The Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Wednesday said thousands of ethnic Tigrayans who repatriated from Saudi Arabia were arbitrarily detained and mistreated by Ethiopian authorities after they arrived back in Ethiopia, reported Reuters.
In its report, the HRW claim that the allegations took place during a war that erupted between the federal government military and troops from the northern Tigray region in November last year, killing tens of thousands of people.
The report is based on interviews of Tigrayans who were forced to return to Ethiopia from Saudi Arabia between December 2020 and September 2021.
The HRW report said that Tigrayans who repatriated from Saudi Arabia were held in the capital, Addis Ababa, and elsewhere against their will upon returning back. They have repeatedly faced physical abuses, including beatings with rubber or wooden rods, denied food and water, and deprived of access to their families.
“Deportees who tried to make their way home to Tigray were apprehended and forcibly disappeared at regional detention facilities where Federal and Afar regional police assaulted them or beat other Tigrayan deportees with rubber or wooden rods”, the report read.
Others were being identified at roadside checkpoints or airports and were not allowed to return to Tigray, the northernmost region of Ethiopia. They were instead transferred to detention facilities.
Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s government, which has been fighting the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) for over thirteen months, denies discriminating against Tigrayans.
Ethiopian government spokesperson Legesse Tulu told Reuters that there are no ethnic-based prison facilities or places for deportees from other countries.
He said the report released by the HRW was inaccurate, unsupported by evidence, and based on people working for the TPLF. He pointed out that many Ethiopians have been detained under a state of emergency on suspicion of aiding the TPLF, who have long ruled Tigray and dominated Ethiopian politics before Abiy’s rule.
