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Ethiopia has rejected US allegations that there has been ethnic cleansing in Tigray, rejecting the latest criticism of its military operation in its northern region by the new administration in Washington.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said last week that he wanted the Eritrean and Amhara region forces to be replaced in Tigray by security forces that respect human rights and do not “commit acts of ethnic cleansing.”
“[The accusation] it is a completely unfounded and spurious verdict against the Ethiopian government, ”the Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Saturday.
“Nothing during or after the end of the main law enforcement operation in Tigray can be identified or defined by any standard as intentional ethnic cleansing and directed against someone in the region,” he said. “The Ethiopian government is vehemently opposed to such accusations.”
Ethiopia’s federal army expelled the former regional ruling party, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), from the capital Mekelle in November, after what it said was a surprise assault on its forces in the Eritrea border region. .
The government has said that most of the fighting has stopped, but has acknowledged that there are still isolated incidents of shooting.
Ethiopia and Eritrea have denied the participation of Eritrean troops in the fighting alongside Ethiopian forces, although dozens of witnesses, diplomats and an Ethiopian general have reported their presence.
Thousands of people have died in the fighting, hundreds of thousands have been forced from their homes and there is a shortage of food, water and medicine in Tigray, a region of more than 5 million people.
Ethiopia’s Foreign Ministry said it was willing to work with international human rights experts to conduct investigations into allegations of abuse.
“The Ethiopian government has demonstrated its willingness to engage positively and constructively with all relevant regional and international stakeholders to respond to serious allegations of human rights abuses and crimes,” he said. – Reuters
