On November 4, 2020, through what was disguised as a “law and order operation”, the Ethiopian government unleashed the start of their campaign to rid the country of its ethnic Tigrayan population. 

Tigray, the northernmost state in Ethiopia, has been attacked by its own federal government of Ethiopia, as well as troops from neighboring Eritrea. For nine months, Tigrayans have been brutally killed, raped, starved, and arrested, all due to their ethnic identity. 

The United States is currently determining whether or not this conflict should be labeled a genocide - we need your help in pushing our legislators to make this distinction! 

“A genocide is characterized by the specific intent to destroy in whole or in part a national, ethnic, racial or religious group by killing its members or by other means: causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; or forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”

All of this and more has occurred in Tigray at the hands of the Ethiopian and Eritrean governments. Below are a few of the many examples of genocide that has occured in Tigray: 

Reports indicate that tens of thousands of ethnic Tigrayans have been targeted and killed based on their identity alone, but the true death toll is expected to be in the hundreds of thousands.

Weaponized rape and other sexual violence, including gang rape, sexual slavery, sexual mutilation and other forms of torture, at the hands of the Ethiopian and Eritrean troops has been widespread. Thousands of rape cases have been documented, which expected to only be a fraction of the true number. 

"The women that have been raped say that the things that they say to them when they were raping them is that they need to change their identity -- to either Amharize them or at least leave their Tigrinya status ... and that they've come there to cleanse them ... to cleanse the blood line." 

Food has been weaponized and millions of Tigrayans are on the brink of starvation. According to the Associated Press, “It is not just that people are starving; it is that many are being starved.”

Since the start of the conflict, the Ethiopian government has arbitrarily arrested thousands of Tigrayans solely based on their identity. Oftentimes, detainees were arrested for simply speaking Tigrinya, the native language of Tigray. 

Hate speech enticing further destruction of the Tigrayan ethnicity has been rampant at all levels of government. In July 2021, Ethiopian PM Abiy Ahmed referred to Tigrayans as a “cancer” and “weed” that needs to be removed from the country.

It is clear that the Ethiopian government is determined to destroy in whole, or in part, the Tigrayan ethnicity, and it is the responsibility of the United States as well as the broader international community to stop this from happening. 

The scars of this conflict will last for years and generations to come. The international community must act now. 

Please sign this petition and push our legislators to label these horrendous acts a genocide.