Dear Csaba Kőrösi, President of the UN General Assembly,
Dear Ambassador Thomas-Greenfield, President of the UN Security Council,
Dear Volker Türk, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights,
Excellencies,
We would like to draw your attention to the crimes against humanity that took place in Sitti zone, Somali region of Ethiopia between April 2021 and April 2023 and are still unknown to the international community.
An immediate end to the ongoing ethnic cleansing, in Sitti zone (the Somali region of Ethiopia) by the Ethiopian army and heavily armed Afar militiamen are strongly requested by the Somali diaspora and intellectuals in Europe, Canada and USA, hailing from all provinces within the Somali region of Ethiopia and speaking on behalf of the 11 million Somali residents, Ethiopia’s third largest community.
Additionally, we are urging you to expedite the delivery of vital humanitarian aid to Somali-Issas, primarily pastoralists, who were forcibly uprooted from their ancestral homeland along the national A1 Road between Djibouti and Awash/Addis Ababa and are now starving in several locations in the Sitti zone (province) of the Somali region and Dire-Dawa. Similarly, we are appealing to you to support the full implementation of the supposedly inclusive post-Pretoria transitional justice and national reconciliation in Ethiopia by returning these Somali-Ethiopian citizens to their ancestral homes in Adayti, Undufo, and Garba-isse.
Ethiopia was known as Abyssinia until the end of the 19th century. At that time, the majority of its inhabitants lived in the highlands; nowadays the Amhara and Tigray areas as well as some parts of modern-day Eritrea. Predominant religion among this group was Christian orthodox. After Adwa’s triumph against Italy in 1896, Ethiopia was able to push farther south, east, and west because of the weapons it bought from Christian colonial powers like England, France, and Russia. Force and ruthlessness allowed Ethiopia to triple its land area. Soon conquered populations experienced forced integration into invaders culture, brutal Amharization process, land eviction, looting, and killings.
Between 1897 and 1910, further areas of Ethiopia, including a sizeable portion of the Somali region were forcibly acquired. Residents of the Somali area, also known as Ogaden, were among those people who opposed subjugation, the destruction of cities, villages, hamlets, and frequent illegal cattle seizure by showing fierce resistance.
Following the Second World War, Britain, which had been assigned by the UN to oversee Ethiopia and Somalia, proposed uniting all Somali regions from Djibouti to Kismayo into a single, hypothetical autonomous state. In 1948, over 20 Somali elders petitioned the United Nations to protest the handover of Somali region territories to Ethiopia. Signatories included prominent clan leaders like Ugaas Hassan Hirsi and Garaad Makhtal Dahir. Emperor Haile Selassie responded with cruelty, launching punitive reprisals against Somalis, by committing numerous brutal massacres in Sitti Zone and other Somali regions.
After Somalia defeat in the 1977-78 Ethio-Somali war, many Somali-Issas and other Somali businessmen living in Dire Dawa and Jigjiga (the two most populous cities in the Somali Region) got dispossessed of their properties, including shops, small factories, houses, etc., forcing them to flee to Djibouti, Hargeisa, or Mogadishu.
Throughout history, especially since Ahmed Gurey’s (imam Ahmed’s) conquests in the 16th century, the Ethiopian-Somali ethnic group has been viewed by Ethiopian officials as the enemy within. They are not considered full citizens. As such, massacres, plundering, dispossession of properties and lands, and livestock seizures are the norm.
Rewarding the Afar region for its help on the war on Tigray, the Ethiopian Federal Army, former Afar special police and Afar militiamen collaborated to carry out a number of massacres in Sitti zone on April 6, 2021 in Adayti, on July 21, 2021 in Garba-isse, and on August 12, 2022 in Undufo. These towns’ surrounding villages and rural areas, including Alaale, Bir-Dhere, Beeyo Tamari, etc., were also set on fire, and the cattle of Somali-Issa pastoralists plundered.
