Summary

Non-signatory Ethiopia has expressed interest in the Convention on Cluster Munitions, but has not taken any steps to join. Ethiopia last participated in a meeting of the convention in 2013. It voted in favor of a key annual United Nations (UN) resolution promoting the convention in December 2021.

Ethiopia states that it has never produced cluster munitions and denies that it has stockpiled or used them. There is evidence that cluster bombs were used in Ethiopia’s Tigray region during the first half of 2021, but the responsible party and circumstances of use are not known.

Policy

The Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia has not acceded to the Convention on Cluster Munitions.

Ethiopian officials have expressed interest in the convention, but the country has not taken any steps to accede to it.[1] After the convention was adopted in 2008, an Ethiopian official said that it was not a question of whether Ethiopia would sign, but rather when.[2]

Ethiopia attended several meetings of the Oslo Process that created the Convention on Cluster Munitions, but participated only as an observer at the formal negotiations in Dublin in May 2008.[3]

Ethiopia participated as an observer at the convention’s Fourth Meeting of States Parties in 2013, but has not attended any meetings since then.[4]

Ethiopia voted in favor of the key United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) resolution on the convention in December 2021, which urged states not party to “join as soon as possible.”[5] Ethiopia has voted in favor of previous annual resolutions promoting the convention since the first was introduced in 2015.

Ethiopia is a State Party to the Mine Ban Treaty. It is not party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW).

Production, transfer, and stockpiling

Ethiopia stated in April 2013 that it has never produced or used cluster munitions.[6] In a June 2012 letter to the Monitor, Ethiopia stated that it “does not possess cluster bombs and did not possess them during the Ethiopia-Eritrea conflict.”[7]

The Monitor and others have consistently reported that Ethiopia likely still possesses cluster munition stockpiles, including Soviet Union- or Russian-made RBK series cluster bombs, United Kingdom (UK)-made BL755 cluster bombs, and Chilean-made CB-500 cluster bombs.[8] Ethiopia also possesses Grad 122mm surface-to-surface rockets, but it is not known whether these include versions with submunition payloads.[9]

Use

Ethiopia has used cluster munitions in the past. It is unclear if the Ethiopian Air Force used cluster bombs in the northern Tigray region during the first half of 2021.

Media reports, and accounts and images shared on social media, indicate that several types of Soviet Union- or Russian-made RBK-series cluster bombs may have been used in attacks on Gijet and Samre, southwest of the city of Mekelle, on 20–25 February 2021; and on Guyya and Menji, near the town of Abi-Adi Tembien, on 13 June 2021.[10] The air-delivered cluster munitions reportedly used include RBK-250 PTAB-2.5M and RBK-250-275 AO-1SCh bombs. RBK-250 ZAB-2.5 incendiary weapons may also have been used.

The Ethiopian Air Force possesses aircraft capable of delivering Soviet-made RBK-series cluster bombs. As of 31 May 2022, Ethiopia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs had not responded to a request from the Monitor to confirm or deny whether the Ethiopian National Defense Force used cluster munitions during the outbreak of hostilities in Tigray in 2020–2021.[11]

Previous use

Ethiopia and Eritrea both used cluster munitions during their 1998–2000 war. Although Ethiopia has denied it, there is ample evidence that it attacked several parts of Eritrea with cluster munitions. The Mine Action Coordination Center of the United Nations Mission in Ethiopia and Eritrea (UNMEE) identified approximately 30–40 cluster munition strikes inside Eritrea.[12] There have also been reports of Ethiopia using cluster bombs in other areas in the late 1980s and early 1990s.[13]

In 2012, Ethiopia stated that, “[Cluster] munitions from the former military regime era were left at the former Ethiopian Air Force base in Asmara, Eritrea. The Eritrean regime used some of these cluster bombs to attack an elementary school in Ayder, Tigray National Regional State on 5 June 1998 during the Ethio-Eritrean conflict. The remnants of these cluster munitions are still found in the area, some of which were presented as evidence to the Ethiopia-Eritrea Claims Commission in The Hague.”[14]

Cluster munition remnants including air-dropped PTAB-2.5M and AO-1SCh submunitions have been found near Somalia’s border with Ethiopia, near the Somali border town of Dolow.[15] The contamination is believed to date from the 1977–1978 Ogaden War between Somalia and Ethiopia, though it is unclear who was responsible for the use.[16]