Mereja Forum

[Aba]

ATTACKS ON ERITREAN REFUGEES IN TIGRAY ARE 'WAR CRIMES': HRW

HRW said Thursday it had received 'credible reports' that Eritrean troops killed 31 people in Hitsats town, and that the true toll was 'likely significantly higher'.

AFP | 4 hours ago

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia - Eritrean refugees caught up in the months-long war in Ethiopia have suffered abuses including executions and rape that amount to "clear war crimes", Human Rights Watch (HRW) said Thursday.

A new report from the US-based rights watchdog details the role of both Eritrean soldiers and rebel fighters from Ethiopia's northern Tigray region in extensive carnage marked by forced repatriations and large-scale destruction at two refugee camps.

"The horrific killings, rapes and looting against Eritrean refugees in Tigray are clear war crimes," said Laetitia Bader, HRW's Horn of Africa director.

"For years, Tigray was a haven for Eritrean refugees fleeing abuse, but many now feel they are no longer safe," she added.

Northern Ethiopia erupted in conflict last November when Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed sent troops into Tigray to topple the regional ruling party, the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), a move he said came in response to attacks on federal army camps.

Before fighting broke out Tigray was home to 92,000 Eritrean refugees, including 19,200 in the Hitsats and Shimelba camps, according to Ethiopia's Agency for Refugees and Returnees Affairs (ARRA).

Although Ethiopia and Eritrea fought a brutal border war in 1998-2000 that left tens of thousands dead, Abiy initiated a rapprochement with Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki that earned him the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019, and Asmara has lent him military backing in Tigray.

Eritrean and Tigrayan forces first clashed near Hitsats about two weeks after the conflict began.

HRW said Thursday it had received "credible reports" that Eritrean troops killed 31 people in Hitsats town, and that the true toll was "likely significantly higher".

AFP has previously documented how, once fighting reached Hitsats camp, pro-TPLF militia targeted refugees in reprisal killings, shooting dead nine young Eritrean men outside a church.

When the Eritreans gained control of the camp, they are believed to have transported 17 injured refugees to Eritrea for treatment, the HRW report said.

However most of those evacuees remain unaccounted for, along with 20-30 others who were detained, "including refugee committee members and perceived opposition members, two of them women," it said.

The Tigrayan forces regained control of the area in early December and began robbing, detaining, raping and attacking refugees with weapons including a grenade, potentially killing dozens, HRW said.

Eritrean forces returned the following month and forced those still in the camps to evacuate, and satellite imagery indicates Hitsats was largely destroyed soon after, the watchdog added.

MISSING REFUGEES

Thousands of refugees formerly in Hitsats and Shimelba remain unaccounted for, while hundreds had little choice but to return to Eritrea in what HRW described as "coerced repatriations".

Others ended up in two camps in southern Tigray, Mai Aini and Adi Harush, which came under TPLF control in July.

ARRA, Ethiopia's refugee body, has accused the TPLF of deploying heavy artillery in both those camps, looting vehicles and warehouses and preventing refugees from leaving -- creating what is "tantamount to a hostage situation".

The TPLF has dismissed such allegations and vowed to ensure the refugees' protection.

Ethiopian officials are trying to expedite the relocation of refugees out of southern Tigray to a 90-hectare (225-acre) site in the neighbouring Amhara region.

Yet the TPLF launched an offensive into Amhara in July, and the region has been hit hard by recent fighting.

HRW said Thursday that all parties to the conflict should grant freedom of movement to the refugees, as well as expanded access to aid.

https://ewn.co.za/

https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/09/16/eth ... omQ3bdJlHU

[Zmeselo]

The 1 who pays the piper, ....

PRESS RELEASE
Soros and Open Society Foundations Give $100 Million to Human Rights Watch

September 6, 2010

ContactCommunications: [email protected]
+1 212-548-0378

https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/ ... ghts-watch

George Soros today announced that his Open Society Foundations will give a challenge grant of $100 million over 10 years to Human Rights Watch. The grant will be used to expand Human Rights Watch’s global presence to enhance the protection and promotion of human rights around the world.

The $100 million is the biggest gift Human Rights Watch has received. In 2010, the Open Society Foundations donated about $800 million to support human rights, access to justice, and public health.

Human Rights Watch is one of the most effective organizations I support,

said Soros, founder and chair of the Open Society Foundations.

Human rights underpin our greatest aspirations: they’re at the heart of open societies.

The grant challenges Human Rights Watch to raise an additional $100 million in private contributions to match the gift. It is intended to support the internationalization of Human Rights Watch, enabling it to establish advocacy offices in key regional capitals and to strengthen research on countries of concern. Human Rights Watch plans especially to increase its capacity to influence emerging powers in the global South to push a pro-human rights agenda.

Human Rights Watch can have even greater impact by being genuinely international in scope,

Soros said.

Human Rights Watch must be present in capitals around the globe, addressing local issues, allied with local rights groups and engaging with local government officials. In five years’ time it aims to have as much as half its income and a majority of its board members come from outside the United States.

With a staff of almost 300 addressing human rights conditions in nearly 90 countries, Human Rights Watch publishes around 100 reports and several hundred news releases each year. By basing more researchers and advocates in key countries, Human Rights Watch will be better placed to engage with government officials, journalists, and civil society and better able to secure positive change.

In an increasingly multi-polar world, we must ensure that Human Rights Watch’s message resonates in the most influential capitals around the globe,

said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch.

Ending serious abuses requires generating pressure from any government with clout, including emerging powers in the global South.

[Temt]

Yes, the fake Human Rights Watch, and others like it, could never be ascertained as either "human rights" or "democracies" concern group for they never have been. But they seem to be in existence for their futile attempt to hoodwink public opinion, which, fortunately, is now aware of their misleading bogus information, unless of course, one is miserably desperate like the Aba Asswash who desperately follows them on the Internet to give him some faint hope of existence like mothers give their crying babies a suckling or two so they could continue with their work uninterrupted.

[Aba]