Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, if he will call on his Ethiopian counterpart to allow peaceful protest in the Oromia region and withdraw paramilitary forces.

The UK Government is deeply concerned about the current situation in Oromia and in particular about the reported deaths of a number of students. The Department for International Development Parliamentary Under Secretary of State raised our concerns with the Ethiopian Deputy Prime Minister on 11 December and urged the authorities to exercise restraint. We will continue to raise our concerns with the Government of Ethiopia, including on the use of force.