Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what recent assessment he has made of the human rights situation in Ethiopia.

We are deeply concerned at the mounting evidence of human rights abuses and violations in Ethiopia. All parties to the conflict must respect human rights and avoid civilian loss of life at all costs. We have raised our concerns with Ethiopian Ministers, making clear the overriding need to protect civilians and adhere to international law and international human rights law. In a joint statement on Ethiopia with 41 other countries at the 46th Session of the Human Rights Council, we condemned in the strongest terms the reported killings of civilians and acts of sexual violence. We continue to call for independent, international, investigations into allegations of human right abuses and violations, and unfettered access to Tigray - points the Foreign Secretary discussed with Prime Minister Abiy in Addis Ababa on 22 January. We also continue to call for the perpetrators of those incidents to be held to account, whoever they may be and we encourage the Government of Ethiopia to invite an independent UN fact finding mission to support their current accountability effort on international law compliance. I [Minister Duddridge] re-enforced the urgency of the need for humanitarian access when I [Minister Duddridge] spoke with the Ethiopian Ambassador on 24 February.