June 16, 2013 — A 38-year-old Afar man named Ahmed Abdullah was shot and killed by regime forces three days ago. The father of three children was killed after he made the fatal error of airing his grievances of previous killings of Afar people in his region. After shooting his chest and abdomen 12 times, the soldiers urinated and threw stones at his lifeless body. The man seen next his body is his friend, who was summoned to collect his body.
Ethiopia's Afar region is plagued by secessionist rebels who accuse Addis Ababa of ethnic cleansing of their people. Numerous Afar villages have been raided and given to Tigray peasants, where the core of the regime's members hail from. Human rights agencies and independent observers are banned from entering contested regions in order to hide the mass crimes the regime is conducting.
The Afar region, like the Ogaden, are both described as "giant prisons" by think tanks and a is a no-go area for journalists and independent observers. The government has been conducting summary executions and torture against Afar civilians without much condemnation or criticism from the West. This silence has only embolden the oppressive regime to continue its human rights violations with impunity.
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| Afar man shot and killed by Ethiopian troops after complaining of government abuse in the Afar region. June 13, 2013. |