UN Hypocrisy and Gaza / Ethiopia Double Standards on Staff Torture Claims

👉 Courtesy: The New Humanitarian

The different responses to UN staff torture claims in Ethiopia and Gaza, mapping debt and crises, and why what happens in space matters to humanitarians.

On the radar:

Ethiopia: ‘A Two-Week Ordeal Involving Torture Of Humanitarian Staff

‘A two-week ordeal involving torture’: Ethiopian security forces allegedly detained and tortured humanitarian staff with little public pushback from the UN.

That’s one of many details found in an evaluation report published this month on the “failed” collective aid response in Tigray and northern Ethiopia – a scathing review that’s particularly critical of what’s labelled as a “dysfunctional” and “unaccountable” UN leadership team in the country. “The response made few, if any, collective statements against the blockade imposed against Tigray, the harassment, arbitrary arrests and detentions or torture of UN and non-UN humanitarian staff, or the practice of starvation as a weapon of war,” the report states. UN internal records showed physical violence, threats, intimidation, harassment, detentions, arrests, and confiscation of aid equipment. Informants also told the report’s authors of strip searches, the detention of family members, and multiple torture cases, including “a two-week ordeal involving torture that a humanitarian staff underwent”.

Meanwhile, in Gaza: When UN staff in Gaza alleged they were abused in detention by Israeli authorities in April, the response was more public. The UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, issued a report shortly after and spoke of it in the press. The abuse claims included: “severe physical beatings and treatment akin to waterboarding… beatings by doctors when referred for medical assistance; exposure to and being attacked by dogs; threats of rape and electrocution; threats of violence with guns pointed at them; verbal and psychological abuse; threats of murder, injury or harm to family members; humiliating and degrading treatment; being forced to strip naked and being photographed while they are undressed; and being forced to hold stress positions.”

Fail: The Ethiopia report’s lead evaluator, Ed Schenkenberg, said he was told the word “failure” was used too many times. His opinion piece, published here last week, calls for accountability, and warns that the problems resonate beyond Ethiopia. In Sudan, for example, he says “UN agencies lack a clear strategy, and are ineffective in negotiating unimpeded access. Growing the public understanding of why the UN fails in civil wars is instrumental to fostering much-needed reforms on how it operates.” For the record, the words “fail”, “failed”, or “failure” appear 14 times in the 123-report.