Sweden parliament members requested focus to end civilian suffering in Amhara, Ethiopia

Sweden parliament (Sveriges riksdag) on January 23, 2025 session, the members Alexandra Volker and Jacob Risberg demanded the swedish foreign minister Maria Malmer to increase pressure on Ethiopian authorities to end human right violations in Amhara and across Ethiopia.

MP Alexandra Völker said:-

The ongoing conflicts in the Amhara region are costing lives, affecting access to school and impacting humanitarian efforts. An estimated 4.1 million children are currently out of school in the Amhara region. Transport corridors are regularly compromised, making humanitarian aid more difficult. There have been several reports of drone attacks; a school and civilian homes have been destroyed, among other things.

The conflicts in the region make it difficult for organizations to operate in the area. For example, the World Food Programme has expressed the need for safe passage to continue reaching the most vulnerable families. It highlights the need for all parties to ensure the protection and security of civilians, including humanitarian actors and their assets and premises. The current situation threatens the World Food Programme’s ability to support almost half a million vulnerable people in the region. In September, only 49,000 of the planned 340,000 received emergency food assistance.

MP Jacob Risberg stressed the worsening situation saying :

When the peace agreement in Tigray came in 2022, many of us were very happy. At the same time, it quickly fell into the media shadow. A lot of conflicts have returned during this time, including in Amhara and Oromia. According to Unicef, around 9 million children have been forced to drop out of school.

In January, Ethiopia and Somalia re-established full diplomatic relations, a year after relations were severed over Ethiopia’s signing of a cooperation agreement with Somaliland. As the conflicts continue, arbitrary detentions and forced evictions have increased over the past year. Thousands of civilians have been held in detention camps in Amhara, and in November, three prominent human rights organizations were banned, at a time when civil society and a free media are particularly important. We need to put pressure on Ethiopia.

Sweden minister for Foreign Affairs Maria Malmer Stenergard stated:-

Through our assistance, we are thus playing an important role in promoting sustainable peace in Ethiopia. Sweden supports and cooperates closely with the United Nations Development Programme, UNDP, the National Dialogue Commission and civil society actors. I would like to assure Jacob Risberg that gender equality and the rights of women and girls are something that permeates Sweden's work around the world.

Through our embassy in Addis Ababa, we participate in the steering group for the UNDP fund, which was established to support the national dialogue process. This gives us an important platform to monitor and influence the process in the right direction.

Sweden is also contributing SEK 52 million in aid during the period 2024-2026 to the ongoing process of demobilization, disarmament and reintegration, via UNDP's special fund for this purpose.

Amhara, Ethiopian community members of different organizations in Sweden attended the parliament session in Riksdag.