“Youths are being rounded up and sent to military camps in different places of the regional state,” said EHRC in a report noting that children and people suffering from mental disorders were not excluded.
The commission said it has found out that children as young as 11 years old were conscripted to send them to military training camps and deploy to the warfront currently going on in the Amhara region.
“Out of 32 young people, who were kept hostage in Shashemene town in Oromia regional state, 14 of them are below 16 years old whilst one of them was 11 years old,” the commission said.
The commission said an effort to have young people voluntarily enlist for military training has failed and government forces, in collaboration with local administrators have continued rounding up young people and sending them to military training by force.
The commission said parents and families of the abducted young people are asked to pay ransom for the release of their children. The commission said it has confirmed from parents of abducted children that they had paid up to 100,000 Ethiopian birr to get their children released.
The Oromia regional government last week refuted allegations that security forces are abducting people for ransom, describing them as “unfounded propaganda” and “defamation.”
The Amhara region conflict has escalated significantly since the Ethiopian National Defense Force (ENDF) launched an offensive that it called a “final operation” against an Amhara militia known as Fano.
MG/abj/APA