All sides in the deepening conflict in northern Ethiopia are committing serious human rights violations and should pull back from their year-old war, the United Nations said Friday.
An estimated 5,000 to 7,000 people are held in prison, including nine U.N. staff, under a state of emergency and under a broad provision declared by the government last month, according to the UN Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights, Nada al-Nashif.
Many are held incommunicado or in unknown locations. She told a special session of the UN Human Rights Council that this is a matter of grave concern, and is tantamount to enforced disappearance.
The ambassador to the UN in Geneva, Zenebe Kebede, did not comment directly on the accusations of detentions, but said there was a failure to condemn what he said was a series of abuses by rebellious forces from the northern Tigray region.
He said that Ethiopia is being targeted and singled out by the Human Rights Council for defending a democratically elected government, the peace and the future of its people.
Thousands of civilians have died and millions of others have fled the conflict between the federal government and rebellious forces, including fighters loyal to the Tigray People's Liberation Front TPLF, which has ruled Ethiopia's ruling coalition for nearly 30 years.
Some people have been arrested in the Benishangul-Gumuz and Oromiya regions this month, according to Al-Nashif.
She said that she deplores increasing hate speech and incitement to violence by federal and regional authorities, as well as other public figures, particularly targeted against Tigrayans and members of the Oromo community.
The forum will look at a draft resolution brought by the European Union that condemns violations by all sides. If adopted, an international commission of rights experts in Ethiopia would be set up to investigate and report back after a year.
The United States called for the resolution to be adopted and for the Ethiopian government to release all civilians and allow international observers timely access to detainees. Ethiopia's Zenebe rejected the resolution and said that the government would not work with any such commission.
He said that the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission had already worked with the UN rights office to investigate allegations of abuses, and was ready to do so again.
The joint investigation last month found that all sides in Tigray's conflict committed violations that could amount to war crimes.
Diplomats expected the vote on the resolution to be close to the 47-member-state forum.
The African Group of countries said that any politicisation of the investigation process must be avoided and that the European Union had totally ignored its positions and advice on this delicate situation. The proposed investigative mechanism is counterproductive and likely to cause tensions, and that it calls for the resolution to be rejected.
In Addis Ababa, Ethiopian government spokesman Legesse Tulu did not respond to requests for comment.