Human Rights Watch encourages EU to consider human rights, accountability, & full resumption of services before reengagement with Ethiopia

Human Rights Watch
Tigrai Online 3/11/2023

We write to encourage the European Union and its member states to consider specific, measurable, and ambitious recommendations and indicators when assessing progress in the achievement of the three key asks made by the EU in the early phases of the northern Ethiopia conflict.

We specifically urge the EU to reflect in both the roadmap for the EU’s reengagement with Ethiopia and in the next Foreign Affairs Council conclusions on the situation in Ethiopia, the following indicators in the assessment of its reengagement:

1. Resumption of Humanitarian Assistance and Basic Services

• Ethiopian authorities and all warring parties should ensure full resumption and functionality of basic services including banking, electricity, and telephone services in the Tigray region, central to ensuring that the enormous needs of the population in the Tigray region are met.
• Ethiopian federal and regional authorities, as well as armed forces and groups operating in conflict-affected areas, should ensure sustained, unrestricted, and unimpeded access by humanitarian organizations to all conflict-affected areas; this includes allowing independent humanitarian organizations to operate without arbitrary restrictions and onerous bureaucratic requirements and ending all attacks and other forms of harassment against aid workers.
• Ethiopian federal authorities, Amhara regional authorities and interim authorities in Western Tigray should facilitate prompt and unhindered access to United Nations human rights protection monitors in Western Tigray zone and ensure access of independent humanitarian organizations to detention facilities in Western Tigray.

Please read the whole article here Benchmarked Approach on Human Rights and Accountability for the EU’s Reengagement in Ethiopia