OCTOBER 7/2003

Persistent and reliable reports emanating from the Ogaden region of Ethiopia clearly affirm the alarming state of human rights respect in the whole area. The reports show that the security and armed forces of the EPRDF have been grossly violating the human rights of the people.

There is famine and armed conflict in the region. The EPRDF forces have employed a policy of all out terror to subdue the people. Dwellings have been burnt, camels and goats shot or confiscated, people summarily executed and hundreds have also disappeared after being taken into custody. Food aid is also used to blackmail people into political support for the EPRDF and local groups allied with it. On the other hand, armed groups fighting against the EPRDF have also committed atrocities against innocent civilians coming from other ethnic groups in the country. Between the warring sides, the people in the Ogaden are losing their rights and being victimized.

The number of prisoners at Kebri Dehar and Wereder, for example, is estimated in the thousands. The prisons in the Ogaden have yet to be visited by any Prison Observatory body. The EPRDF also has what it calls Mobile Security Courts that dispense punishment without any concern fro due process or the law in general. As usual, the EPRDF has also refused to account for the "disappeared" while continuing with the torture of prisoners and the punishment of relatives for alleged crimes of their kin.

The human rights violations in the Ogaden region are so serious as to warrant urgent and close attention. SOCEPP calls on all human rights organizations to strongly condemn the ongoing gross violation of rights in the Ogaden region by the EPRDF.