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Yemen: Houthis Obstructing Aid, Exacerbating Cholera
(Beirut) – Yemen’s authorities are obstructing aid work and exacerbating a deadly cholera outbreak that is spreading across the country, Human Rights Watch said today. Parties to the conflict, including the Houthis, the Yemeni government, and the Southern Transitional Council (STC), have obstructed aid and access to information and have failed to take adequate preventative measures to mitigate the spread of cholera. Houthi security forces also have detained and threatened civil society staff, including humanitarian aid workers, in their recent arrest campaign.
Data collected by aid agencies indicate that between January 1 and July 19 there have been about 95,000 suspected cholera cases, resulting in at least 258 deaths, according to an individual working with the Yemen Health Cluster, a group of aid organizations, authorities, and donors led by the World Health Organization (WHO). All parties to the conflict should end their violations and abuses of Yemenis’ right to health, and the Houthis should end their arbitrary detentions of civil society and humanitarian aid workers.
“The obstructions to aid work by Yemen’s authorities, in particular the Houthis, are contributing to the spread of cholera,” said Niku Jafarnia, Yemen and Bahrain researcher at Human Rights Watch. “More than 200 people have already died from this preventable disease, and the Houthis’ detention of aid workers poses a serious threat to further limit the presence of lifesaving aid.”
Human Rights Watch spoke to seven doctors working in hospitals across Yemen on the cholera response, as well as several other health care professionals. Human Rights Watch also spoke to 20 aid agency officials, including doctors and epidemiologists, working to respond to the cholera outbreak and to a government health official. On July 24, Human Rights Watch wrote to the Yemeni government, the Houthis, and the STC with requests for further information. The Yemeni government met with Human Rights Watch and explained that many of their constraints in addressing the cholera outbreak were linked with a lack of funding. They also provided information demonstrating the actions they had taken to inform the Yemeni public about the outbreak. The STC responded stating that Human Rights Watch should direct their questions to the Yemeni government, though the STC comprises part of the Yemeni government’s eight-member presidential leadership council that replaced former President Abdo Rabbu Mansour Hadi in 2022. STC members also lead the Yemeni Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation (MoPIC) and the Yemeni Ministry of Social Affairs, both of which deal with humanitarian aid and have been involved in aid obstruction. The Houthis did not respond.
Yemen has been in conflict for nearly a decade. Beginning in March 2015, a Saudi and UAE-led coalition linked with the government conducted numerous indiscriminate and disproportionate airstrikes killing thousands of civilians in Houthi-held areas and hitting civilian structures, including hospitals, in violation of the laws of war. Warring parties have damaged and destroyed at least 120 medical facilities, as well as water and sanitation facilities.
Though the coalition has not conducted airstrikes since April 2022, when warring parties agreed to a ceasefire that has largely held, neither the coalition nor other warring parties have been held accountable or provided adequate reparations for the harm and damage to civilians. These attacks have debilitated an already underinvested health and sanitation infrastructure and contributed to the immense humanitarian crisis facing Yemen today.
Currently, over 18 million of Yemen’s 30 million people need humanitarian assistance, and aid agency funding has been cut each year, at least in part due to the aid restrictions by governing parties. Yemen’s severely damaged healthcare infrastructure, the lack of safe drinking water, high malnutrition rates, and growing levels of vaccine denial and hesitancy from Houthi vaccine falsehoods, according to several sources, have facilitated the spread and impact of cholera in Yemen.
According to a doctor working with a humanitarian aid organization in Houthi-controlled territory, though patients began showing signs of cholera starting in November 2023, Houthi authorities refused to acknowledge the crisis to humanitarian agencies until March 18, 2024, when there were already thousands of cases. In March, the Houthis finally began providing information about cholera cases in Houthi-controlled territory, but they still have not announced the outbreak publicly.
Houthi authorities have also detained at least a dozen United Nations and civil society staff since May 31, with informed sources telling Human Rights Watch that the number of those detained continues to grow. The arrests have left many agencies questioning whether or how to continue safely providing humanitarian aid in Houthi-controlled territories, which has the potential to further exacerbate the current cholera outbreak.
