The UN Security Council is expected to discuss the ongoing conflict in the northern Tigray region on Thursday. But a sense of intransigence amongst African countries towards taking a stronger stance on Ethiopia has so far thwarted efforts to stop a war backed by Eritrea, warns a leading expert on the region.
Category: War Crimes
msn: UN aid chief calls for Eritrean forces to leave Tigray
U.N. humanitarian chief Mark Lowcock warned Thursday that “a campaign of destruction” is taking place in Ethiopia’s embattled Tigray province, saying at least 4.5 million people need assistance and demanding that forces from neighboring Eritrea accused of committing atrocities in Tigray leave Ethiopia.
ohchr: Ethiopia: Persistent, credible reports of grave violations in Tigray underscore urgent need for human rights access – Bachelet
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet on Thursday stressed the urgent need for an objective, independent assessment of the facts on the ground in the Tigray region of Ethiopia, given the persistent reports of serious human rights violations and abuses she continues to receive.
“Deeply distressing reports of sexual and gender-based violence, extrajudicial killings, widespread destruction and looting of public and private property by all parties continue to be shared with us, as well as reports of continued fighting in central Tigray in particular,” Bachelet said. “Credible information also continues to emerge about serious violations of international human rights law and humanitarian law by all parties to the conflict in Tigray in November last year.”
VOA: UN Calls On Ethiopia to Allow Probe Into Alleged Mass Killings in Tigray
The United Nations high commissioner for human rights called on Ethiopia to permit an investigation into allegations of murders and sexual violence in the Tigray region, which may amount to war crimes.
“We urge the government of Ethiopia to grant my office and other independent monitors access to the Tigray region, with a view to establishing the facts and contributing to accountability, regardless of the affiliation of the perpetrators,” Michelle Bachelet said Thursday in a statement.
Federal troops deployed by Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed have been fighting forces of the region’s former ruling party, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF). Thousands of people have been killed in the area where hundreds of thousands of people were dependent on food aid before the conflict began, according to the U.N.
abcnews: EXPLAINER: Why Ethiopia’s deadly Tigray crisis is growing
Civilians massacred. Journalists arrested. People starving to death. Ethiopia’s government is under growing pressure to allow the world to see firsthand what has occurred in its embattled Tigray region as its Nobel Peace Prize-winning prime minister rejects “partisan interventions.”
That pressure is expected to spike this month as the United States chairs the United Nations Security Council and addresses the first major African crisis of the Biden administration. Millions of dollars in aid to Ethiopia, a key security ally in the region, are at stake.
WP: Ethiopia now calls Axum massacre allegations ‘credible’
Ethiopia on Wednesday said it is investigating “credible allegations of atrocities and human rights abuses” in its embattled Tigray region, including in the city of Axum, where The Associated Press and Amnesty International have separately documented a massacre of several hundred people.
The statement by Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s office comes days after Ethiopia referred to the killings in Axum as an “alleged incident,” and the country’s ambassador to Belgium told a webinar that “we suspect it’s a very, very crazy idea.”
WPF: The Mango Orchards of Zamra, Tigray
A few days ago, Eritrean and Ethiopian troops cut down the mango orchards at Adeba and Tseada on the Zamra river in south-central Tigray. It’s not a massacre, a mass rape or torture. But chopping down those fruit trees is evidence for the war aims of the leaders in Asmara and Addis Ababa.
In a phone call from nearby on March 1, my friend and colleague Mulugeta Gebrehiwot said this.
FP: Did Eritrea Commit War Crimes in Ethiopia?
The Ethiopian government is facing mounting allegations that foreign soldiers and Amhara regional forces committed atrocities during the war in Tigray.
FP: From Pariah to Kingmaker
Eritrea’s Isaias Afwerki is fueling bloodshed in Tigray—and offering other regional leaders lessons in authoritarianism.
Opinion: A key U.S. ally in Africa is massacring civilians. Can Biden stop it?
ETHIOPIA IS emerging as a major test of the Biden administration’s commitment to a foreign policy grounded in human rights. Since the federal government dispatched troops to the rebellious region of Tigray in November, there have been scattered reports of atrocities as well as warnings by aid groups of a humanitarian crisis due to the interruption of food deliveries. Then last week came disturbing new reports of massacres by troops from neighboring Eritrea of hundreds of civilians and of ethnic cleansing by militias.