An internal U.S. government report obtained by The New York Times says that Ethiopia is conducting “a systematic campaign of ethnic cleansing” under the cover of war in the Tigray region, an area largely controlled by Amhara militias in the northern part of the country.
The Times says the report, written earlier in February, describes “in stark terms a land of looted houses and deserted villages where tens of thousands of people are unaccounted for.”
“We strongly condemn the killings, forced removals and displacements, sexual assaults, and other extremely serious human rights violations and abuses by several parties that multiple organizations have reported in Tigray,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement.
The top diplomat voiced deep concern about the worsening humanitarian crisis and said those responsible for the violence must be held accountable.
“We were scared,” he said. “I could see the pilots, the planes from my room. They came at least 30 times. I was sleeping so I had to fall from the bed. I was taking a nap. I didn’t know where to go.”
The US has condemned reported atrocities in Ethiopia’s conflict-hit northern region of Tigray, urging the African Union to help resolve the “deteriorating situation.”
The immediate withdrawal of Eritrean forces and Amhara regional forces from Tigray are essential first steps. They should be accompanied by unilateral declarations of cessation of hostilities by all parties to the conflict and a commitment to permit unhindered delivery of assistance to those in Tigray. The United States is committed to working with the international community to achieve these goals. To that end, USAID will deploy a Disaster Assistance Response Team to Ethiopia to continue delivering life-saving assistance.
Fighters and officials from the neighbouring Amhara region of Ethiopia, who entered Tigray in support of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, are “deliberately and efficiently rendering western Tigray ethnically homogeneous through the organised use of force and intimidation”, the report says.
House Foreign Affairs Committee Lead Republican Michael McCaul has released the following statement in response to reports of ethnic cleansing and mass violence in the Tigray region of Ethiopia.
“They set our crops on fire, then they started burning the homes,” said Gebru Habtom, a farmer in his 40s from the village of Debre Harmaz in Ethiopia. “Then they said they’d burn me next, so I fled for my life.”
“There are people who lost three or four people in our neighborhood,” Guesh told VOA’s Tigrigna service in one of the multiple interviews conducted with residents of Axum weeks before Amnesty International’s report. “Many people were killed, including monks in the monasteries.”
In the city, Guesh said, many young people were killed.
“Bodies in the city were laid out for three days because they didn’t have anyone to bury them. Some of the bodies were taken with a carriage after four days. My cousin was found after four days and they identified him using his identification card,” he added, making his cousin the third family member allegedly killed by Eritrean soldiers. All his family members were buried in one grave, he said. “I hope to get justice for my parents and my family.”
The corpses, some dressed in white church robes drenched in blood, were scattered in arid fields, scrubby farmlands and a dry riverbed. Others had been shot on their doorsteps with their hands bound with belts. Among the dead were priests, old men, women, entire families and a group of more than 20 Sunday school children, some as young as 14, according to eyewitnesses, parents and their teacher. Abraham recognized some of the children immediately. They were from his town in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region, Edaga Hamus, and had also fled fighting there two weeks earlier. As clashes raged, Abraham and his family, along with hundreds of other displaced people, escaped to Dengelat, a nearby village in a craggy valley ringed by steep, rust-colored cliffs. They sought shelter at Maryam Dengelat, a historic monastery complex famed for a centuries-old, rock-hewn church.