In the south, the Yemeni government, which includes the STC, quickly responded to the news of the outbreak in October 2023 by working with humanitarian agencies to set up clinics and procure necessary medicines. Though they have continued to share information with humanitarian agencies since the start of the outbreak, an informed source told Human Rights Watch that they have instructed aid groups not to use the word “cholera” in public statements, particularly in Arabic. This hinders people’s ability to take measures to prevent further spread of the disease.
Furthermore, aid agency sources said that the Yemeni government initially blamed migrants from the Horn of Africa for the outbreak, placing migrants in an even more precarious situation in Yemen. Most migrants in Yemen do not have legal documentation, with limited job opportunities and severe difficulties in accessing basic public services.
While the source of the outbreak is not clear, cholera is endemic to Yemen. According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), during the last cholera outbreak in Yemen from 2016 to 2022, Yemen had 2.5 million suspected cases, constituting “the largest ever reported cholera outbreak in recent history,” with over 4,000 deaths.
Despite that immense toll, the authorities failed to take measures to prevent future outbreaks. Cholera spreads in large part via water and produce, such as fruits and vegetables, yet authorities and donors have not taken sufficient measures to invest in adequate water, sanitation, and hygiene infrastructure, which aid agencies call “WASH,” across Yemen, nor spread awareness in communities on effective, preventative hygiene and agricultural practices.
Many individuals working at humanitarian agencies also discussed the lack of funding for Yemen and the impact it has had on the cholera response.
The Houthis and the Yemeni government are obligated to protect everyone’s human rights in territory they control, including the rights to life, to health, and to an adequate standard of living, including food and water. Their aid obstructions violate these obligations. Although limited resources and capacity may mean that economic and social rights can only be fully realized over time, the authorities are still obliged to ensure minimum essential levels of health care, including essential primary health care.
Yemeni authorities should remove obstacles to aid delivery, including public health information. Houthis should also halt arbitrary detention and disappearances of UN and civil society staff and aid workers and release anyone held arbitrarily.
“The cholera outbreak will continue to spread and take lives so long as Yemeni authorities obstruct aid and authorities and the international community fail to adequately invest in prevention and mitigation measures,” Jafarnia said. “This can only happen in a space where civil society and humanitarian aid agencies are able to work without fearing for their safety.”
Restrictions on Publicizing Critical Health InformationHumanitarian agency sources said that authorities, particularly the Houthis, have pressured UN agencies and humanitarian organizations to stop publicly releasing data on cholera cases or deaths. Since April 30, the WHO has not reported any new data on the number of recorded cholera cases. However, sources told Human Rights Watch that case numbers have rapidly increased since April, when the WHO last reported them. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported on May 12 that there were about 500 to 1,000 new cases each day, and that “health partners anticipate that the total number of cases could range from 133,000 to 255,000 by September 2024.”
One person working in the Yemen Health Cluster said that in a meeting with the government’s health minister, people were given “clear instructions not to say the word ‘cholera’ and to use ‘acute watery diarrhea’ [instead].” Two sources also said that the director of al-Sadaqa hospital in Aden had been fired after going on television and talking about the cholera outbreak. The Yemeni government’s minister of public health told Human Rights Watch that there is ongoing investigation into the incident, but said that the director was fired for reasons unrelated to her public comments on cholera.
“In the south they’re very cautious about [using] the figures very openly … but the reality is that we have a cholera outbreak, and they haven’t announced it as an emergency and it’s spreading very fast,” said a humanitarian worker.
One local aid agency worker said that the government, while communicating openly with humanitarian aid organizations about the outbreak, was not communicating with the public. “They don't want to publish any of the data because they don't want to be blamed for it,” he said. He added that local media were not reporting on the outbreak because it was “sensitive” and may cause the journalists “problems” if they spoke out. Representatives of the Yemeni government told Human Rights Watch that they had publicized the cholera outbreak in several instances, which Human Rights Watch confirmed.
Engaging the public is essential to combating disease spread. A doctor working in Houthi-controlled territories said that cholera patients often did not come to hospitals until they had developed life-threatening symptoms, including impaired kidney function, due to their lack of awareness that they might have cholera and not just diarrhea. “The problem is that people don't go to hospitals immediately once they get sick,” the doctor said. “And that's because of the economic situation of the people and their lack of awareness of the cholera outbreak.”
