Thread by @astroehlein

For more than a year and a half, a largely invisible campaign of ethnic cleansing has played out in #Ethiopia’s northern region of #Tigray...

🧵

Older people, women, and children in #Tigray have been loaded onto trucks and forced out of their villages and hometowns.

Men have been herded into overcrowded detention sites, where many have died of disease, starvation, or torture.

📢 In total, several hundred thousand Tigrayans have been forcibly uprooted because of their ethnicity.

Many of these abuses have been hidden from view.

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s government has imposed communication restrictions throughout Tigray and obstructed the efforts of independent investigators, journalists, and humanitarian workers.

In the first half of 2021, chilling reports of rapes, killings, and mass displacement nonetheless trickled out.

In April 2022, Amnesty International & Human Rights Watch published a landmark report on #Tigray showing that the atrocities have continued.

hrw.org/news/2022/04/0…

We also published a detailed Q&A on crimes against humanity & ethnic cleansing in western #Tigray: hrw.org/news/2022/04/0…

And we hosted a Twitter Space that had some 18,000 listeners: hrw.org/video-photos/a…

To halt these crimes and end the suffering of detained and displaced Tigrayans, #Ethiopia’s federal and regional authorities should immediately allow international aid agencies to access detention facilities and operate unhindered throughout #Tigray.

This means reining in abusive security forces, as well as suspending and holding accountable those implicated in crimes.

➡️ None of this will happen without international action, however.

Both the African Union’s Peace and Security Council and the UN Security Council have failed to act to address the crisis in Ethiopia, once again calling into question their ability to protect vulnerable populations and prevent mass atrocities.

These international bodies must include #Ethiopia on their formal agendas, press for immediate access to detention facilities in Western #Tigray, and insist on sustained and unimpeded access by humanitarian organizations.

As part of any agreement between #Ethiopia’s warring parties, they should support the deployment of an AU-led international PEACEKEEPING FORCE to Western #Tigray with a mandate to protect civilians and monitor human rights.

For more on what's happening in #Tigray and what needs to be done about it, read this NEW article in Foreign Affairs by the heads of @Amnesty & @HRW, @AgnesCallamard & @KenRoth:

foreignaffairs.com/articles/ethio…