Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, if she will take steps to raise issues of humanitarian access to (a) Tigray and (b) other areas of Ethiopia at the special session of the United Nations Human Rights Council planned for 17 December 2021.

We have frequently and consistently raised the need for full humanitarian access in Ethiopia at the Human Rights Council and at the UN Security Council. The Foreign Secretary, as Chair of the G7 Foreign and Development Minister's meeting, made a statement on 12 December also calling for unimpeded humanitarian access. The statement also called for an additional independent investigation on human rights violations as recommended by the Joint Investigation report from the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission. In my most recent discussion with Ethiopian Government Ministers - with Minister of State Redwan on 18 November and Justice Minister Gedion on 6 December - I raised our concerns about mass detentions, ethnic profiling, and hate speech. We will continue to take all opportunities to raise these important matters.