I am appealing to you to take prompt and effective action to end the de facto siege on the innocent people of the Tigray region, Ethiopia. As you are aware, the people of Tigray today find themselves in an existential quagmire, as seen in the unprecedented genocide being committed through:
• Extra-judicial executions, internal and external displacements,
• Complete blockade of life-saving humanitarian aid, including food, water, medicine, banks, electric, gas, telephone, internet land, and air access,
• Mass arrest, including profiling and detention of Tigray intellectuals,
• Using rape of women and girls and starvation as weapons of war,
• Destruction of livelihood means, from burning harvest to slaughtering animals,
• Looting and deliberate damage to development projects, such as factories, universities, schools, hospitals, clinics, pharmacies,
• Bombing of historical and cultural sites, including UNESCO registered sites
• Wide-spread and calculated robbery of private properties, with a design to impoverish Tigray and its entire population.
• A well-planned and coordinated hate campaign to tarnish the image of Tigrayans by vilifying the people with inflammatory terms: “Daytime hyenas, looters, junta, weeds, cancers, terrorists, the enemy of the Ethiopian people, etc.”
• Political, religious, and entertainment personalities inciting public anger against the innocent people of Tigray by using hateful references as was said by Daniel Kibret, the Prime Minister’s advisor, “We must exterminate them not only from the face of the earth but also from our conscience.”
It has now been more than 500 days since the war on Tigray was declared by the Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed in collaboration with his allies, the Eritrean government, Amhara forces, and other foreign actors. The Tigray Diaspora, in solidarity with the people of Tigray, has brought the unprecedented atrocities being committed on the people of Tigray to the international community, however, the atrocities continue unabated to this day. The recent immolation of Tigrayans in the Benishangul Gumuz region of Ethiopia has taken the extent of the crimes to another level – barbarism.
It is now obvious that, in the absence of concrete action, those expressions of concern will bring no relief to the people of Tigray. I have seen the contempt of the Ethiopian government for international organizations, international laws, and the international community. They have shown their disregard for all calls for restraint with attacks that have not only continued but also worsened both in level and intensity. In truth, the world response has emboldened the perpetrators and has only given them more time to further refine their genocidal methods, reaching to a horrific level of burning human beings alive. They have also declared their intention to continue these crimes with impunity.