Opinions Archives - Human right violations Sitti Somali https://sittisomali.com/category/opinions/ Raising Awareness for Human right violations in Sitti Somali Community Wed, 19 Jun 2024 16:43:48 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://sittisomali.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/icon-150x150.png Opinions Archives - Human right violations Sitti Somali https://sittisomali.com/category/opinions/ 32 32 An Open Letter addressed to the International Community to investigate Sitti zone tragedy, ethnic cleansing and mass massacres amounting to crime against humanity which were carried out there in 2021 and 2022 https://sittisomali.com/an-open-letter-addressed-to-the-international-community-to-investigate-sitti-zone-tragedy-ethnic-cleansing-and-mass-massacres-amounting-to-crime-against-humanity-which-were-carried-out-there-in-20/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=an-open-letter-addressed-to-the-international-community-to-investigate-sitti-zone-tragedy-ethnic-cleansing-and-mass-massacres-amounting-to-crime-against-humanity-which-were-carried-out-there-in-20 Wed, 30 Aug 2023 20:18:24 +0000 https://sittisomali.com/?p=4800 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 […]

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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.

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Open Letter to UN Agencies for humanitarian crisis (UNHCR, WFP, UNICEF, WHO, OCHA), & USAID https://sittisomali.com/an-open-letter-to-un-agencies-unhcr-wfp-unicef-who-ocha-echo-usaid/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=an-open-letter-to-un-agencies-unhcr-wfp-unicef-who-ocha-echo-usaid Thu, 23 Mar 2023 08:42:49 +0000 https://sittisomali.com/?p=148 AN OPEN LETTER TO UN AGENCIES Sitti zone, the Somali region of Ethiopia, is already in a dire hunger crisis and teetering on the edge of outright catastrophe. At the beginning of 2019, the sporadic skirmishes between Afar & Somali-Issa pastoralists alongside the main A1 Road Djibouti/Addis Ababa become a fullscale war that subsequently caused […]

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AN OPEN LETTER TO UN AGENCIES
Sitti zone, the Somali region of Ethiopia, is already in a dire hunger crisis and teetering on the edge of outright catastrophe. At the beginning of 2019, the sporadic skirmishes between Afar & Somali-Issa pastoralists alongside the main A1 Road Djibouti/Addis Ababa become a fullscale war that subsequently caused large-scale ethnic cleansing against SomaliIssas in the western Sitti zone, at the border with the Afar Regional State.

This illegal ethnic forceful displacement of approximately 400,000 people mostly women and children was arbitrarily carried out by Ethiopian Defense Forces; Afar regional special police; Ugugumo militias, an Afar rebel group. They pushed militarily Somali-Issas herders & pastoralists more than 100 km within the Somali region state destroying and capturing first the 3 main targeted towns called Cadayti, Undufo, and Garba-Isse. Villages like Danlahelay, Allale, Bir-dheere, Madane, Alaale, and Beeyo Tamari succumbed to the same fate afterwards.

This ethnic cleansing culminated with the massacre of Garba-Isse, a town of 45,000 residents, reported on international media which took place on 24 July 2021 that took more than 400 lives lost mostly women, children, and the elderly. Since 2018 it has been reported that in Sitti zone more than 3000 people were killed and thousands have been displaced on all directions of the rest of Sitti zone and as far as Dire Dawa and Djibouti.

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 100/200 km deep inside Somali Region State. 2 Approximately half of these forcefully displaced people, mostly herders, and pastoralists are roaming around without reference points, appropriate camps or designated sites in the Somali region. There are people with special needs such as unaccompanied children traveling alone, the elderly, those with chronic diseases like Tuberculosis, and people with disabilities suffering from lack of proper care and treatment. Among these IDPs, nearly 350,000 Somali-Issa people managed to reach Afdam & Erer woreda. Those IDPs in Afdam who have mostly fled from Cadayti, Garba-isse, and Undhufo and their surrounding area can be found in the villages of Cibamadow and Cerkaal.

