Human rights in Ethiopia: OSG Submission to UN Human Rights Council
On 31 January OSG submitted the following statement to the 61st Session of the UN Human Rights Council (23 February – 31 March) with the assistance of OSG Australia, which has consultative status with the UN.
This statement includes information contained in Reports 69-72 from the Oromia Support Group (OSG).
The Prosperity Party government of Ethiopia does not represent the interests of any of the peoples of Ethiopia. The Oromo people reside in all regions of Ethiopia and constitute the majority in the largest and most populous region, the Oromia Region. Although many of the individuals in government are Oromo, the abuses against Oromo are as severe and widespread as those against any of the country’s other peoples. It is therefore inaccurate to describe Ethiopia’s government as an ‘Oromo government.’
The government’s dependence on financial support from the United Arab Emirates and the establishment of a base near Asosa for the genocidal Sudanese Rapid Support Forces are inviting proxy wars to be fought by regional powers on Ethiopian territory.
Projects to modernise and develop Ethiopia’s infrastructure are a façade while economic mismanagement, inflation, unemployment and extortion of resources from its impoverished population have destabilised society, at least outside the capital.
Poorly paid and poorly trained local militias engage in looting and extorting spurious and arbitrary taxes from rural and urban areas where people are unable to sustain themselves economically or access adequate health care or education.
A ‘dog-eat-dog’ situation has developed whereby militia members depend for their and their families’ survival on looting and extortion from people with nothing left to give.
Reasons, if any are given, for the extortion of money include financing the building of local administrative buildings, ‘health insurance’, arming and feeding federal and local security forces, bribes for the release of prisoners and victims of forced conscription, and licences for businesses and vehicles.
National defence forces use drones and heavy artillery in attacks on defenceless villagers, killing people and livestock. Villages in areas where the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA) is active are burnt to ‘drain the ocean to kill the fish.’ Villagers are threatened at gunpoint to indicate the homes of parents or other relatives of OLA members which are then destroyed.
Government forces continue to target for killing young men, the Qeerroo generation, whose sacrifices in peaceful demonstrations brought an end to the EPRDF government in 2018. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed stated in government meetings in early 2019 that his top priority was the extermination of Qeerroo members because they were the greatest obstacle to his power.
OSG has documented a small fraction of the extrajudicial killings committed by government forces. Since the end of 2018, OSG has recorded 7,340 Oromo civilian killings. Of these, 1,064 have been killed since the beginning of 2025.
All zones of Oromia Region and the Oromia Special Zone in Amhara Region have experienced killings during 2025. Killings and destruction of property have been particularly egregious in Wallega zones and of increasing frequency in the latter half of 2025 in Arsi and West Arsi zones. Poor access and communication hinders the collection of data, especially from Guji and Borana zones.
Young men and respected community members without connection to OLA have been killed in their homes, on the streets, in churches, and on their way to and from markets. Many have been taken from police custody or from detention in military camps and summarily executed, sometimes in public in order to terrorise the population.
Individuals who have risked their lives to investigate and publish human rights abuses and the dire economic and health crises in rural areas have been hounded out of Ethiopia, and family members have been detained.
Children, prepubescent girls and young boys, and mothers of families have been cruelly raped by government soldiers. The rape and killing of teenage girls and girls aged as young as ten years are documented. Deliberate shooting of infants and children under ten years old by national defence forces, for frivolous reasons, has been recorded.
There is displacement of hundreds of thousands of villagers due to the destruction of their homes and farms. Added to these are those displaced in modernisation projects, where even moderately sized conurbations, such as Dembi Dollo in Qellem Wallega, have been subjected to ‘corridor projects’. Private houses and business properties have been bulldozed without consultation or compensation.
Large-scale developments such as the Gadaa Special Economic Zone project and the $12.5 billion Bishoftu Airport, both in East Showa, are going ahead, displacing tens of thousands with no consultation and hardly any compensation, if any is given at all. The long-term livelihood of Oromo and the traditional heritage, deeply attached to their land, is being destroyed.
The Karrayyu pastoralists in East Showa, one of the major remaining centres practising the Gadaa system of social, spiritual and democratic governance, acknowledged as a UNESCO World Heritage, have been almost completely destroyed, since fourteen of their leaders were killed on the orders of Oromia Region authorities in December 2021.
Development projects appear to have been designed in order to completely divide Oromia Region into two, and are destined to bring millions of people from other regions into the narrow strip of land in southern East Showa, only 40 km wide in places, between Amhara Region and the Central Ethiopia Regional State.
National and regional governments have not opposed the killings of civilians and destruction of their property by Somali Region forces (Liyyu) in West Bale, East and West Hararge and South Borana zones of Oromia Region.
Division and hatred between Oromo and Amhara peoples has been deliberately fomented by the government. Clandestine federal forces, masquerading as Fano Amhara fighters and as OLA fighters have been established in at least Showa and Wallega zones, where they have been responsible for massacres and numerous smaller scale killings, with the sole purpose of spreading discord and hostility between Oromo and Amhara peoples.
For example, federal forces wearing wigs of braided hair and loudly calling to each other ‘Jaal’ (comrade in Afaan Oromoo) terrorised villagers in Dandi district, West Showa in September 2025, going from house to house at night, raping and looting.
Innocent teenagers have been beaten and imprisoned, dressed in military uniforms and paraded on media as if they were OLA fighters.
There is persecution also on religious grounds. Oromo priests within the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church have been detained and killed. Followers of the traditional Oromo religion,
Waaqefataa, have been killed and driven out of areas, and their worship halls (galma) burned down.
Refugees are fleeing to Djibouti and Somaliland in desperate and dangerous attempts to seek illegal work in Saudi Arabia. They face abuse and extortion on their journeys and at their destinations. Refugees are treated with hostility and disdain in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Djibouti, Somaliland, Somalia and Yemen.
Thousands are detained in life-threatening conditions or subject to slavery in Libya. Unknown numbers die in deserts between Ethiopia and the Red Sea or Mediterranean Sea and by drowning in those seas. Those who survive dangerous journeys to Europe are met with hostility, disbelief and discrimination.
