ADDIS ABABA — Witnesses say thousands of Tigrayans are being detained and their businesses closed in cities across Ethiopia in a new wave of ethnic targeting by authorities over the eight-month conflict in the Tigray region.
The detentions follow the dramatic turn in the war last month when resurgent Tigray forces marched into the regional capital, Mekele, as Ethiopian soldiers retreated and Ethiopia’s government announced a unilateral cease-fire. An earlier wave of detentions followed the start of the war in November after months of tensions between the government and Tigray’s leaders.
Meron Addis, a 32-year-old attorney who has raised money for food and other aid to people in Tigray and has been outspoken about the toll on civilians, told The Associated Press that two plainclothes police officers came to her home in the capital, Addis Ababa, on June 28 and accused her of storing weapons. Then dozens of uniformed officers searched the place without presenting a warrant, she said.
After finding no weapons, they took her to a police station where she was charged with expressing support for the Tigray forces and spreading hate on social media. She met several other Tigrayans while in custody and was released a week later.
Police told her she was helping the “junta,” a common term used by authorities for the Tigray fighters. “You are causing friction between the government and the people of Tigray by posting pictures on Facebook of children and victims of the war, hunger and rape,” she said they told her. After her release, two of her relatives were detained.
Another detainee who was released last week told the AP that several dozen other Tigrayans were held in a center in the outskirts of the capital.
“At first we were told that we were suspected of having links with the (Tigray fighters). Once in jail, they began accusing us of sending money to support terrorists and vowed we won’t be released unless Ethiopian prisoners of war under the control of the (Tigray forces) are released,” he said. “None of us were brought to court.” Like many others, he spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.
With Ethiopia’s government having declared Tigray’s ruling party a terrorist group, ordinary Tigrayans across the country are under even more pressure even as they seek to speak out about alleged war atrocities and send aid to the region as hundreds of thousands of people face the world’s worst famine crisis in a decade.
And Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed in a speech after the Ethiopian forces’ retreat alleged that ordinary Tigrayans had supported the Tigray fighters.
The new wave of mass detentions has not been publicly acknowledged by security officials. Federal police spokesman Jeylanr Abdi didn’t respond to questions, but the federal police told the Addis Standard media outlet they don’t arrest citizens based on ethnicity.
The governmental Ethiopian Human Rights Commission, however, said it is monitoring the detentions of Tigrayans and media workers suspected of links to the situation in Tigray. “Such measures aggravate the public’s concerns on the risk of ethnic profiling,” it said in a statement.
