Canada Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has called for accountability and justice for any human rights violations alleged to have occurred during the Tigray conflict.
In a phone call with Ethiopia Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed on Wednesday, April 6, Trudeau also reiterated Canada’s strong and ongoing commitment to supporting a peaceful resolution to the conflict, including negotiations toward a peace agreement.
This comes just after Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch said Tigrayan civilians had been targeted in “a relentless campaign of ethnic cleansing” in Tigray region since the outbreak of Ethiopia’s war in November 2020.
The lobbies say hundreds of thousands of Tigrayans were forcibly expelled from western Tigray in a “coordinated” manner by security forces and civilian authorities through ethnically motivated rape, murder, starvation, and other serious violations.
“These widespread and systematic attacks against the Tigrayan civilian population amount to crimes against humanity, as well as war crimes,” Amnesty and HRW said in a joint report titled “We Will Erase You From This Land”.
Over 15 months, HRW and Amnesty interviewed more than 400 people including refugees who fled into Sudan, and witnesses to the violence still living inside western Tigray and elsewhere in Ethiopia.
They also documented the sexual enslavement and gang rape of Tigrayan women, including a victim whose attackers said they were “purifying” her blood.
In June last year, the African Union launched a commission of inquiry into alleged human rights violations in Tigray.
“The Commission of Inquiry has a mandate to, inter alia, investigate allegations of violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law, and to gather all relevant information so as to determine whether the allegations constitute serious and massive violations of human rights,” the statement said.
But Ethiopia told the AU to “immediately cease” the new commission of inquiry, critising it “misguided” and lacking a legal basis, and proposed a joint probe instead
Prime Minister Trudeau also emphasized the importance of the announcement by the government of Ethiopia on March 24 of an open-ended indefinite humanitarian truce. He also called for further access to and delivery of humanitarian assistance to those affected by the conflict.
The two leaders further discussed the importance of creating positive momentum through an inclusive national dialogue process.
The prime ministers also discussed Russia’s “illegal and unjustifiable invasion” of Ukraine and its impacts on global peace and security.
