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A U.N.-backed probe of human rights abuses in Ethiopia is set to expire after no country stepped forward to seek an extension. There are repeated warnings that serious violations continue almost a year since a cease-fire ended a bloody war in the East African country.
There were European Union-led talks on the issue. However, in the end, no resolution was submitted to extend the mandate of the independent International Commission of Human Rights Experts on Ethiopia. The deadline for extension expired at the Human Rights Council in Geneva. The probe will therefore be disbanded when its mandate expires this month. The commission’s experts pleaded on Tuesday (Oct. 03) with the council to extend the investigation. They warned that atrocities would continue in Tigray. The experts say Eritrean troops allied with Ethiopia’s military are still raping women and subjecting them to sexual slavery in parts of Tigray.
They also cited reports of extrajudicial killings and mass detentions amid new fighting in Amhara, Ethiopia’s second-most populous state. European countries had previously supported the probe as a means of ensuring accountability for war crimes committed during the two-year civil war in Tigray.
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Ethiopia has long opposed the commission, reportedly preventing its experts from conducting investigations in Ethiopia and criticizing it as politically motivated. As a result, it was forced to work remotely, from an office in Uganda. The commission was established in December 2021 after a joint report by the U.N. and Ethiopia’s state human rights commission recommended further independent investigations into abuses. Since then, it has published two full-length reports.
