ADDIS ABABA: A human rights group in Ethiopia announced on Monday that it was launching an investigation and monitoring campaign at over 100 prisons and jails in the country and across the Horn of Africa where thousands of people are currently remanded. The Ethiopian Human Rights Commission (EHRC) said that after numerous reports of abuses leveled by citizens at government and military officials at prisons in the region, it was putting teams together to investigate federal and regional detention centers. It said that it was hoping to detail the abuses and promote better human rights practices in Ethiopia and the region. “The investigating teams will interview prison officials and detainees and will eventually come up with reports on their findings" EHRC's Human Rights Monitoring, Research and Reporting Directorate said in comments published by Sudan Tribune. In 2010, the EHRC also sent teams to over 50 jails across Ethiopia in order to investigate reported abuses. “It subsequently organized a consultation forum in Addis Ababa at which representatives from various prison centers participated as part of the Commission's program to improve conditions in the country's detention centers," the commission added. It also comes on the backs of numerous reports in the Ogaden state near the Somalia border where a massacre was reported and women have reported sexual abuse and rape at jails by the Ethiopian military. Two Ethiopian women have accused the country's military of sexually abusing and raping them while they were detained after a crackdown in the Eastern Ogaden state near the Somalia border. Abdikarim Rabi, a human rights reporter with SVT, sent Bikyamasr.com a short interview he had conducted with Rokia Muhammad, who said she and other women were repeatedly raped. “They have raped me and many other women," she told Rabi. According to Muhammad, she is emotionally traumatized as well as having physical “traces of the treatment in prison." In an interview with SVT, she showed her head, which had areas of hair ripped out as she said she was dragged, naked, in the Ogaden jail. Another woman, who asked not to be named, had escaped to Addis Ababa where she is receiving treatment for her injuries suffered in an Ogaden jail at the hands of the military. “They would take me from my cell at least once or twice a day and rape me. The soldiers would take turns on me and other women. It was the worst experience of my life and I just want to forget and move on," she told Bikyamasr.com. It comes on the heels of increased reports of military abuse and violence against civilians in the Ogaden territory in recent weeks. According to one eyewitness, civilians were arrested in the Ogaden towns of Kebridahar, Shilaabo, Fiiq, Galaalshe and Dhagaxbuur Zone in the latest crackdown on the troubled region this month. “The civilians are accused of supporting the ONLF, Ogaden National Liberation Front, a nationalist movement fighting for the independence of Ogaden Region," the report stated. The source added “that 36 individuals are arrested in different locations; some are taken to Police stations while others are taken to military camps, while still the operation is continuing." The arrests come after the ONLF accused the military of carrying out a massacre of civilians in Ogaden last week. The ONLF accused the Ethiopian military of committing a massacre against predominantly women and children in the Wardher region on September 6. At least 13 people have been confirmed dead. The ONLF said in a statement that the killings targeted family members of ONLF rebels, including the Guuleed family. “All the victims were collected from different parts of the region including Danood, Qorile and other areas in Wardher region, and brought to Miir-denbas and summarily executed," Ogaden Online reported. The ONLF statement said that one of the victims was critically wounded by the military and left on the ground to die. Another 15 civilians are reportedly missing. One eyewitness told Bikyamasr.com that family members of the victims are currently holed up in their homes for fear that they will also be attacked and killed. “The situation here is extremely tense and people are both angry and sad at the violence against us," the witness said. Panic has taken hold of the area, the news report said. “For the last two years, the Ethiopian Army and its surrogates militias has increased this exemplary killings, causing fear and destruction of the lives of innocent civilians in Ogaden," the ONLF statement read. “Since 2007 when a UN found gross violations of Human Rights by the Ethiopian army in Ogaden and recommended a UN investigation on the violation of Human Rights, the Ethiopian Army continued their transgressions with impunity." The reports of the massacre come as the ONLF and the Ethiopian government met in Kenya to discuss parameters for peace negotiations to end decades of violence in the Eastern Ogaden state near the Somalia border. The ONLF was formed in 1984 and has carried out numerous attacks against the government over what it says is neglect and human rights abuses. “It is not the first time that the Ethiopian Army in Ogaden engaged in similar activities at times of dialogue between ONLF and Ethiopia," the ONLF continued. “For the last two months, the intentional killing of the civilian people had increased remarkably. In 1998, when an attempt to negotiate started, the Ethiopian Army killed three of delegates of the negotiation team, while returned from a rendezvous with the Ethiopian counterparts." They have called on the international community to hold the Ethiopia government responsible for the continued violence perpetrated in the state.
