Ethiopia: No Justice in Somali Region Killings, rights watchdog says

A Rights Watchdog says Ethiopian authorities have failed to hold accountable a paramilitary force that killed at least 21 villagers in the Somali region of Ethiopia in June 2016.

“The government should promptly grant access to independent international monitors to investigate these killings and other reported abuses by this force, known as the ‘Liyu police’,” the Human Rights Watch said on Wednesday.

On June 5, 2016, Liyu police members entered the village of Jaamac Dubad in eastern Ethiopia’s Somali Regional State after an officer had been wounded in a dispute with local traders. The police started shooting indiscriminately, killing at least 14 men and seven women, and then looted shops and houses. Nine months later, HRW says, survivors said they were not aware of any investigation into the killings and had not received any compensation.

“Liyu police killed 21 villagers in the Somali region and devastated this vulnerable community, but there’s no sign that the government is working to bring anyone to justice for these killings,” said Felix Horne, senior Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch.

“Ethiopian authorities should end their indifference to the murderous operations by this paramilitary force and work with international monitors to investigate their abuses,”  Horne added.

Ethiopian authorities created the Liyu (“special” in Amharic) police for the Somali region in 2007, when an armed conflict between the insurgent Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF) and the government escalated.

“The Liyu police killing of 21 people is one in a long list of serious abuses for which this force has escaped scot-free,” Horne said. “The scale of their abuses over the last decade warrants international scrutiny, and Ethiopia’s international supporters should push for access to independent investigators into the Somali region to ensure that no one else has to suffer at their hands.”