Oromo
Best News for Oromos
More than 450 Oromo Refugees killed in Yemen
More than 450 Oromo refugees were killed in a bomb attack at a Yemen prison reported March 7 2021. Refugees were being held by Houti forces in overcrowded prisons. Although the killers were not identified, recent Human Rights reports point to elements within the Houthi forces.
The majority of the victims are Oromo Refugee as heard in the HRW video
Saudis Fire on Survivors, Detain Hundreds in Appalling Conditions
(Beirut) – Houthi forces in April 2020 forcibly expelled thousands of Ethiopian migrants from northern Yemen using Covid-19 as a pretext, killing dozens and forcing them to the Saudi border, Human Rights Watch said today. Saudi border guards then fired on the fleeing migrants, killing dozens more, while hundreds of survivors escaped to a mountainous border area.
Ethiopian migrants told Human Rights Watch that after they spent days stranded without food or water, Saudi officials allowed hundreds to enter the country, but then arbitrarily detained them in unsanitary and abusive facilities without the ability to legally challenge their detention or eventual deportation to Ethiopia. Hundreds of others, including children, may still be stranded in the mountainous border region.
“The lethal disregard Houthi and Saudi forces have shown civilians during Yemen’s armed conflict was replayed in April with Ethiopian migrants at the Yemen-Saudi border,” said Nadia Hardman, refugee and migrant rights researcher at Human Rights Watch. “United Nations agencies need to step in to address the immediate threats to the Ethiopian migrants and press for accountability for those responsible for the killings and other abuses.”
In June and July, Human Rights Watch interviewed 19 Ethiopian migrants, including 13 men, 4 women, and 2 girls, currently in Saudi Arabia or Ethiopia. The Houthi armed group, which took over the capital, Sanaa, in September 2014 in an armed conflict that a Saudi-led coalition joined in March 2015, have for many years controlled Yemen’s northwest border areas.
Migrants told Human Rights Watch that on or about April 16, Houthi fighters in green military uniforms brutally rounded up thousands of Ethiopians in al-Ghar, an unofficial migrant settlement area in Saada governorate. The Houthi forces, who were regularly seen patrolling the area, forced the migrants into pickup trucks and drove them to the Saudi border, firing small arms and light weapons anyone who tried to flee.
Witnesses said that Houthi fighters screamed that the migrants were “coronavirus carriers” and had to leave al-Ghar within hours. “They [Houthi forces] created chaos,” said an Ethiopian woman. “It was early in the morning [on April 16] and they told us to leave in two hours. Most people left, but I stayed. But after two hours, they started firing bullets and rockets – I saw two people killed.”
Another woman, who was pregnant and traveling with her young child, said the Houthi forces were using “rockets” to clear the area: “There were lots of Houthi soldiers. There were more than 50 trucks. They were firing a mortar which you put on the ground and it fires. Everyone started to run to escape. I ran with a group of 45 people – and 40 people were killed in my group. Only five of us escaped. They were not firing guns, just these mortars.”
Twelve of the migrants interviewed witnessed killings of migrants or saw their bodies, but the number killed could not be determined. Migrants who managed to return to al-Ghar found their tent settlement and surroundings destroyed. Human Rights Watch reviewed satellite imagery recorded immediately before, during, and after the alleged attack, and observed widespread destruction of over 300 tents and houses consistent with witness accounts.
Once migrants approached within one to two hundred meters of the border, Saudi border guards in gray and tan uniforms started firing at them with what witnesses described as mortar shells and rocket launchers. They said that Houthi forces responded by firing at the Saudi border guards and at any migrants who tried to escape from the chaos of the fighting back into Yemen.
Alarming news from Qilinxo !
Alarming news from Qilinxo !
A document released today describes killings, detentions and destruction in just five of 23 districts in one of Oromia Region’s 17 zones – over 127 civilians killed up to 3 April. The detailed report, compiled locally from eye-witness accounts in West Wallega, describes the targeted killing of Qeerroo members, youngsters elected to local offices after the reforms in 2018, following their propelling P.M. Abiy Ahmed to power.
