The U.N. Security Council on Friday called for an end to fighting in Ethiopia and expressed serious concern about the intensifying conflict in the country’s northern Tigray region.
In a statement approved by all 15 members, the council urged all parties in Ethiopia “to put an end to hostilities and to negotiate a lasting cease-fire.”
The council also ‘called for refraining from inflammatory hate speech and incitement to violence and divisiveness.’
The statement comes a day after the first anniversary of the start of the conflict in Tigray. It is only the second time that the U.N. Security Council has issued a statement on Ethiopia since the fighting began.
‘Today the Security Council breaks six months of silence and speaks again with one united voice on the deeply concerning situation in Ethiopia,’ Ireland’s U.N. Ambassador Geraldine Byrne Nason said in a statement. She said it was the first time that the council called for an end to hostilities in Ethiopia.
Council members said the language in the statement was amended to remove a call for an “immediate” end to hostilities “without preconditions” because of objections from Russia, according to The Associated Press.
