Human Rights Action Group is working with Tigrayan groups, including United Tegaru Canada and Security and Justice for Tigrayans Canada.

Tigray is Ethiopia’s northernmost region. Bordering Eritrea, it is home to most of the country’s estimated 7 million ethnic Tigrayans.

In a war that began in November 2020, Tigrayans were subjected to atrocity crimes and human rights abuses by Ethiopian and Eritrean forces. Over the last five-plus years, evidence has mounted of widespread sexual and gender-based violence, forced displacement, mass killings, and cultural destructions, in what Human Rights Watch has termed a campaign of ethnic cleansing targeting Tigrayans. The United Nations International Commission of Human Rights Experts on Ethiopia found, in its September 2022 report, that Ethiopian and allied forces were blocking humanitarian aid from the Tigray region, using starvation as a weapon of war.

Reporting by Human Rights Watch found sexual violence a defining feature of the Tigray conflict, and the evidence demonstrates that sexual violence was used with intent to destroy the Tigrayans as a group. The UN International Commission similarly documented violence against Tigrayan women suggestive of “an intent to destroy the Tigrayan ethnicity”. This may be indicative of genocide.

On November 2, 2022, a peace agreement was signed between the Tigray People’s Liberation Front and the Government of Ethiopia. However, Eritrean forces, which were not party to the peace agreement, are still present in Tigray, and total impunity remains for perpetrators of atrocities against Tigrayans.

Human Rights Action Group is working with Tigrayans to leverage domestic and international legal avenues to address these issues.

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