UNITED NATIONS, Oct. 19 (Xinhua) — The UN secretary-general’s special adviser on genocide prevention, Alice Wairimu Nderitu, on Wednesday expressed grave concern over the renewed fighting in Ethiopia’s Tigray region and called for an immediate halt to hostilities.
“Enough is enough,” said Alice Nderitu in a statement. “If we are really serious about stopping the ongoing atrocious violence in Ethiopia and preventing future atrocity crimes, we need to act now and put an end to this war that has cost already too many lives.”
She urged the government of Ethiopia and authorities in Tigray to investigate and bring to justice those who have committed serious human rights violations.
“All perpetrators, regardless of their standing, must be brought to justice,” said Nderitu.
She said that targeting civilians based on ethnicity or perceived affiliation to the warring parties remains a vital characteristic of the conflict. Horrifying levels of hate speech and incitement to violence exacerbate the situation.
Nderitu said the conflict has reached new worrying levels of violence since a five-month humanitarian truce ended in August.
She said there was a proliferation of local militias and other armed groups across the country, committing particularly dehumanizing violence against civilians based on their ethnicity and perceived allegiance with the enemy and imposition of strict controls on communication channels, including internet shutdowns.
The special adviser also said there was widespread arbitrary detention on ethnic grounds, obstruction of humanitarian access and attacks on humanitarian aid workers.
She said the use of inflammatory language by political leaders and armed groups in the Tigray conflict, often propagated through social media, dehumanizes groups.
Nderitu said that diaspora blogs that call for the genocide of the Tigrayan people are also of deep concern. Hate speech and incitement to violence fuel the normalization of extreme violence in Tigray and neighboring Amhara and Afar regions.
Nderitu called on religious and community leaders and Ethiopians in the diaspora to use their voices to speak out against hate and stand in solidarity with affected communities.
She urged tech and social media companies to utilize all tools available to stop the spread of hate speech that could constitute an incitement to discrimination, hostility, or violence on their platforms. — NNN-XINHUA
