UN rights experts submit report on Ethiopia to Human Rights Commission

By Addis Getachew

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia (AA) - The UN Commission of Human Rights Experts on Ethiopia submitted a report Thursday that accuses the federal government and Tigray rebels of committing abuses that border on war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Experts from Kenya, Sri Lanka and the US said in the report to the Human Rights Council in Geneva that the new eruption of war on Aug. 24 between the two sides was a cause for concern that rights violations may take place.

The experts were commissioned last year by the UN Human Rights Council to follow up on a joint investigation by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission.

Ethiopian Ambassador to the UN in Geneva Zenebe Kebede told state-owned Ethiopian Television that the report was damning without the experts making efforts to investigate what transpired on the ground in Ethiopia during the almost two-year war.

He said the experts only used circumstantial evidence and opinions they gathered from various sources, a claim admitted by the experts who in the preamble to the report said they could not conduct the required on-the-spot investigations due to numerous constraints.

Zenebe said his government will press the Human Rights Council to reject the report and not extend its mandate.

The report, he said, was a politically-motivated document, unsubstantiated, selective and discriminatory.

The 47 member states of the commission will vote on the report at a later date.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​