopian Red Cross convoy with supplies for hundreds of injured people is ready to go to Macaulay, pending approval, he said. This will be the first international fleet to reach the city since the fighting began.
There is a risk of insecurity in the Tigris capital, there is no active fighting, Mardini said.
Overall, he said, “People in Tigre have been out of services for almost a month. They have no phone, no internet, no electricity and no fuel. Cash is happening. This of course increases stress. “
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AP reporters at the United Nations Edith M. Lederer and Nadine Achui-Lacej in Geneva contributed.
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