Ethiopians report arrests and forced conscriptions

The Ethiopian Human Rights Commission in a Monday statement said government authorities have detained several people, including the elderly and mothers with children, since officials imposed a state of emergency amid the country’s civil war last week. The arrests, presumably targeting people accused of supporting Tigrayan opposition forces, “appeared to be based on ethnicity,” the commission added. Other ethnic Tigrayans in the conflict-hit northern region reported local Amhara forces and Eritrean troops have forcibly conscripted young men and boys and killed several people for not revealing supporters of the rival Tigrayan forces. Fighting between the government and the regional Tigrayan forces began last November but reignited after the regional militia said it was closing in on the country’s capital city of Addis Ababa.

What’s the global response? Olusegun Obasanjo, the African Union’s envoy for the Horn of Africa, warned late on Monday that there is a brief window of opportunity to reverse the crisis. Obasanjo, a former Nigerian president, has held urgent talks with U.S. envoy Jeffrey Feltman to find a cease-fire agreement. The United States and Canada have asked nonessential government employees and their families to leave the country as the conflict worsens.

Dig deeper: Read my last report in The Sift on the worsening situation in Ethiopia.