Шығыс Африкадағы Ануак халқының тарихы мен құқықтары

Luo Nilotic ethnic group in the East Africa

The Anyuak, also known as Anyuaa and Anywaa, are a Luo Nilotic ethnic group inhabiting parts of East Africa. The Anuak belong to the larger Luo family group. Their language is referred to as Dha Anywaa. They primarily reside in the Gambela Region of western Ethiopia, and South Sudan. Group members number between 200,000 and 300,000 people worldwide. Many of the Anyuak people now follow Christianity. It is one of the first of the Nilotic groups to become almost entirely Christian, following the Shilluk people.

According to American non profit organization Cultural Survival, the Anuak originally lived on land near the Pibor River and the Sobat River, in present day eastern South Sudan near Ethiopia. Due to displacement from other groups, most Anuak now live along the Baro River and the Akobo River. However, beginning in 1984, the Derg regime embarked on a resettlement program, whereby 60,000 people from the central Ethiopian Highlands were relocated to Anuak lands in the Gambela Region. Many settled in Minnesota, in the United States.

The Anuak predominantly live in tight knit communities which are largely self contained, and often have little communication with the outside world. During the 2000s, when such violence escalated, a report by Genocide Watch and Survivors' Rights International collected testimonies of Anuak people, which painted a picture of widespread raping and killing of Anuak civilians, as well as the destruction of their property by the Ethiopian government and allied militias. The groups' 32 page report accused the Ethiopian government and allied militias of perpetuating genocide. A 2007 report by The International Human Rights Law Clinic at the Washington College of Law submitted to the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination concluded that the Ethiopian government's response to violent massacres in 2003 was in violation of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination. A 2005 report by Human Rights Watch also found that the Ethiopian militia "has committed widespread murder, rape and torture" against Anuak cilivians. The report amounted the actions of the Ethiopian military to crimes against humanity. According to Anuak militants, Anuak men (and some women) continue to be subject to arbitrary arrest, beatings, detentions and extrajudicial killings in Ethiopia. Human rights issues faced by the Anuak and others who live in the lowlands of the Gambela Region has affected the Anuaks' access to water, food, education, health care, and other basic services, as well as limiting opportunities for development of the area. The Ethiopian government has denied that its military was involved in attacks on Anuaks, and instead attributed violence in the region to local ethnic militias. A 2006 article by BBC News characterized local violence as a dispute between the Anuak and the Nuer "over access to pasture, water and fertile land in the Gambella region". When the Derg regime enacted a mobilization of all Ethiopian males in March 1983, many Anuak opposed conscription on a cultural basis. The government carried out a systemic enforcement of this conscription, which resulted many young service age Anuak to flee to Sudan or remote regions within Ethiopia to avoid conscription.

In response to an escalation in violence in western Ethiopia during the 2000s, a group of Anuaks living in the United States and Canada formed the Anuak Justice Council, an organization to promote the human rights of Anuaks. The group has collaborated with other non governmental organizations to document instances of violence, and to lobby various countries to condemn the practices of the Ethiopian government.