The government also initially blamed African migrants for bringing the disease, risking the stigmatization of, and compounding a lack of adequate care to, the migrant population in Yemen. Migrants in Yemen already suffer from limited access to health services and their lack of legal status leaves them vulnerable to arbitrary arrest, detention, exploitation, and abuse. As several disease experts pointed out, cholera is endemic to Yemen and need not be carried over from another country for an outbreak to occur.
“There was an element of [the government] stating it was a problem in migrants and [it] won’t spread to the Yemeni population ... They said they’ll just kick out the migrants and problem solved. But of course that’s not how it works, and the disease will spread to the rest of the population,” one disease expert said.
A doctor working with an aid agency said: “Cholera is a life-threatening disease if you don’t treat it well from the beginning. And when it spreads, we need to all be working together to deal with it.”
In Houthi-controlled areas, the authorities have been far less transparent than other authorities in Yemen regarding the outbreak. All those interviewed who work for aid agencies in Houthi areas said that Houthi authorities did not provide any data or information about the cholera outbreak to the Health Cluster until March. Several doctors said that the Houthis actively denied the existence of cholera in the territories they controlled, despite doctors sounding the alarm.
When asked about the impact of cholera on migrants in Houthi-controlled territories, the disease expert said: “I can’t even tell you because I don’t even know. The sensitivity and lack of sharing data means that they’ve never given us any information [about this] so I don’t even know exactly what happens [there].”
Starting on March 18, the Houthis began providing information to humanitarian agencies about the outbreak of cholera, including case numbers. But unlike the Yemeni government, which was providing humanitarian agencies with “raw data,” Houthi authorities were only providing the number of cases in each governorate. Another disease expert said that this was hindering humanitarian agencies’ ability to provide a targeted response, as they needed raw data to “analyze and pinpoint to the areas where cholera is coming from.”
Another aid worker said: “Cholera is not something you can just isolate between south and north. You need to have full data from [both sides], or you can’t respond properly because people move back and forth.”
Houthi Authorities Obstructing AidThe Houthi authorities’ aid obstruction in the form of onerous bureaucratic aid requirements without justification have exacerbated the spread of cholera. Despite calling on humanitarian agencies to provide aid and funding after case numbers exploded in the spring, the authorities continued to impose cumbersome requirements on agencies to carry out activities, and many programs have been halted because they are waiting for authorizations.
Several people working in aid agencies said they had struggled to get permission to begin their cholera programs in Houthi-controlled territories, in some cases waiting for several months. One doctor working with a humanitarian agency said: “You need to get a specific permission for every single activity in the north; [if] you even want to do a field visit, you need to get permission. You want to conduct a training, you need to get permission.”
Another person said that the Houthis “create lots of administrative requirements and random compliance requirements, they cause complications for visa applications, and have delayed exit visa applications.”
Several people described problems in collecting data under Houthi authorities and the negative impact this had on their ability to respond effectively to the outbreak. Organizations “need permissions for [data collection], need permits, need to submit the tools [they plan to use] … and [the Houthis] may reject specific questions or may reject the questionnaire all together,” said one woman working at an aid agency.
The Houthis’ recent spate of arrests and accusations of spying included people who collected data for humanitarian agencies, demonstrating the significant risks staff face doing this work in Houthi-controlled territories. “It’s becoming more and more impossible to work in the north,” said an aid agency doctor. “All of our red flags have already been overpassed. Do we want to keep continuing like this?”
In November 2023, after several years of failed negotiations, the World Food Programme (WFP) decided to “pause” humanitarian aid to Houthi-controlled areas. Many other aid organizations say that they have struggled to maintain their operations in Houthi-controlled territories because of the extensive restrictions and attempts by Houthi authorities to control their programs.
The Houthis’ requirements that women, including those working for humanitarian agencies, who travel in territory under their control must be accompanied by an immediate male relative have also had critical impacts on aid delivery. In a letter to the Houthis regarding the requirement, several UN special rapporteurs said that “[i]nability to travel means critical work tasks cannot be performed, which leads to loss of work experience, and there are many reports of female aid workers leaving employment and therefore losing much needed income for their families.”
