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Protesters trying to draw attention to war crimes and atrocities committed in Ethiopia’s Tigray region have started targeting Emirates passengers at airports around the world because of the airline’s ties to the government of the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Ethiopian government forces have been fighting Tigray separatists in the country’s northeast since 2020, and all parties involved in the conflict have been accused of documented human rights violations.
The UAE has provided millions of dollars worth of humanitarian support to the region, but the country has also been accused of escalating the conflict by supplying weapons to the Ethiopian government to help fight the Tigray People’s Liberation Front.
One Al Jazeera The UAE established an air bridge with Ethiopia to help provide arms and other support to the Ethiopian government, the investigation said. Satellite images show that the UAE has supplied the Ethiopian military with Chinese-made military drones and other weapons systems.
In just two months, some 90 support flights arrived in Ethiopia from an airport in the United Arab Emirates, but there is no indication that Emirates helped supply arms to Ethiopian troops.
Still, for protesters in Tigray, Emirates has become a symbol of the UAE’s involvement in the conflict.
About 200 protesters took part in a demonstration outside Heathrow Airport’s Terminal 3 on Saturday afternoon to protest the UAE’s involvement in the ongoing clashes.
Although a similar protest in Los Angeles last month closed Emirates’ check-in counters after sign-waving demonstrators blocked access to the airline’s facilities, the demonstrations ended peacefully.
Last year, Ethiopian Airlines denied allegations of transporting troops and weapons to the front lines.After a few months, in-depthCNN investigation The Addis Ababa-based carrier is said to have actually transported weapons at least six times in late 2020.
Amnesty International accuse Hundreds of civilians were killed in multiple airstrikes in the Tigray region in August and September. Earlier this year, Human Rights Watch said there was a “basically invisible campaign of ethnic cleansing” in the Tigray region, but war crimes and abuses were committed by all parties to the conflict.
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