Children playing in front of the house in Bisober Village, Tigray, Ethiopia, December 9, 2020. Photo: VCG

Sixteen Ethiopian staff working for the UN were in detention Tuesday after government raids targeting ethnic Tigrayans, UN and humanitarian sources said, as foreign envoys scrambled to end the country's year-long war.

The detentions in Addis Ababa followed the declaration of a six-month nationwide state of emergency last week after Tigrayan and Oromo rebels claimed major advances on the ground, raising fears of a march on the capital.

Some UN staff members were taken from their homes, humanitarian sources said, shortly after a senior UN envoy visited Tigray to plead for more aid to civilians.

Sixteen UN staffers, all Ethiopian nationals, remained in detention while another six were freed, UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric told reporters at the world body's headquarters.

"We are of course actively working with the government of Ethiopia to secure their immediate release," Dujarric said.

"There has been, as far as I know, no explanation given to us on why these staff members are detained."

In Washington, State Department spokesperson Ned Price called detentions based on ethnicity "completely unacceptable."

Lawyers say arbitrary detentions of ethnic Tigrayans - commonplace during the war - have spiked in the last week, ensnaring thousands, with the new measures allowing the authorities to hold anyone suspected of supporting "terrorist groups" without a warrant.

The war, which has ravaged northern Ethiopia since November 2020, has been punctuated by accounts of massacres and mass rapes, with thousands of people killed and  2 million displaced.

In a report Wednesday, Amnesty International said 16 women in the Amhara town of Nifas Mewcha said they had been raped by rebels during an offensive in August.

A joint investigation by the office of UN rights chief Michelle Bachelet and the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission published last week found evidence of "serious abuses" by all sides in the conflict, saying some of the violations may amount to crimes against humanity.

Tensions between the Ethiopian government and the UN have been high throughout the war.

AFP