Item 2: Enhanced Interactive Dialogue on the High Commissioner’s Oral Update on the Situation of Human Rights in the Tigray Region of Ethiopia (13.10.21)

Human Rights Council - 48th Session  

Enhanced Interactive Dialogue on the High Commissioner’s Oral Update on the Situation of Human Rights in the Tigray Region of Ethiopia 

Joint Statement Delivered by the Delegation of the United States of America, as Delivered by Bob Riley 

September 13, 2021 

 

Madame High Commissioner, this statement is delivered on behalf of 44 countries. 

We underscore the importance of your joint investigation and call for the report to be released without delay.  

We remain gravely concerned by ongoing violence in northern Ethiopia.  The Ethiopian government and regional authorities’ cutting off of Tigray - and the TPLF’s expansion of the conflict into neighboring regions - have caused a humanitarian catastrophe.   

We are deeply concerned by numerous reports of Eritrean Defense Forces’ engagement in serious human rights abuses, and we call on them to withdraw immediately. 

We are deeply concerned about the killing of civilians and humanitarian workers, as well as sexual and gender-based violence and attacks on Eritrean refugees and displaced persons in Ethiopia.   

Those responsible for human rights violations and abuses and violations of international humanitarian law must be held accountable. 

We call on all parties immediately to allow and facilitate safe, rapid, and unimpeded humanitarian access.   

 We also urge the Ethiopian government and TPLF to enter ceasefire negotiations without preconditions.    

Our Question is:  Will you brief the Council on the findings of the report once it is released? 

Thank you.

Cosponsors

  1. USA
  2. UK
  3. Norway
  4. Australia
  5. Liechtenstein
  6. Iceland
  7. Albania
  8. North Macedonia
  9. Montenegro
  10. New Zealand
  11. Marshall Islands
  12. Switzerland
  13. Ukraine
  14. Republic of Korea
  15. Japan
  16. Ecuador
  17. Chile

18-44.  All EU member states