In Erer woreda, new IDPs are right now concentrated without assistance at Badhiweyne, Caska, Garbacaad, and Asbuli mostly in disastrous humanitarian conditions. Two years of dire drought have made the matters worse. People are stretched up to 20,000 square km without any help, an area without practicable roads and basic service access.

A shortage of food and essential basic service in this Sitti zone has triggered unprecedented public health problems. The outbreak of communicable diseases notably: diarrhea diseases, cholera, acute malnutrition, Malaria, and acute respiratory diseases affect the IDPs mostly among women and children. Children with severe acute malnutrition are at risk of death if they don’t receive therapeutic feeding assistance and immediate medical attention.

The humanitarian situation in the Sitti zone (Somali Region) is on the brink to get even worse if proper healthcare agencies do not intervene soon. Right now, more than 400,000 inhabitants need emergency medical services, food and nutrition, shelter, and special protection for the most vulnerable as well as other core relief items such as blankets, sleeping mats, clean water services, and emergency shelters.

Furthermore, these people need urgent emergency essential kits such as jerry cans, blankets, plastic sheets, solar lamps, mosquito nets, sleeping mats, kitchen sets, and hygiene kits. Unless emergency food rations and kits are delivered immediately, mass starvation and famine will follow. There is still a chance to avert imminent disaster and save thousands through the actions of UN agencies by now.

Thus, we are strongly asking UN agencies (UNHCR, WFP, UNICEF, WHO & OCHA) to intervene as quickly as possible in accordance with your respective mandates. 3 In addition, the host community, and the diaspora have been striving with their sacred resource since April 2021 for the IDPs in the Sitti zone without receiving relief assistance from any humanitarian organizations.

Lastly, if nothing is done during the coming weeks another humanitarian disaster will occur in Ethiopia.

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ETHIOPIA MUST STOP ITS SOMALI GENOCIDE NOW https://sittisomali.com/ethiopia-must-stop-its-somali-genocide-now/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=ethiopia-must-stop-its-somali-genocide-now Sat, 21 Jul 2018 22:00:14 +0000 https://sittisomali.com/?p=4803 This Article was written by Fathya Waberi 22 July 2018 This week’s peace accord with Eritrea (a conflict terminated over…18 years ago) would have been the perfect alibi for Ethiopian Prime Minister (PM), Abiy Ahmed, to cover up the ongoing ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity perpetrated by his Oromo people, whom are a majority […]

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This Article was written by Fathya Waberi

22 July 2018
This week’s peace accord with Eritrea (a conflict terminated over…18 years ago) would have been the perfect alibi for Ethiopian Prime Minister (PM), Abiy Ahmed, to cover up the ongoing ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity perpetrated by his Oromo people, whom are a majority in Ethiopia, against the Somali minority.

On July 11, 2018, while the world was praising the PM’s peacekeeping façade and hasty diplomacy – that day the latter was turning a blind eye to the massacre of more than 80 Somalis in Moyale and its surroundings, in the zone of Liban on the Ethiopian-Kenyan border. These killings were committed by militiamen of the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF)… he had just legalized.
Even today, the Ethiopian PM remains silent to the world about that Bloody Wednesday: no condemnation, no meeting with the Somali representatives, no travelling to the area, no significant deployment of armed forces to protect these populations, let alone opening of investigations.
Images of the massacres show mutilated bodies crammed into mass graves, people burned alive in their homes or beaten to death outside of them. Others driven off their lands, their belongings and livestock pillaged, and 30,000 displaced from their homes to Kenya and Somalia since mid-June.
These attacks have not been isolated. In the last months, they have increased with the arrival of Abiy Ahmed to power. Observers speak of more than 300 Somalis killed between June and July by Oromo militias, supported by regional security forces called Liyu Police, particularly in the areas of Liban and Sitti Zones. The president of the Oromo region, Lemma Megersa, a bigwig of the same party as the PM, has been singled out for having armed these troops and for being one of the instigators.
The Oromo majority – just liberated from centuries of oppression by the Amhara, then the Tigray – have newfound strength in “their” new PM and have unitarily turned against the Somali minority, with whom they had up until now maintained good relations since both communities had been equally persecuted by the old regime.