As Ethiopia grapples to solve its multiple security issues ahead of the elections this year, an international human rights group has accused the East African nation’s security forces of arresting opposition supporters.
In a statement on 27 January, Amnesty International said Ethiopia had arrested 75 supporters of the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) over the weekend.
Deprose Muchena, Amnesty International’s director for East and Southern Africa, said: “The return of mass arrests of opposition activists and supporters is a worrying signal in Ethiopia. These sweeping arrests risk undermining the rights to freedom of expression and association ahead of the 2020 elections.”
Just months ahead of the elections, Addis Ababa is trying to solve multiple security issues, as the number of hate crimes increase.
Last November, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s government deployed security forces to universities in Amhara and Oromo regions after a spate of ethnic-based clashes left three students dead. As the government closed down several universities, 18 students —14 of them female —were abducted while on their way home from Dembi Dollo University in Oromo.
The government said it had secured the release of 21 of the abducted students, but the whereabouts and fates of the other 11 remains unknown.
In addition to these ethnic-based clashes, there has been a marked rise in religious-based hate crimes.
On 21 January, the Anadolou Agency reported attackers vandalised shops and other properties owned by Muslims in what has become a pattern of such attacks and counter-attacks in parts of Ethiopia.
Ethiopia’s elections, the first democratic exercise in 15 years, are scheduled for later this year. Some opposition groups have proposed they be postponed because of the escalating security issues as well as seasonal ones. The elections will tentatively be held in August, which also happens to be the rainy season in the region.
Meanwhile, PM Ahmed also has to grapple with security threats from outside of Ethiopia. For example, Israel suspended planned student trips to Ethiopia “following warnings against travelling to Africa by the Foreign Office.” Tel Aviv had already suspended direct flights to Addis Ababa, as part of measures to prevent attacks on its citizens during the ongoing US-Iran conflict.
On Monday, 27 January, the Prime Minister and two of his regional counterparts, Eritrea’s Isaias Afwerki and Somalia’s Mohammed Farmajo, agreed to work together and form a joint front in the region, promising to work together to deal with terrorism.
“The three leaders adopted a Joint Plan of Action for 2020 and beyond focusing on the two main and intertwined objectives of consolidating peace, stability, and security as well as promoting economic and social development,” a joint communique available on the Somalia President’s websites says.
The meeting in Asmara was the second time the three leaders had met to discuss how to navigate their multiple, related economic and social issues. With both Somalia and Ethiopia set for elections in 2020, there are mounting concerns of how their internal security issues could shape not just the polls, but also the Horn.
Another regional issue that could play a role in the polls is the Nile Dispute. Ethiopia, Egypt and Sudan are also set to start for a second round of negotiations. The first round of talks, which were also hosted by Washington, collapsed amidst controversy of US President Donald Trump’s gaffe about which peace talks his diplomats were involved in.
The bottom line: While Ethiopian PM and Nobel Peace Prize Winner Abiy Ahmed works to steady the ship at home and in the region, there are concerns about his security strategy at home. The arrest of opposition supporters is likely to shore up opposition against his government, which has the potential to escalate or morph into something else before August. In addition to the resurgence of armed groups in parts of the country, there’s also potential that some opposition groups could make unlikely partners to mount a formidable challenge to PM Abiy’s first elections.
The killing of Oromo civilians have gone on for decades by successive Ethiopian Regimes. This was worsened by
Marginalization of these human rights crimes by the International community particularly the United Nations, amounts to complete disregard for humanity.
The United Nations and related bodies require a stern self reflection, and reform in order to restore confidence in the institutions that were designed to preserve humanity.
The video is in memory of Oromo civilians who were killed by the Ethiopian Regime, including Haacaaluu Hundessa.
