The state affiliated Ethiopian Human Rights Commission (EHRC) and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) are to jointly investigate post-Pretoria peace agreement rights violation.
The Ethiopian government and the rebel Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) signed the Pretoria peace agreement in November 2, 2022 formally ending two years of brutal war in northern Ethiopia.
APA has learned that joint human rights investigators composed of the OHCHR and EHRC are set to be deployed in Tigray and other areas of northern Ethiopia where conflicts have occurred.
According to information reaching APA, the joint EHRC-OHCHR team was formed, after a request by the Ethiopian government to have joint investigation with the UN rights body received a positive response.
EHRC Chief Commissioner Daniel Bekele has confirmed APA about the plan to deploy the joint EHRC-OHCHR team, but gave no timeline for the planned deployment.
It’s not immediately clear what kind of relationship if any the planned EHRC-OHCHR team will have with the UN’s International Commission of Human Rights Experts on Ethiopia (ICHREE) team which the Ethiopian government has been relentlessly opposing for close to 18 months.
The ICHREE which was formed in December 2021 and its mandate renewed in October 2022, is tasked with primarily investigating alleged human rights abuses committed during the two year northern Ethiopia war.
MG/abj/APA