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Airstrikes on Mekelle City: a blatant breach of the laws of war
Fithi Nikulu 10-22-21
In the last couple of days, the Ethiopian despotic regime has conducted air raids on Mikelle city, the capital of Tigray; civilians, including women and children, and civilian targets such as care homes for the elderly, institutions that care for mentally ill people, farmland, a hotel, and a university have been targeted. These are flagrant violations of the laws and customs of war; the Geneva Conventions (GCs) 1949, their additional Protocols (APs) 1977 to which Ethiopia is a party ban such heinous attacks on civilians and their objects. These round of violations of the laws of war by the Ethiopian regime are a continuation of the Ethiopian and Eritrean regimes and their partners widespread grave war (and other) crimes against Tigray and Tigrayans that have been committed in the last eleven months.
The GCs, APs and customary rules of the laws of war prohibit targeting civilians and civilian objects; they also prohibit targeting sites such as farmland, businesses and civilian industrial facilities, that are indispensable for the survival and day-to-day needs of ordinary people. In short, warring parties to a conflict can only attack military targets and those who directly take part in hostilities; if attacking a military objective would disproportionately affect the civilian population, the law says it must not be targeted.
On Monday 18 November the regime’s air force targeted a hotel, a market and another target in the vicinity of the city where civilian homes and ordinary people have been bombed as confirmed by CNN and other respected sources. UN officials have also confirmed that three children have been killed and several other people got injured as reported by Reuters.
The following day, the regime conducted a major bombardment in the middle of the city of Mekelle (as well as another village near Temben town). The bombardment in the city appears to have targeted the Mesfin Industrial Engineering PLC facility, a civilian company registered under Ethiopian law with the aim of fostering industrial development in Tigray and in the country at large. It is not certainly a weapon manufacturing facility.
In a third day of air strikes, bombardments of civilian houses and farmland were reported by national and international media outlets. On Friday 22, furthermore, Mekelle University and a nearby crop harvest pile was hit by the regime’s air force. Eleven civilians have been wounded in this air raid.
Friday’s areal attack was reportedly carried when a UN flight was about to land in Mekelle, it was aborted and returned to Addis Ababa. As a result, all UN flights to famine-struck Tigray have now been suspended. This planned behaviour of the regime is consistent with its pattern of hindering humanitarian assistance, including with the targeting and the killing of aid workers in Tigray.
These are blatant breaches of the laws and customs of war in general, and the rule of distinction between military and civilian objectives specifically, as widely endorsed in the international community. Civilian industries, markets, hotels, farmland, private homes and universities are not military targets. There is no doubt that private homes have been destroyed, and civilian lives lost, as a result of the series of bombardments carried on Mekelle.
Launching such an attack while permitting a UN flight bound to the target city would also amount to deliberately putting aid personnel and UN officials lives to grave danger thereby reenforcing the policy of using starvation as a means of war.
The regime sent confusing signals at the outset—its media outlets and diehard supporters celebrated the first attack and then within minutes it denied that the regime carried out the first airstrikes. Eventually, under pressure, the regime officially admitted that it carried out the bombardments and claimed that the attacks were aimed at destroying military facilities.
There is no evidence that institutions such as Mekelle University, Mesfin Industrial Engineering, markets, hotels, and care and residential homes, that have been targeted are military facilities. Even if the regime had a suspicion that some of these are being ‘used’ by its enemy, the rules of proportionality and precaution prohibit it from targeting them as these are civilian amenities located in a densely populated city of the region.
Furthermore, the areal assaults are violent acts aimed at causing terror among the civilian population which is expressly banned from use during war. Article 13 (2) of AP II explicitly prohibits using violence with the purpose of terrorising the civilian population in a civil war situation.
The game that the regime played with the UN flight also amounts to a serious war crime and dereliction of Ethiopia’s duty towards the UN Charter.
It is not surprising that the Addis Ababa despotic regime has resorted to such tactics. The whole world knows that the regime and its partners have used starvation, sexual violence, and mass atrocities as tactics of combat.
The Addis Ababa regime have attempted to blame the heightened violence and bombardments on the Tigray armed forces. The Regime has accused them of targeting civilians in the Amhara region. If this is the case, any loss of civilian lives and damage of civilian property is highly regrettable, irrespective of where it happens. However, the Tigray defence forces have a known record of complying with the rules of war from the start of the conflict. They have never engaged in military operations in cities and towns, including in the Amhara region. At the time of writing of this note, the Tigray forces have positioned themselves at an artillery range from Dessie and Kombolcha cities of the Amhara region; they have not retaliated by attacking cities and industrial facilities despite the tragic news they received from Mekelle. The Tigray armed forces must be commended for this restraint.
In contrast, the Ethiopian regime is continuing to commit war crimes as described under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC). Article 8 (2) (c) of the Statute criminalises targeting the civilian population who are not taking part in war.
The Ethiopian regime believes that the entire population of Tigray has become part of the fight against its genocidal war. There is no doubt that the people support the armed struggle against the Abiy and Isaias regimes and their partners in crime. However, that does not make them combatants.
To sum up, (a) the recurring airstrikes in Mekelle city and other parts of Tigray are flagrant violations of international law; there is no justification to bomb and terrorise civilians;
(b) such a behaviour will only expand the number of serious criminal charges that would/should be brought against responsible military and state officials when the time comes; (c) the international community has the duty to ensure respect for the Geneva Conventions and the rules and customs of war by condemning the airstrikes and taking collective action against the regime engaged in systemic war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. (d) If it acted against Mohammod Gadhafi in 2011 in the name of the responsibility to protect civilian populations, why not against Ahmed and Afewerki’s regimes? Regrettably, the UN and the rest of the world is simply watching such grave abuses being committed against Tigray and Tigrayans without doing anything; and (e) with such deplorable failure in mind, it is of vital importance that the legitimate fight of the Tigrayan people is supported and escalated until justice is achieved, and the guns and military aircraft are silent in the skies over Tigray and other parts of Ethiopia.
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