UN Staff Members Detained in Ethiopia as Crisis Worsens

(Bloomberg) -- The United Nations said 16 staff members have been detained in Ethiopia as a leader of the Tigray rebels warned mediation efforts to end the crisis in the Horn of African nation may fail.

“There has been no explanation” for the detention, UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters in New York on Tuesday. “Our staff on the ground is working with the national authorities,” he said, noting the detentions occurred “over the last few days.”

Some 70 truck drivers contracted by the U.N. and some international non-governmental organizations have also been detained, according to a U.N. Spokesperson in Ethiopia.  

The Ethiopian Human Rights Commission said on Nov. 8 that the government was detaining people “in a manner that appeared to be based on identity and ethnicity,” following widespread arrests after the state of emergency was declared. 

UN security officers “have visited the detained colleagues,” Farhan Haq, another UN spokesman, said. Formal requests have “also been sent to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs” seeking “the immediate release of the detained personnel,” he said.

Ethiopia has declared a state of emergency as rebel fighters advanced toward the capital, Addis Ababa. The yearlong conflict between the federal army and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front has escalated since the start of October, with the rebels advancing steadily south. 

Selamawit Kassa, State Minister for Communication in Ethiopia, didn’t comment when contacted on Wednesday.

The TPLF downplayed a mediation initiative by the African Union after the special envoy, Olusegun Obasanjo, a former president of Nigeria, met with Debretsion Gebremichael, the leader of the rebel group. 

‘Doomed to Fail’

“Any effort that fails to address the conditions we have put forward is doomed to fail,” Getachew Reda, a senior TPLF official said. “It is clear this is mostly about Abiy’s survival, not Ethiopia’s,” he said.

The humanitarian situation is dire in Ethiopia, with an estimated 7 million people in need of assistance. Both parties to the conflict have been accused of committing violations that may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission and the United Nations Human Rights Office found in a joint investigation.

On Wednesday, Amnesty International reported that the TPLF forces had raped, robbed and assaulted women in the Amhara region of Ethiopia in mid-August.

“The testimonies we heard from survivors describe despicable acts by TPLF fighters that amount to war crimes, and potentially crimes against humanity,” said Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s secretary-general. 

Getachew Reda, a TPLF official, didn’t immediately respond when messaged for a comment on Amnesty International’s report.

The U.K. advised its nationals to leave the country, after the U.S. did the same last week. A U.S. special envoy, diplomat Jeffrey Feltman, is in Ethiopia to try to advance talks on ending the civil war.

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