Authorities’ Fragmentation Hindering ResponseWhile the Yemeni government, which includes the STC, has taken steps in the last several years to ease onerous bureaucratic requirements on aid agencies, some sources still felt that they continued to hinder some aid responses through “interference and bureaucratic red tape.” However, the larger issue, several people said, was the infighting between various authorities in the south, particularly between different agencies and between the Yemeni government and the STC, which controls Aden and several other governorates.
One aid worker said that various government ministries—particularly the Yemeni Ministry of Social Affairs and MoPIC, both controlled by STC members—fought over which group was responsible for managing nongovernmental organizations, including who should authorize activities. “This is a problem with the government of Yemen, not about us, but it ends up affecting our work,” he said.
In addition to this lack of clarity, divisions between authorities in different areas posed further problems: “The issue in the south is the fragmentation,” said another person working at an aid agency. “Suddenly MoPIC in [one governorate] and MoPIC in [another governorate] will tell us that no we need to get approval from them when we thought it was just between us and MoPIC Aden.”
Even within individual ministries, there are often no clear lines of authority. “You ask a person to approve a list of imported medicines and each individual within the ministry wants to have that control and/or power over things,” said one of the humanitarian agency staff.
Lack of Prevention and Investment in Long-Term SolutionsPerhaps the most critical factor contributing to Yemen’s cholera outbreaks has been the authorities’ lack of investment in long-term solutions and measures to prevent cholera. People interviewed described a lack of community health promotion, including safe agricultural practices, and a lack of investment in water, sanitation, and hygiene infrastructure, which is a root cause of the spread of cholera in the country.
While the conflict has damaged an already-fragile healthcare system and infrastructure, the lack of awareness campaigns and community engagement are clear areas in which authorities are failing to prevent the further spread of cholera.
A doctor working at an aid agency said that authorities had done “no health promotion” in communities. “It’s all about prevention,” she said. “There’s no health community worker going out and doing the messages. Nothing is implemented, despite whatever [authorities] have on paper.”
A person working at a local aid agency said: “We don’t see any community engagement, we don’t see a strategy for engaging communities … Most interventions focus on the treatment side and ignore the root factors, which is why we keep seeing a resurgence.”
Houthi authorities have also actively campaigned against vaccines, which can be used to prevent cholera and many other diseases, including measles. “Yemen’s vaccine-preventable disease outbreaks are the direct consequence of increasingly low immunity levels in children,” the WHO said.
There are significant logistical challenges in providing and distributing the vaccines across Yemen, including managing the “cold chain” requirements for the storage and transportation of vaccines in a temperature-controlled environment, as well as a global shortage. However, aid obstruction, arrests of aid workers and pharmaceutical company staff, and anti-vaccine campaigns exponentially exacerbate these difficulties.
“The children in the north haven’t had vaccines for the last three years so they’re much more susceptible to dying because of [vaccine-preventable diseases],” said a doctor working at a humanitarian aid agency. “It’s not about availability,” he said. He described a “huge social media campaign,” which the WHO previously described as “calling into question established scientific fact and sowing fear and doubt in parents’ minds.”
Many people interviewed described the impact of poor water and waste management, including the use of sewage water for agricultural purposes, on the spread of disease. The disease expert said that cholera “can be controlled, but realistically, when 70 percent of the country doesn’t have access to clean water or disposal of waste, there’s a major problem with environmental contamination.”
An official at the government health office in Taizz, in government-controlled territory, said that he and others tested vegetables entering Taizz from northern governorates and found cholera in them. “Those vegetables were watered with sewage water,” he said. He said that people in Taizz needed more support from government authorities to purify water tanks in rural areas of the governorate as well as support in water and hygiene more broadly.
Authorities’ failures to invest in long-term solutions are compounded by the lack of international funding for humanitarian aid agencies. “People aren’t putting money anymore in Yemen,” said one doctor working with a humanitarian agency. Only 22.6 percent of the funding needed for humanitarian aid was received for 2024, according to OCHA.
