Anywaa Survival Organisation
Press Release (UK)
May 19, 2004
Anywaa Survival Organisation again wishes to highlight a campaign of murder, genocide, mass rapes, torture, forced disappearances, and inhumane degrading treatment of the Ethiopian Armed Forces against Anuak community in their ancestral land, Gambela state in the southwest of Ethiopia.
The Ethiopian army and highlanders militia have killed estimated over 2000 members of Anuak community and displaced many more into exile since December 2003. The situation remains tense between Anuak community and the Ethiopian army in the region with army employing conventional military weapons including helicopter gunship against Anuak farmers in villages.
In the recent days, it is reported that the army has renewed their attack on the remnant Anuak civilians in the Gambela town. Since 11 May 2004, the armed forces have rounded up between 150-200 Anuak civilians in Gambela town and detained them in the military camps. The Ethiopian army used the attack on civilians in the Gambela town by unidentified group of people that claim 24 lives including an Anuak woman to detain the genocide survivors. It is to be recalled that the Ethiopian army used similar pretext to murder and rape ethnic Anuak in the Gambela town following an ambush on the vehicle belonging to Administration for Refugees and Returnees Affairs (ARRA), an implementing partner of United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees by unidentified group of people.
It is reported that detainees are subjected to severe torture, inhumane degrading treatment, and denied access to shelter and exposed to extreme sun light. The temperature in the region may range from 35-45 0c. Young men, women and elderly peoples are detained in the military camps and many more are hunted down. The military operation against the Anuak civilians continues without limit. ASO is alarmed by this renewed mass detention and aggrieved by the treatment. It is to be recalled that the Ethiopian army have denied the victims? families to bury their loved ones allowing bodies to rotten on the streets in last December 2003.
Anywaa Survival Organisation has received reports that some of the detainees have been released but remains at critical conditions. Our sources indicate that between 30-50 detainees have disappeared from the detention and their whereabouts are not known.
Following December killings Aegis Trust, Genocide Watch, Organisation Mondiale Contre la Torture (OMCT) and Survivor?s International issued press releases on the genocide situation of the Anuak community.
The Ethiopian Prime Minister, Meles Zenawi in an interview with Reuters on 29 April 2004 dismissed numerous reports of the Ethiopian Armed forces involvement in killing of members of Anuak community in the Gambela town and subsequent mass killings of Anuak farmers, burning down homes, crops and food stores in the Anuak villages. He denounced reports of genocide against the Anuak community as ?fiction? and responded thoughtlessly to OMCT?s press releases that call on the Ethiopian authorities to withdrew its armed forces from the region, bring perpetrators to justice by establishing an independent and impartial investigation commission and urge the international community to immediately respond to the humanitarian need of genocide survivors both in Gambela and across the international border-Southern Sudan and Kenya.
The recent reports of renewed atrocities against genocide survivors-elderly women and men, boys and girls in the Gambela town cast doubts of sincerity of Ethiopian Prime Minster, Meles Zenawi, who labelled one of credible international organisations as lying.  ASO strongly believes that the PM and his government will not deliver just solution to the aggravating tension between the Ethiopian armed forces and the ethnic Anuak minority in the Gambela region, Southwest of the country.
Anywaa Survival Organisation, like many other organisations, expresses its concern of the Ethiopian commission of investigation led by Ato Kemal Bediri, President of Supreme Court and Chairman of Electoral Board, that has returned from the region without meeting the survivors of genocide. According to our sources the Ethiopian commission of investigation has returned to Addis Ababa and during their stay they only met with Ethiopian highlanders suspected of genocide against Anuak community last December 2003. ASO condemn the partiality of the Ethiopian investigation commission and urges the international community, the UN and EU to establish an internationally supervised independent investigation commission to establish facts surrounding grave human rights atrocities committed against minority ethnic group in one of the remotest regions of the world.
ASO again emphases on the urgent need of despatching an independent investigation team to meet with survivors of genocide in both Gambela state and surrounding refugees camps in southern Sudan and Kenya. Our sources indicate that there are an estimated over 60, 000 Anuak community members in Pochalla refugee camp in southern Sudan and Ifo refugee camp in Kenya fleeing Persecution of the Ethiopian authorities. ASO would like to draw attention of international community, organisations and local and international NGOs on the grave violations of human rights conditions of minority indigenous peoples of Ethiopia and call upon international organisations and NGOs to provide humanitarian assistance to both internally displaced persons in the Gambela state and refugees in southern Sudan and Kenya.
ASO urges the international community, the UN and European Union to amicably find just solution to the flee of ethnic Anuak to save the future generation of this endangered community.
For further information and inquiries, Please contact Nyikaw Ochalla  at E-mail, ochalla@hotmail.com or call him on +44(0)7939389796.
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