Kevin Andrews (Menzies, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to talk about the disastrous civil war and humanitarian crisis in Tigray in northern Ethiopia. There is mass population displacement involving millions of people, starvation, a healthcare crisis, gender based violence, massacres, looting, extrajudicial killings, the destruction of heritage sites and places of worship, lack of access to essential services and other crimes against humanity, including the alleged use of chemical weapons. This war is being waged by the Ethiopian, Eritrean and regional Amhara forces and is a humanitarian disaster. The Finnish foreign minister and special envoy to the European Union, Pekka Haavisto, told the European Parliament on 17 June:

When I met the Ethiopian leadership in February they really used this kind of language, that they are going to destroy the Tigrayans, they are going to wipe out the Tigrayans for 100 years …

The US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, has characterised the situation on the ground as 'ethnic cleansing of Tigrayans'. This is a humanitarian disaster. There are millions of people involved. I call upon the Australian government to join with like-minded governments around the world to use every force they can to prevent this continuing.