Two aid workers said that at least part of the reason for funding shortfalls is Yemeni governance actors’ aid obstruction. One aid worker, citing Houthi restrictions, said that compared to other contexts in which their organization works, donors often did not want to fund cholera activities in Yemen because of how long the approval processes might take.
“From the bottom up, it’s a broken system,” an aid worker said. “The health system isn’t fully functional, [neither is] the transport system, [nor] the water system. Neither [the Yemeni government nor the Houthis] can afford to do anything because they don’t have the funding. With the declining donor situation, it’s becoming more and more difficult for [Yemeni authorities] to deal with the root cause of the problems.”
Several doctors and individuals working in humanitarian agencies said that aid agencies need to work with the authorities on a long-term plan. “First of all, create a strategic plan and ensure it's a long-term plan,” an aid worker said. “If you improve cholera, you improve the WASH sector. If you improve the WASH sector, you improve malnutrition.”
He added that if you respond to cholera only in emergency situations, rather than as a long-term plan for prevention, “every two years we'll have the same exact outbreaks, and they'll just give treatment but not address the root causes.”
“Cholera is not a new disease,” said a disease expert working for a humanitarian agency. “It’s a disease that shouldn’t exist. We should have gotten rid of it centuries ago … If you have chlorinated water, control over wastewater, and control over how you’re irrigating your crops, you’ll stop it. The reality is it’s a disease and you can definitely do something about [it].”
Bangladesh: Prime Minister Hasina Resigns amid Mass Protests
(London) – Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina resigned on August 5, 2024, and fled the country after weeks of student protests, Human Rights Watch said today. An estimated 300 people have been killed, thousands injured, and more than 10,000 arrested.
The army chief general, Waker-Uz-Zaman, said, “I promise you all, we will bring justice” while announcing the prime minister’s resignation and confirming that an interim government would be formed. The authorities should prioritize implementing a transparent and independent justice mechanism and immediately release all political prisoners, including those being held in incommunicado detention. The interim government should accept the United Nations’ support to open an independent inquiry into grave abuses both during the recent student protests and earlier, during the years of Sheikh Hasina’s government.
“Sheikh Hasina’s resignation after nearly 15 years of increasing authoritarianism brings new hope for accountability and democratic reform to Bangladesh,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The interim government should seize this opportunity to reorient the country toward the rule of law with independent institutions to assure justice for the victims.”
The prime minister’s resignation was the culmination of student protests that began in early July. The protesters initially were responding to the reinstatement of a 30 percent job quota for descendants of 1971 independence war veterans, which they described as a form of political patronage for ruling party supporters. Though the protests began peacefully, violence broke out on July 15, when security forces and members of the Chhatra League, the governing Awami League’s student group, attacked the protesters.
In response, students took to the streets. They had widespread support from Bangladeshis, who said they were not only appalled by the attack on students but also expressed anger over corruption, unfair elections, and rampant abuses by security forces. The government deployed the army and shut down internet access, during which activists reported extrajudicial killings and enforced disappearances. The authorities carried out a cordon and search operation, arresting more than 10,000 suspected protesters and lodging cases against tens of thousands more.
After the government lifted the curfew and partially restored the internet, the students called for civil disobedience to protest human rights violations, including killings, arbitrary arrests, and torture by Bangladeshi security forces. On August 4, tens of thousands joined the protests, calling on Sheikh Hasina and her ministers to resign.
Sheikh Hasina responded by reportedly calling on her supporters “to curb anarchists with iron hands.” There were deadly clashes between ruling party supporters and protesters across the country. The military took over on August 5, with the army chief announcing Sheikh Hasina’s resignation.
On August 5, Maayer Daak, an advocacy group of families of victims of enforced disappearance, held a demonstration outside of the Directorate General of Forces Intelligence headquarters, Bangladesh’s military intelligence agency. The agency allegedly ran a secret prison there, where victims of enforced disappearance were held and tortured. The authorities should offer the families of enforced disappearance some relief by releasing all those currently held in incommunicado detention, independently investigating every case in which victims’ whereabouts remain unknown, and holding those responsible to account.
