By Ebi Kesiena
Lawyers and eye witnesses say authorities in Ethiopia have embarked on mass arrests of hundreds, even thousands, of persons in the capital after deadly unrest in the country’s Amhara region.
Earlier this month, Ethiopia’s Cabinet declared a state of emergency in Amhara after local militia fighters known as Fano seized control of several major towns, which the military has since retaken by force.
According to the state-appointed Ethiopian Human Rights Commission on Monday, there has been widespread arrest of civilians who are of ethnic Amhara origin as the activist urged the federal authorities to cease the detentions.
Two lawyers who spoke on condition of anonymity stated that the emergency measures also appear to be having an effect in the capital, Addis Ababa, where suspects are being held in police stations, schools and other makeshift detention centers after being taken off the streets.
Another man from Amhara, said he was picked up off the street last week by plainclothes police officers who overheard him discussing the recent unrest on the phone. He said he was held at a school with hundreds of others before being taken to a police station, but was released on Thursday without any charge.
While the federal government said only 23 people have been arrested under the state of emergency in Addis Ababa, the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission appealed that the state of emergency be limited to one month and to specific places where the special danger is said to have occurred, rather than applying it throughout the entire country.
Furthermore, the commission stated on Monday that it had confirmed “heavy fighting in and around cities and towns across the Amhara region, which involved the use of heavy artillery resulting in the deaths and injuries of civilians, as well as damage to property.”
It said prisons and police stations in the region were broken into, and that Amhara regional officials were the target of attacks, with some killed, resulting in the temporary collapse of local state structure in many areas.
Against this, Ethiopia’s parliament is set to vote on Monday to give formal approval to extraordinary measures which allow authorities to arrest suspects without a warrant, conduct searches and impose curfews.
Under the previous state of emergency imposed during the Tigray conflict, tens of thousands of ethnic Tigrayans were rounded up across the country.
Local militia fighters, the Fano, who fought alongside Ethiopian military forces in a two-year conflict in the neighbouring Tigray region, have resisted being disbanded after a peace deal last November.
