Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, whether his Department has made an assessment of reports of the Ethiopian government closing the businesses of ethnic Tigrayans in that country.

Recent arrests of Tigrayans in Addis Ababa and elsewhere in Ethiopia are extremely worrying, and discrimination against or targeting of any group on the basis of their ethnicity is unacceptable including closure of businesses. We have consistently raised the importance of respect for human rights throughout this conflict. The Foreign Secretary and I have both raised this directly with the Government of Ethiopia - I did so most recently with the Minister of Peace in July. We will continue to raise these concerns directly with the Government of Ethiopia.