In a positive move, Mir Ahmad Bin Quasem and Abdullahil Amaan Azmi, both victims of enforced disappearance, were released by the authorities on August 5. Bin Quasem was arrested at his house late on August 9, 2016, in the presence of his wife and sister. Security forces denied his arrest and repeatedly threatened and harassed his family. Azmi, a retired army officer, was detained on August 22, 2016, by men in civilian clothes who said they were from the police Detective Branch, but the authorities later denied his arrest. Both men are sons of party leaders of the opposition Jamaat-e-Islami, who were convicted of committing war crimes during Bangladesh’s struggle for independence.
Enforced disappearances skyrocketed under Sheikh Hasina’s rule and became a hallmark of her repression. In her first year in office this term in 2009, there were three reported enforced disappearances. By the next election in 2014, there had been 131. According to Bangladesh human rights groups, over 600 people have been forcibly disappeared by security forces since Sheikh Hasina took office.
The former prime minister’s rule was characterized by a culture of impunity alongside grave security force abuses, including extrajudicial killings, torture, and enforced disappearances. Those who dared to speak out risked their lives. Sheikh Hasina’s government further stifled free expression through a series of vague and overly broad laws used to harass and indefinitely detain activists, journalists, and others critical of the government.
The military has previously taken over, most recently in 2007 as a caretaker government. Though the military-led interim government was initially broadly welcomed, this soon gave way to widespread security force abuses. Under the declared state of emergency, the military tortured critics, limited political participation, and clamped down on freedom of expression and association.
The UN has called for calm and a peaceful transition. Soon after Sheikh Hasina resigned, some Bangladeshis engaged in vandalism, attacking religious minorities as well as Awami League members and their properties. Student leaders and opposition leaders called for calm, and activists gathered to protect minority Hindu religious sites. Bangladeshi authorities should be vigilant and prevent violent retaliation against Sheikh Hasina’s supporters or any other lawlessness, Human Rights Watch said.
“Bangladeshis have protested, and many have died, to protect human rights and democracy,” Ganguly said. “It is crucial for influential governments to help ensure that the country’s future is not sacrificed by repeating the past.”
Ethiopia: Free Brother of Slain Opposition Politician
(Nairobi) – Ethiopian security forces are detaining the brother of, and at least 11 other people linked to Batte Urgessa, a political opposition member who was murdered in April 2024, Human Rights Watch said today. The authorities should immediately and unconditionally release those held without charge and seek international support for their investigation into Batte’s killing.
Batte was last seen alive at a guest house in his hometown of Meki, in the East Shewa Zone of Ethiopia’s Oromia region, on April 9. Early the next morning, residents found his bound body with a gunshot wound to the head, on the outskirts of town. In the ensuing days, local police announced the arrest of 13 suspects to the killing, including Batte’s younger brother, Millo, a family friend, Ebba Wane, and the owner of the guest house where Batte had been staying. Many of them remain in detention. Batte was an outspoken political officer of the Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) opposition group.
“The Ethiopian authorities’ detention without charge of the murdered opposition leader’s brother and others suggests that the government is more concerned about preventing the truth from coming out than uncovering it,” said Laetitia Bader, deputy Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “The authorities should immediately release those unlawfully held and seek international assistance for an impartial investigation.”
Two photographs circulating on social media on April 10 show a man, said to be Batte, lying face down in a dry stream bed with his arms bound behind his back with a belt strap. At least one bullet wound is visible to the left side of the back of the head, and blood stains are visible on the lower back. The ground under his head and left shoulder are also stained with blood, indicating he most likely would have been shot while restrained at this location.
A second photo posted to Facebook accompanying the first shows six rifle-sized bullet casings, said to have been collected at the scene, on a piece of paper. Human Rights Watch could not establish the location or date these photographs were taken. However, they were not available online before April 10.
On April 10, Oromia’s regional government released a statement condemning Batte’s murder and saying that online propaganda blaming the government was unacceptable. In an interview with a US-based Oromo diaspora outlet that aired on April 11, Millo Urgessa said that witnesses close to where Batte was killed observed people remove Batte from a “ranger,” a common term for a government security vehicle. Millo was arrested that day, shortly after Batte’s funeral.
