Off the radar of the international media, this truth and reconciliation commission was created by the Somali Regional State parliament in 2021 and became operational in 2022, with seven commissioners. Its mandate covers 1991-2018, corresponding with the worst period of abuses against the region’s population under the Ethiopian federal government of Meles Zenawi, which was led by the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF). These crimes include widespread killings, rape and enforced disappearances. Federal forces launched a brutal counter-offensive against the rebel Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF), which was fighting for “liberation” of the Somali region.
“Ethiopia does not have a culture of accountability,” says Juweria Ali, a research fellow at the University of Westminster whose family is originally from the eastern Somali region and who helped write the gender chapter of the Somali Regional State Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) report. “I don’t think anyone’s ever received genuine justice, or anyone has faced accountability for crimes committed. But what the Somali region did was carve out a space of their own, they asserted themselves without necessarily waiting for national direction. At the national level there were other transitional justice processes happening but it was more symbolic reconciliation than actual tangible transitional justice work.” Ali thinks the work of the Somali Regional State TRC is therefore “very important”, she told Justice Info from the Somali capital Jigjiga.
War restarts as the final report is ready
This TRC is supported financially by the regional state government and has also benefitted from some international expertise, funded notably by the European Union. Its mandate includes making recommendations on prosecutions and reparations for victims. Its report is ready, according to various informed sources, and awaits approval by the regional parliament before being made public. But, says Ali, the timeline for its release keeps shifting. TRC commissioners did not wish to talk to Justice Info until the report comes out. The TRC’s report is awaited just as fighting resumed in September in the northern state of Tigray between Ethiopian federal forces and the TPLF, breaking a 2022 peace agreement after their last war, in which Eritrea was also involved on the government side. Eritrea has now switched sides and is supporting the TPLF rebellion. It is also accused of supporting a new alliance of seven rebel groups across the country. Eritrea has denied this. The fighting in Tigray also spread recently to the neighbouring regions of Amhara and Afar.
Some alleged perpetrators “still in the system”
In this context, could the TRC report be delayed for fear that the federal government might try and interfere? “I think it’s more likely that there is a problem with whom it implicates in the Somali region,” says Magnus Taylor, deputy Horn of Africa director for the International Crisis Group, “rather than that there is a big pushback by the federal government.” Kjetil Tronvoll, professor of peace and conflict studies at Oslo New University and an expert on Ethiopia, shares this opinion. “This is an investigation into violations that happened during the TPLF era,” he says, “and today the federal government is at war against the TPLF. So any kind of evidence to de-legitimize their time in power would in principle be welcomed [in Addis Abeba]. Why keep a lid on it?”
Ali says the war in the north is little felt in the Somali region. “There are some small ways in which you can feel the change, like currency fluctuations and supply disruptions, but I would say no meaningful change in day-to-day life,” she told Justice Info. “The political atmosphere is completely insulated from what is happening in the north.” But Ali, who has seen the TRC report, agrees the issue of prosecution recommendations is sensitive. “I think one of the things that has caused the delay [in publishing the report] is the naming of perpetrators. That’s a big dilemma. They have a list of alleged perpetrators that have emerged from their findings. You have some perpetrators who are still in the system, with the capacity to do harm again. They are still discussing, they are still trying to find the best approach.”
A new rebel alliance supported by Eritrea
The new rebel alliance in Ethiopia includes the ONLF, which previously fought federal forces in the Somali region. The same Ogaden Front agreed to lay down its arms after the fall of the TPLF-led federal government in 2018. But, says Tronvoll, the ONLF split, as one faction did not agree to rally to the new government of current Ethiopian President Abiy Ahmed. “Some leaders said we don’t trust Abiy, we don’t trust the system, we still want to maintain opposition activities – that’s how they put it,” he told Justice Info. “They split from possibly the main body of the ONLF, which became loyal to the government. The faction that split off ended up in Eritrea and is now part of the rebel alliance.” Tronvoll has no doubt that Eritrea is supporting the rebels.
Asked if the rebel alliance could destabilize the whole of Ethiopia, Taylor of Crisis Group thinks not. “I think the rebel alliance has proved not very effective so far in coordinating the seven different groups involved,” he told Justice Info. “I think that the fact the Ethiopian federal forces are likely to be quite occupied in Tigray and possibly in Eritrea in the next few weeks and months may provide some opportunities for other groups to take advantage of a security vacuum in their regions. But these groups are relatively small, not particularly militarily accomplished, although they could cause trouble in their regions.”
He does think there is a risk of conflict spreading in the wider region. Ethiopia and Eritrea have cut diplomatic ties. Ethiopia has also cut diplomatic relations with Egypt, which it accuses of supporting the rebels. “The three main external players are Eritrea, Sudan and Egypt,” Taylor told Justice Info. “Ethiopia has this long-running problem with Egypt over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, so they suspect Egyptian involvement. This has become regionalized already. The fact that Ethiopia is supporting Rapid Support Forces in Sudan is another signal of that. The worst thing that could happen now is another Ethiopia-Eritrea war, which is looking closer than it has for a long time.”
50.000 statements from survivors and their families
Tronvoll thinks the Somali region TRC’s work could be important if it is allowed to work independently. “It is a [regional] state institution and not an independent body. The commissioners were selected by the regional government,” says Ali. “But one of the ways this has been counter-balanced is pushing the victims’ associations and the victims’ network to partner with the TRC, so that they always have a strong voice and strong representation in any of the decision-making that happens.”
She says many of the commissioners have been long-term human rights advocates, and they have travelled to every part of the region to take testimonies from victims. “There isn’t a single district that they have not gone to,” she says. “The data collection phase was extensive. They were more than free to carry out their work.”
Commissioner Fowsia Abdulkadir told a London conference in November 2025 that the TRC had taken some 50,000 statements from survivors and their families. The testimonies, she said, include people whose parents were taken and never seen again, people who were tortured, stories of women who were “raped and buried alive” and pregnant women who were gang-raped. She also told the conference that the TRC has already helped get emergency reparations for some victims, including urgent medical aid.
Report to be published in November?
So when can we expect its report? “It was meant to be ready in September,” says Ali. “We even had a launch event planned at Harvard Law School in October, which we had to postpone. By the looks of it, it is not going to be beyond December, probably November.” Whatever else comes out, she says “it can be a historic record of what has happened. This region has never had that before”.
