Ethiopia's Tigray crisis_ EU warns of war crimes as deadline looms and calls for peace and dialogue!
- 3 years ago
The Ethiopian commission said people of Amhara origin, many of them seasonal workers on the area’s sesame and millet farms, had been subjected to “great fear and pressure” from the first day of the conflict, and had been prohibited from moving freely in the town. https://www.eudebates.tv/debates/world-debates/africa/ethiopia-faces-civil-war-conflict-in-tigray-region/ #eudebates #Africa #Ethiopia #war #Tigray #Conflict
Ethiopia’s state-appointed human rights commission said on Tuesday that a Tigrayan youth group stabbed, strangled, and bludgeoned to death an estimated 600 civilians with the collusion of local security forces during a mass killing in the town of Mai Kadra.
The Nov. 9 attack - first reported by rights group Amnesty International - was aimed at residents of non-Tigrayan origin, the commission said. It called the attack a “massacre,” saying accounts from survivors and witnesses suggested that the killings were part of a “widespread or systematic attack directed against a civilian population.”
Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed called in a tweet for “the international community to condemn these atrocious acts of crimes against humanity.”
Reuters was not immediately able to verify the accounts because internet and phone connections to the region are down and access tightly controlled since fighting erupted between government troops and forces of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) on Nov. 4.
Reuters was unable to reach local Tigray leaders for comment. The TPLF have previously denied any responsibility for the killings.
Amnesty declined to comment on the Ethiopian commission’s findings.
In a Nov. 12 report, Amnesty said scores and possibly hundreds of civilians were stabbed and hacked to death in the region on Nov. 9. It said it had not been able to independently confirm who was responsible, but said witnesses had blamed fighters loyal to Tigray’s local leaders, apparently after they had suffered a defeat by federal forces.
Mai Kadra is in the southwest part of Tigray, a northern state that borders Sudan and Eritrea. Hundreds have died, more than 41,000 have fled to Sudan, and there has been widespread destruction and uprooting of people from homes in the three-week-old war in Tigray.
Mai Kadra is claimed by both the Tigrayans and members of the Amhara ethnic group.
Some Tigrayan refugees have said they were attacked by people from the Amhara region, which borders Tigray and whose leaders back Abiy. Reuters could not independently confirm their accounts. A spokeswoman from the prime minister’s office said such reports could be TPLF disinformation.
“GREAT FEAR”
The Ethiopian commission said people of Amhara origin, many of them seasonal workers on the area’s sesame and millet farms, had been subjected to “great fear and pressure” from the first day of the conflict, and had been prohibited from moving freely in the town.
Ethiopia’s state-appointed human rights commission said on Tuesday that a Tigrayan youth group stabbed, strangled, and bludgeoned to death an estimated 600 civilians with the collusion of local security forces during a mass killing in the town of Mai Kadra.
The Nov. 9 attack - first reported by rights group Amnesty International - was aimed at residents of non-Tigrayan origin, the commission said. It called the attack a “massacre,” saying accounts from survivors and witnesses suggested that the killings were part of a “widespread or systematic attack directed against a civilian population.”
Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed called in a tweet for “the international community to condemn these atrocious acts of crimes against humanity.”
Reuters was not immediately able to verify the accounts because internet and phone connections to the region are down and access tightly controlled since fighting erupted between government troops and forces of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) on Nov. 4.
Reuters was unable to reach local Tigray leaders for comment. The TPLF have previously denied any responsibility for the killings.
Amnesty declined to comment on the Ethiopian commission’s findings.
In a Nov. 12 report, Amnesty said scores and possibly hundreds of civilians were stabbed and hacked to death in the region on Nov. 9. It said it had not been able to independently confirm who was responsible, but said witnesses had blamed fighters loyal to Tigray’s local leaders, apparently after they had suffered a defeat by federal forces.
Mai Kadra is in the southwest part of Tigray, a northern state that borders Sudan and Eritrea. Hundreds have died, more than 41,000 have fled to Sudan, and there has been widespread destruction and uprooting of people from homes in the three-week-old war in Tigray.
Mai Kadra is claimed by both the Tigrayans and members of the Amhara ethnic group.
Some Tigrayan refugees have said they were attacked by people from the Amhara region, which borders Tigray and whose leaders back Abiy. Reuters could not independently confirm their accounts. A spokeswoman from the prime minister’s office said such reports could be TPLF disinformation.
“GREAT FEAR”
The Ethiopian commission said people of Amhara origin, many of them seasonal workers on the area’s sesame and millet farms, had been subjected to “great fear and pressure” from the first day of the conflict, and had been prohibited from moving freely in the town.