While Millo and Ebba are held in the Meki police station, the whereabouts of other detainees are not publicly known, putting them at risk of mistreatment. Human Rights Watch has received a list of nine people who remain detained in connection with Batte’s case. On June 12, a Meki district court ordered Millo release, yet he remains in detention. “Security officials are saying they don’t know about him [Millo], that he is not held by them,” said one individual familiar with the case.
Ethiopian authorities had arrested Batte on several occasions, including on March 7, 2021, after he visited detained OLF officials. On that occasion, Batte was held for a year without charge, often transferred between formal detention and makeshift detention sites, including a poultry farm, and beaten by guards. He was released in March 2022 after developing serious health issues. He continued to campaign for the release of his detained colleagues.
“I tried to do what was possible [for my colleagues],” Batte said in a 2023 interview with Human Rights Watch: “I reported their cases [to authorities]. I begged for their immediate release. Yet, there is no solution…. I have never seen this before ... It is only in Ethiopia where you have an authority ordering your release and the police denying the request…. Our office in Addis is guarded by the federal police. No one is allowed to enter ... It seems the government is trying to dismantle the OLF. Or ban the party. Or kill the OLF leaders.”
Batte’s seven senior OLF colleagues have remained in detention for nearly four years despite court rulings ordering their release. In May, Ethiopia’s national electoral board called on Ethiopia’s parliament to investigate the ongoing detention of the OLF officials.
Batte was last arrested in February 2024, along with a French journalist, Antoine Galindo, as they met for an interview at a hotel in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital. Batte was released on bail on March 9 and eventually returned to Meki in Oromia.
The United States, the United Kingdom, and the European Union and several of its member states all echoed a call from the national Ethiopian Human Rights Commission, a federal body, for federal and regional authorities to examine the circumstances of Batte’s death and conduct a prompt and impartial investigation into his killing. US Senator Ben Cardin, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, pointed to the government’s repression of media and the political opposition and urged the Ethiopian authorities to allow a “credible, neutral international body to conduct a thorough investigation.”
In recent months, Ethiopian authorities have increased threats, intimidation, and harassment against prominent Ethiopian human rights organizations, including the Ethiopian Human Rights Council, the country’s oldest, independent rights group. The Committee to Protect Journalists (CJP) has also documented a repressive media environment that has forced at least 54 Ethiopian journalists and media workers into exile since 2020.
Human Rights Watch and other rights organizations have repeatedly raised concerns about the government’s lack of effective investigations into human rights violations, and about the capacity and independence of Ethiopia’s investigative and judicial institutions, which are subject to political interference. Though the Ethiopian government has announced a three-year plan to reform and overhaul the justice sector, and in April released its nationwide transitional justice policy, the ongoing detention of political opposition figures despite court orders calling for their release, casts doubt on the Ethiopian government’s commitment to accountability and the rule of law, Human Rights Watch said.
Given the sensitivity and importance of the Batte Urgessa case, the government should be requesting international assistance for its criminal investigation.
“The Ethiopian authorities have glossed over or treated dismissively numerous high-profile killings and other human rights abuses against perceived critics of the government,” Bader said. “Concerned governments should make clear that the brazen murder of an opposition politician needs an investigation with significant international participation.”
Chad: Abuse, Deaths at Koro Toro Prison
(Nairobi) – Chad’s military is responsible for the deaths in custody of several detainees en route to and at Koro Toro prison in October 2022, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. The prisoners were unlawfully detained, mistreated, and denied basic supplies during the two to three days transit from the capital city to the prison.
Click to expand ImageThe 77-page report, “‘Worse Than Hell’: Death and Torture at Chad’s Koro Toro Prison,” documents in detail the detention of 72 people, several of whom were tortured or ill-treated at Koro Toro following the October 20 protests in the Chadian capital, N’Djamena, and in several other towns, to protest the two years extension of the transitional government. Security forces fired live ammunition at protesters. Hundreds were then taken to Koro Toro, a high security prison about 600 kilometers away. The transition ended in May 2024 with the election of Gen. Mahamat Idriss Déby.
“Chadian military officials oversee a prison in which abuse runs rampant and are responsible for deaths of protesters detained in the wake of the October 20, 2022 protests,” said Lewis Mudge, Central Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “The government should act to address the impunity for these abuses that has led many victims to give up all hope for justice.”
