SJTE: Urgent Call for UN Security Council Resolution to Stop Genocide in Tigray, Ethiopia.

 Dear Members of the United Nations Security Council,

 

Subject:  Urgent Call for UN Security Council Resolution to Stop Genocide in Tigray, Ethiopia.

 

December 14, 2020

 

 

Your Excellencies,

 

Security and Justice for Tigrayan in Ethiopia (SJTE) is a world-wide non-profit humanitarian organization that advocates for the Ethiopians of Tigrayan origin.

 

Three weeks ago, we advised your esteemed body that ethnic Tigrayans in Ethiopia were facing targeted killings and imprisonment unleashed upon them by the unelected government of Prime Minster (PM) of Ethiopia, Abiy Ahmed Ali.

 

The savagery and degree of brutality against minority ethnic Tigrayans have become a human catastrophe as tens of thousands have been killed and maimed by the government. Ethnic profiling has continued unabated all over Ethiopia, and communication systems, electricity, water supply lines, and transportation remain closed all over Tigray since the Ethiopian PM declared war on November 03, 2020.

 

As we speak, there is continuous blanket bombing of civilian targets and cities in addition to the starvation of the population which are causing huge internal displacements. Villages and vast mountains of Tigray that host hundreds of historic churches and monasteries are not spared at all.  In some major cities and villages, air bombardment and artillery barrages and drone attacks continue without respite exacting a heavy toll on rural and urban population. The war crime is supported by the deployment of more than 500,000 combined troops, namely, the Federal Army of Ethiopia (estimated at 150,000), Eritrean Army (250,000 troops including mechanized and commandos), the failed state Somalia 3,000 troops as well as 120,000 government affiliated hostile militias from neighbouring Regional State of Amhara, Oromia, Somalia, and other Regions of Ethiopia and the use of advanced warfare drones by the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

 

The involvement of the Eritrean army in Tigray is now clear to this August body. It is also worth noting that the Eritrean army has been intensively engaged in war crimes of high magnitude by massacring the youth, attacking and raiding refugee camps in Tigray, raping women and children, destroying infrastructures, looting of many factories, and private businesses in large cities, properties of higher learning federal institutions, and livestock and grain crops of farmers and transported them all to Eritrea.

 

So far, the combined loss of livestock alone just from western Tigray is estimated at 2.5 million per reports coming from the Government of Tigray. The confiscation of the livestock is carried out mainly by the Amhara militias while the residents of western Tigray are subjected to massacre as witnessed in Mai Cadra and lately being forced to displace from their ancestral lands to central Tigray by the Amhara militias. Over 50,000 desperate refugees of mostly children and women have now crossed into the Sudan fleeing massacre.  Their homes have been vandalized, their properties looted and their relatives either killed or imprisoned.

 

Yet, despite all the calls for peace by various governments and international organizations, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has defied the world and continued to bomb the people of Tigray on a daily basis. Humanitarian workers working for United Nations have not been spared from Mr. Abiy’s killing machine, either. In many areas, the government has blocked food items from reaching the people creating a deliberate starvation resulting in deaths - famine.  This is serious human right abuse and a crime against humanity as stated in the United Nations Conventions should not be tolerated.

Your Excellencies,                                

 

Tigray is being attacked by its own federal government and external governments at the invitation of PM Abiy Ahmed of Ethiopia. Since November 15, 2020, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV’s) from United Arab Emirates (UAE) have joined the war in Tigray. Countless civilians are reported to have been injured or killed by drone warfare. We believe this is a breach of international law and crime against humanity.

 

Destruction of UNESCO heritage and historical sites aside, villages and towns such as Abi-Adi, Abergele, and Yechila have been uninterruptedly bombed for the last six days resulting heavy loss of lives. Reports of women raped in churches, an institution revered in Tigray culture, are extremely disturbing.

 

Contravening Rule 53, starvation is being used as a method of war by the Abiy government of Ethiopia.

The United Nations has a moral and legal obligation to stop this war.  Sanctions and travel bans should be imposed on the authorities and government that are leading this genocidal war on the people of Tigray.

 

The four main acts that the provisions highlighted within United Nation’s Responsibility to Protect (i.e., genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity) are currently being perpetrated against the people of Tigray. These four provisions are evident in Abiy Ahmed’s actions including but not limited to the: systematic profiling, harassment and detention of people based solely on their ethnic background.

 

To allow this state-sponsored mayhem and genocide to proceed will be marked as a dark-spot in the history of the United Nations Security Council in the 21^st century after the world witnessed the Holocaust during Second World War and the Rwanda Genocide in 1994 and declared no more genocide. Thus, we urge you, members of the United Nations Security Council, to consider the adoption of the following measures to stop the ongoing war crime and genocide in Tigray, Ethiopia:

i.     Declare the immediate cessation of hostilities to stop the war in Tigray without any precondition.

ii.   Immediate opening of corridors for the safe passage of humanitarian aid by independent agencies.

iii.  The immediate restoration of communications and the internet to the people of Tigray.

iv.  Appointing an independent international team for the investigation war crimes in Tigray.

v.   All parties to commit to a peaceful resolution of the regional war.

vi.  Immediate deployment of peace keepers on the Tigray-Eritrea border at limited check points.

vii. Immediate withdrawal of foreign troops (Eritrea and Somalia) and government allied militias from the Amhara region and other hostile ethnic groups as well as the redeployment of federal government troops outside Tigray and the immediate restoration of the status quo ante in Tigray.

viii.Impose sanctions and travel bans on Eritrean and Ethiopian government officials/authorities that are leading and planning this genocidal war on the people of Tigray. 

 

With the highest regards,

 

SJTE Executive Committee