Ethiopia conflict escalates despite calls for ceasefire as US Embassy okays voluntary departure
By George Kalisa
Finally, the US Embassy in war ravaged Ethiopia has permitted the voluntary departure of non-emergency government workers, their families plus family members of non-emergency employees from the East African nation that has hosted an ethnic war since last November.
This has followed the escalation of violence in the Tigray region that has expanded lately to besiege the town of Kemise in Amhara State, just 325Kms from the capital, Addis Ababa.
On Wednesday, the United States echoed a call to the parties engaged in the war to stop fighting saying it was “gravely concerned”.
“The (State) Department authorized the voluntary departure of non-emergency U.S. government employees and family members of emergency and non-emergency employees from Ethiopia due to armed conflict, civil unrest, and possible supply shortages,” said a statement issued by the US Embassy.
Earlier, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Ms. Michelle Bachelet warned against pushing the Ethiopia’s Tigray region into a humanitarian crisis and called for an immediate ceasefire.
“All parties involved in the escalating conflict in Ethiopia’s Tigray must stop fighting immediately, or else risk pushing the region’s catastrophic humanitarian situation “over the edge”, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet said yesterday
“The risks are grave that, far from stabilising the situation, these extremely broad measures – which include sweeping powers of arrest and detention – will deepen divisions, endanger civil society and human rights defenders, provoke greater conflict and only add to the human suffering already at unacceptable levels,” Ms. Bachelet said.
“Civilians in Tigray have been subjected to brutal violence and suffering,” she told journalists in Geneva, at the launch of a report by her Office and the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission into the Tigray conflict. “The Joint Investigation Team uncovered numerous violations and abuses, including unlawful killings and extra-judicial executions, torture, sexual and gender-based violence, violations against refugees, and forced displacement of civilians.”
The escalating conflict in Ethiopia has been denounced by many regional bodies including the African Union. It has left tens of thousands of innocent Ethiopians displaced and facing famine-like situation, prompting the Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s government declare a state of emergency.
Human rights organisation have denounced shelling the Tigrayan capital and the arbitrary detentions, sexual and gender-based violence in this region.
[Additional reporting by George Kalisa]