(Toronto) Defenders of the Tigrayan community in Canada are calling on Ottawa to open its embassy in Addis Ababa to their loved ones seeking protection, amid an escalating conflict that has claimed thousands of lives.
Azeb Gebrehiwot of the Association of Tigray Communities in Canada believes the Canadian government should provide temporary protection to members of its community in Ethiopia and unequivocally speak out against the violence there.
Mme Gebrehiwot, who immigrated to Canada 18 years ago, says she has been unable to get in touch with relatives there due to a complete cut in communications in the Tigray region. On the other hand, she was able to contact some of her cousins in the capital, who fear being arrested and killed.
“I know they are starving. There is no food. The hospitals are completely destroyed and I am extremely worried, ”she said in an interview. “I can’t even sleep, I can’t sleep a night. Every day, I watch the news when I get up, ”she said.
She said more than 500 members of the Tigrayan community in Ontario and Quebec gathered last Thursday and Friday on Parliament Hill in Ottawa to honor the victims of this conflict. The United States has spoken of ethnic cleansing in parts of Tigray.
“Our people in western Tigray are indeed undergoing ethnic cleansing,” Mr.me Gebrehiwot. The bodies are thrown (into) a river. The Ethiopian government has dismissed these allegations and said it is helping Tigray to rebuild.
The conflict that began a year ago between government troops and supporters of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front has led to the world’s worst humanitarian crisis in a decade, with more than 350,000 people at risk of starvation, according to reports. United Nations and other non-governmental organizations.
Some 5.2 million people in Ethiopia’s Tigray, Amhara and Afar regions are in need of assistance, UN says, thousands are believed to be killed and more than two million forced to flee their homes .
Global Affairs Canada issued a statement on Sunday calling for an “immediate end to hostilities” and “strongly condemning indiscriminate attacks against civilians and aid workers in northern Ethiopia.” Global Affairs also announced the withdrawal of family members of Canadian embassy employees and all non-essential Canadian employees, while urging people to leave, if it is safe to do so.
“Canada supports all people in Ethiopia […] Documented human rights violations and abuses and violations of international humanitarian law are deeply troubling. ”
Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly said in Ottawa on Monday that she was concerned about human rights abuses in Ethiopia and called for a ceasefire. She said Canada had worked with the United Nations and the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission to produce a report on violations that have occurred since the fighting began a year ago.
The director of the Canadian Center for Victims of Torture in Toronto believes that Ottawa should demand an independent and impartial investigation and pressure the Ethiopian government to end the siege of the Tigray region in order to allow the humanitarian aid to enter the region. “Silence should not be the Canadian position,” he said.