White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan expressed U.S. concerns over the crisis in the Tigray region in a call with Ethopia’s deputy prime minister, Demeke Mekonnen, the White House said on Thursday.
The two “discussed critical steps to address the crisis, including expanded humanitarian access, cessation of hostilities, departure of foreign troops, and independent investigations into atrocities and human rights violations,” in their phone call on Wednesday, the White House said.
Allegations of ethnic cleansing that began last fall amid a military crackdown in northern Ethiopia’s Tigray region now threaten to engulf the surrounding areas and permanently tarnish the reputation of the country’s nobel prize-winning prime minister. Thousands are dead, tens of thousands have been displaced, and the Ethiopian government is on the defensive. Coletta Wanjohi reports.
After months of heavy fightings between Ethiopian forces and Tigrayan leaders, people who thought they fled the most horrible nightmare in their lives have found another one.
The atrocities have been seared into the skin and minds of Tigrayans, who shelter by the thousands within sight of the homeland they fled in northern Ethiopia. They arrive in heat that soars above 38 degrees Celcius (100 degrees Fahrenheit), carrying the pain of gunshot wounds, welts on beaten backs. Less visible are the memories: Dozens of bodies strewn on riverbanks. Fighters raping a woman one by one for speaking her own language. A child, weakened by hunger, left behind.
The humanitarian situation in Tigray, Ethiopia, remains “dire”, the Spokesperson for the UN Secretary-General said on Wednesday.
Following months of escalating tensions between the Ethiopian Government and the dominant regional force, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed ordered a military offensive after rebels attacked a federal army base.
Within days, militias from the neighbouring Amhara region had joined the fray, reportedly followed by some troops from neighbouring Eritrea – a long-time rival of Tigray.
According to government forces, the region had been secured by the end of November, however TPLF resistance has continued amid accusations of extrajudicial killings and rights abuses on all sides.
The atrocities have been seared into the skin and the minds of Tigrayans, who take shelter by the thousands within sight of the homeland they fled in northern Ethiopia.
They arrive in heat that soars above 38 C (100 F), carrying the pain of gunshot wounds, injured vaginas, welts on beaten backs. Less visible are the horrors that jolt them awake at night: Memories of dozens of bodies strewn on riverbanks. Fighters raping a woman one by one for speaking her own language. A child, weakened by hunger, left behind.
The “turbulence and crisis” in Ethiopia’s Tigray region risks leaving a vacuum for extremist groups to spread unless the world works together to resolve it, the EU’s special envoy to the conflict said on Tuesday.
Hundreds of thousands were displaced inside Ethiopia and across the border into Sudan as the government launched an offensive in November.
In an exclusive investigation, witnesses tell of 182 civilians killed in cold blood as reports of human rights abuses in the region escalate
Mr Abiy sided with forces from Eritrea and ethnic militias from Tigray’s neighbouring Amhara region to crush forces loyal to the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) in a three-pronged attack.
Now a deluge of credible reports pointing towards a systematic campaign of ethnic cleansing, rape and man-made starvation are emerging.
This is one of the largest massacres to have been reported so far. In February, AP and Amnesty published accounts of several hundred people being killed by Eritrean soldiers in Tigray’s holy city of Axum.
The United States is looking into reports of human rights abuses and atrocities in Ethiopia’s Tigray region, the U.S. State Department said on Monday.
Department spokesman Ned Price told a news briefing that the United States is “gravely concerned” about accounts last week by CNN and the BBC of a massacre in the region by Ethiopian forces.
“We are, of course, looking into these reports. We have taken close note of them and we’ll continue to pay close attention,” Price said.
Millions of people in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region are facing starvation. Until now, it’s been a crisis without pictures. Those wrenching images of emaciated children and mothers with dull-eyed gazes, so sadly familiar from famine zones, have yet to emerge. But that’s because journalists aren’t permitted to travel to the worst-hit areas of Tigray, where hunger is deepening by the day. When the media can finally get access, or when starving villagers abandon their homes and flee to towns, the pictures will surely remind viewers of drought victims from Ethiopia’s 1984 famine, which prompted the famous LiveAid benefit concert and a vast outpouring of charity.
The Biden administration has been pressuring the Ethiopian government to end its military offensive and for Eritrea to withdraw its forces. Biden recently sent Senator Chris Coons to meet with the Ethiopian prime minister, who won the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize.
Rape has also been used as a weapon of war in the Tigray region by Ethiopian and Eritrean soldiers. CNN’s Nima Elbagir recently spoke to one Ethiopian woman who fled to Sudan after being raped.
