ADDIS ABABA: Ethiopian forces have committed “widespread attacks amounting to war crimes against medical professionals, patients, and health facilities” in the conflict-torn Amhara region, Human Rights Watch said on Wednesday.
The northern region was under a state of emergency until last month after fighting erupted there between federal forces and the Fano “self-defense” militia in August 2023.
In a 66-page report based on interviews with 58 people, including victims and eyewitnesses, global rights watchdog HRW said it had documented attacks by federal forces and a pro-government militia against “medical workers, health care facilities, and transports in at least 13 towns.”
“Soldiers beat, arbitrarily arrested, and intimidated medical professionals for providing care to the injured and sick, including alleged Fano fighters,” HRW said, adding that troops also “unlawfully attacked ambulances” and prevented hospitals from functioning.
“Federal forces have obstructed access to medical facilities, including by wrongfully arresting patients on mere suspicion of a Fano affiliation, causing widespread fear for those that may seek or need treatment,” it added.
The rights group said that international humanitarian law offered “special protections to health facilities, medical professionals, patients, and ambulances.”
But HRW deputy Africa director Laetitia Bader said Ethiopia’s federal forces “operating with near impunity are unsurprisingly disregarding civilian lives by attacking medical facilities.”
HRW noted that humanitarian agencies have struggled to operate in the region of 23 million people, with nine aid workers killed since fighting erupted, including four fatalities this year.
Media access to Amhara has also been heavily restricted, while the mandate of a UN commission of experts investigating atrocities in Ethiopia expired in October, leading to limited subsequent monitoring of rights abuses in the country, HRW said.
A report released last month by the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights said that “Ethiopian federal forces and the Fano militia had been involved in numerous violations of international humanitarian law, resulting in over 2,000 civilian casualties in the Amhara region,” HRW said.
Bader called for “much greater international scrutiny” of the rights situation in Ethiopia.
“So long as the government feels no pressure to hold abusive forces to account, such atrocities are likely to continue,” she warned.
The violence in Amhara reignited concerns about Ethiopia’s stability, months after a peace agreement was signed in November 2022 to end a two-year conflict in the neighboring region of Tigray.
Amhara forces and the Fano supported Ethiopian troops during that war but fell out after Addis Ababa signed the 2022 peace deal, fueling a sense of betrayal among the Amhara, who have a history of land disputes with the Tigray region.
Rights group accuses Ethiopia of attacks on medical facilities
https://arab.news/28vaj
Rights group accuses Ethiopia of attacks on medical facilities
- Documented attacks by federal forces and a pro-government militia against ‘medical workers, health care facilities, and transports in at least 13 towns’
UK child killer Ian Huntley dies after prison attack: police
- Huntley murdered 10-year-old girls Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman in eastern England in 2002
- He suffered serious injuries when he was assaulted at Frankland maximum security prison in the northeastern English city of Durham on Feb. 26
LONDON: One of Britain’s most notorious child killers, Ian Huntley, died on Saturday following an attack in prison where he was serving a life sentence, police said.
Huntley murdered 10-year-old girls Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman in eastern England in 2002, in a case that horrified the country.
Fifty-two-year-old Huntley suffered serious injuries when he was assaulted at Frankland maximum security prison in the northeastern English city of Durham on Feb. 26.
He “died in hospital this morning,” a spokesperson for the local police force said in a statement emailed to AFP.
A spokesperson for the government’s justice ministry said the double murder of Holly and Jessica “remains one of the most shocking and devastating cases in our nation’s history, and our thoughts are with their families.”
Huntley killed the two best friends after they left a family barbecue to buy sweets in the village of Soham, Cambridgeshire, on Aug. 4 2002.
Their disappearance sparked a massive search involving hundreds of police officers and appeals for help.
A photograph of the two girls wearing matching Manchester United football tops became instantly recognizable to many Britons.
Their bodies were found almost two weeks later, dumped in a ditch several miles away.
Huntley, then a 28-year-old school caretaker, aroused the suspicion of police after he gave media interviews claiming to be concerned for the girls’ welfare.
He denied murdering them but was convicted at trial in 2003.
His girlfriend at the time, Maxine Carr a teaching assistant at the girls’ school, gave Huntley a false alibi and was jailed for perverting the course of justice. She now lives under a new identity.
Revelations that Huntley had been the subject of prior rape and sexual assault complaints led to the establishment of criminal checks for anyone working with children.
He had been attacked before in prison, most seriously in 2005 and 2010.
“A police investigation into the circumstances of the incident is ongoing,” the spokesperson said, adding that prosecutors would consider bringing charges against his assailant.