How do we then explain that the formerly oppressed people have spontaneously become the oppressor? Why such a change of alliance?
It is difficult to interpret this other than it being Ethiopia’s will to continue a sort of gentlemen’s agreement by the successive governments on the Somali issue since 1954, when the occupation of Ogaden (the present Somali Region) was completed after it was offered by Great Britain.
For 70 years now, Ethiopia has been trying to “break the backbone” of the region and the National Ogaden Liberation Front (ONLF), by starving it, producing more wars and repression, assassinations, human rights violations and crimes of all kinds. All without the world moving a finger. 
The new Ethiopian PM, who initiated rapid reforms elsewhere in the country, and purges that are often favorable to his community, did not break the rule by perpetuating the tradition of the worst to administrate the province. As a silent witness to these crimes he is not only an accomplice to these but also to the series of measures taken against the Somalis – already denounced – during his first 100 days in office: 
– Retaining the bloodthirsty president of the Somali Region, Abdi Mohamud Omar (Abdi Iley), despite the waves of protests demanding his departure and the fact that he is a war criminal according to many organizations. He has always been the right hand man of Addis Ababa and is the administrator of the sadly notorious Jail Ogaden, a place of torture and silent extermination of the Somalis. This prison has just been shut down following the latest Human Rights Watch report (below); very damning for the Ethiopian regime. This is the only concession to the region for the time being from Abiy, but that may lack scope if not followed by justice. It should also be noted that the very choice to keep a torturer at the head of the Somali entity is not of trivial nature, but indeed a “special treatment” since elsewhere the PM removed many high officials and officers accused of wrongdoings by their citizens.
– His refusal to consult and listen to the grievances of Somali representatives and elders, most of them opposed to Abdi Iley, who had welcomed his accession to power. With this gesture, the PM has just indicated to them that the wind of change will not blow in the Somali Region. It’s up to them now to review their plans.
– Last but not least, his dangerous decision to unilaterally revive, on June 28, the exploitation of oil and gas in the region by the Chinese company Poly-GCL … without referring or seeking agreement with the stakeholders and owners of those natural resources, namely the Somalis. In the past, all attempts by Ethiopian central governments to exploit these riches have failed. Abiy cannot ignore that this is THE Gordian knot of the conflict in Ogaden… and the source of the oppression and marginalization of this people. The ONLF has warned in a recent statement that they “will not allow the exploitation of Ogaden’s natural resources without a comprehensive just political settlement of the Ogaden conflict”.
In the Somali Region, as in other parts of the world, stabilization must first be political. Without the will to negotiate with all the peoples that make up the Ethiopian mosaic – including the Somalis – Abiy’s real façade could soon be unveiled.
Are not internal peace and justice worth the unconditional rehabilitation of one of the fiercest dictators in the continent, the Eritrean Afeworki? To the great displeasure of the human rights supporters of both countries.

We now call on the Ethiopian authorities to put an immediate end to the massacres
against the Somali minority. 
We also call on them to halt their rampant expansionism, which pushes the Oromos to exert unparalleled demographic pressure on all the Somali territories of Ethiopia, Somalia and Djibouti. These destabilizing actions will undoubtedly create more conflicts in the Horn of Africa.

We call on the international community to (finally) pay attention to these war crimes, which bear all the signs of an oncoming genocide.
TOGETHER LET’S PUT AN END TO THE CONSPIRACY OF SILENCE ON THE FATE OF THE SOMALIS OF ETHIOPIA.

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