The remains of those who died should be returned to their families for burial, and one of the main buildings at Koro Toro should be closed as it is unfit to be used as a detention center, Human Rights Watch said. Chadian authorities, the African Union, and United Nations bodies should immediately investigate unlawful detention and ill-treatment at Koro Toro and all deaths in custody.
Human Rights Watch interviewed more than 150 people during 2023 and 2024, including 72 former detainees, family members of detainees who died en route to or at Koro Toro, government officials, and members of civil society. Human Rights Watch matched geographic features seen and verified from images obtained from former detainees with satellite imagery to locate the prison site. It used this material, along with sketches provided by victims, to construct diagrammatic models of the prison.
Koro Toro is comprised principally of two prisons, known as Koro Toro 1, or Koro Toro Habré, and Koro Toro 2, or Koro Toro Déby, located about one kilometer apart. Koro Toro 1 is older than Koro Toro 2 and is in decrepit condition. Human Rights Watch found that it lacks even the most basic standards of care. Both compounds house suspects who have yet to be charged with a crime, pretrial detainees, and convicted prisoners.
Click to expand Image A sketch by a former detainee from Koro Toro and the corresponding satellite imagery as of May 4, 2023. Sketch © 2022 Private. Image © 2024 Planet Labs PBC. Graphic © Human Rights WatchThe prison, which was designed to house “violent extremists,” is hundreds of kilometers from major urban centers and cut off from the outside world with no cell phone reception, making it practically impossible for family members and lawyers to visit.
En route to Koro Toro, most detainees were denied food and – more important – water, over two to three days. One former detainee said that when it was clear the trucks would not stop for water, he and other detainees started to drink their own urine. “We had a few small bottles, and we passed them around to share urine to drink,” he said.
Some detainees died in transit, presumably from delirium and hunger. Former detainees said the guards told them to throw the bodies out of the trucks. Human Rights Watch documented the deaths of at least four people en route to the prison, six others at the prison, and of one man whose death occurred in either of those places, although the real number of dead is most likely much higher. Relatives were not officially informed of the deaths, although some were told informally. Almost two years on, none of the remains have been released to their families.
Click to expand Image A clandestine photo showing goats and men at Koro Toro 1, taken and smuggled out by a former detainee. © 2022 PrivateFormer detainees said that, while soldiers from the national army guarded the prison, day-to-day administration was managed by prisoners suspected of having links to the Islamist armed group Boko Haram. They punished and beat other detainees, oversaw food distribution, and ran a small market. Former detainees said that the soldiers gave these prisoners de facto authority to ill-treat and beat others.
At least hundreds of people detained at Koro Toro in connection with the October 20 protests were “chained up” with iron rods around their ankles and attached to another iron rod for up to several weeks. Some were subjected to prolonged solitary confinement, a form of torture, and forced labor.
Judicial proceedings for the detainees were held in the prison by the Tribunal of N’Djamena. Based on interviews with former detainees, the interrogations and judicial proceedings were hurried and fell far short of fair trial standards. Most of the accused were convicted and then pardoned.
The Chadian government maintains that the October 20, 2022 protests amounted to an insurrection and that, given the seriousness of this crime, detention at Koro Toro was not extreme. In a July 2023 letter to Human Rights Watch, Chad’s justice minister stated that there was “no evidence relating to the violation of human rights related to [the] transfer or detention in Koro-Toro prison.”
The Chadian government should immediately close Koro Toro 1 and ensure urgent repairs at Koro Toro 2 to make it adequate for holding prisoners, including installing a means for detainees to communicate with their families and lawyers. No one should be detained at Koro Toro prison without charges, and anyone currently so held should be released immediately, Human Rights Watch said.
Failing a serious effort by the Chadian government to confront ill-treatment and torture at Koro Toro, Chad’s international partners should evaluate financial and other support, including training and capacity-building to institutions directly involved in these violations.
“Mahamat Idriss Déby’s government should demonstrate its respect for the rule of law by closing down Koro Toro 1 and bringing conditions at Koro Toro 2 up to human rights standards,” Mudge said. “The authorities should immediately investigate detainee deaths both en route to and at Koro Toro and prosecute those responsible for this and other abuses in detention.”