These massacres aim is to clear Somali-Issas along the commercial Djibouti/Addis-Ababa Road, which has three main cities, Adayti, Undufo, and Garba-isse along Afars towns such as Gewani and Awash. This makes somehow absurd to launch murderous ethnic cleansing against Somali-Issas ethnic group only.
The ethnic cleansing in the Sitti zone is epitomised by the massacre of Garba-Isse, a city with 35,000 residents, on July 24, 2021. Over 400 people, including women, children, and the elderly, died. Since 2018, over 3,000 people have been killed
and thousands displaced, affecting the entire region and beyond.
As a result of this ethnic cleansing, more than 400,000 Somali-Issas people have been internally displaced (IDPs) and are now scattered in districts like Ma’ayso, Erer, Afdem, and Biki situated more than 100 to 200 km deep inside the Somali
region state.
The Ethiopian government and the local administration, led by Mustafa Muhummed Cagjar, often overlook the horrors faced by Somali-Issas residents in the Sitti zone. For example, Colonel Mohamed Ahmed “Tuur”, head of the Somali special police, encouraged the invasion of Undufo and its surrounding area. The Afar special police and Ethiopian army expelled, killed, and wounded scores of Somali-Issas, and took control of the town in August 2022. Few days later Mr. Mohamed Ahmed “Tuur” was promoted from colonel to the rank of Brigadier General.
Since the advent of multi-ethnic federalism in Ethiopia, Somali people have not had the opportunity to elect a representative government that upholds constitutional and human rights of the region’s people. The current regional administration, imposed by the prime minister Abiy Ahmed has failed to protect the Somali people in the Sitti zone from violence, displacement, and destructions.
Instead, they have sought to hide this crime against humanity from media coverage and international attention. The Sitti zone annexation by the Afar region from November 2020 is deeply linked to the Tigray war, and the suffering of thousands of forcibly displaced people had not been properly addressed. In the meanwhile, based on the 1994 federal constitution, Ethiopia government and the Tigray region are currently attempting to resolve the West Tigray zone, which the Amhara region seized by
force, a case similar to Sitti zone fate.
The Ethiopian federal government’s decision to dissolve the country’s regional states’ special force also created a security vacuum. Subsequently, Ethiopia’s national defense force, with history of accusations of war crimes and crimes against humanity, and without Somali personnel members, has been deployed in the Somali region since January 2023.
This army murdered over 50 innocent civilians, namely in Aysha on March, 2023;
Godey in April 2023; and Qabridahar in May 2023. An uproar is still ongoing today in Jigjiga following the rape attributed to Ethiopian army soldier which led to the death of Faduma Ugas Arab, an 11 year old Somali girl in the Somali region’s on 27, August 2023. Uncertainty among Somali people and other ethnic group residents is on the rise inside Somali region’s capital.
The Somali diaspora and intellectuals in Europe, Canada, and the United States, are strongly asking the international community to:
1) Conduct a comprehensive investigation with ICHRE team assistance to determine the reasons for massacres in Adayti, Undufo, and Garba-isse and the whereabouts of Somali-issa inhabitants of these towns,
2) Demand the 400,000 forcibly expelled Somali-issas to return to their homes in Adayti, Undufo, Garba-isse, Danlahelay, Alale, Jiijale, Biyo Tamari, and other surroundings villages,
3) Request international humanitarian agencies, including the UN agencies and NGOs, to provide Somali-Issa IDPs with essential supplies like food, water, shelters, blankets, mosquito nets, sleeping mats, kitchen sets, and hygiene kits before they can be brought to their homes in Adayti, Undufo, and Garba-Isse areas,
4) Pressure the Ethiopian government to implement an inclusive, transparent, and credible transitional justice system, involving all Ethiopian ethnic groups affected by internal turmoil since November 2022,
5) Request the Ethiopian government to stay committed to the 1994 Federal Constitution provisions to resolve any claims of land dispute between Afar, Somali, and Oromia regions,
6) Urge the Ethiopian government to maintain its commitment to upholding international instruments such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples among other instruments.
