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Addis Ababa (AFP)
The United Nations warned on Friday of possible war crimes in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region, ten days after battles the prime minister said his opponents would inevitably lose.
Prime Minister Abyei Ahmed, a 2019 Nobel Peace Laureate, ordered military operations in the Tigray region last week, shocking the international community, which fears a prolonged and bloody civil war.
Hundreds of people have been reported dead, some of them in a horrific massacre reported by Amnesty International, and thousands have fled fighting and airstrikes in the Tigray region, whose leaders Abyei Ahmed accuses of attempting to destabilize the country .
On Friday, the United States called for “immediate measures to reduce the escalation” in Tigray, and US Under-Secretary of State for African Affairs Tibor Nagy said: “We condemn the massacre of civilians in (city) Mai-Kadra” in southwestern the region, adding in a tweet on Twitter “It is necessary to restore peace and protect civilians.”
On Friday, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights called for a full investigation into the reports of the mass murder in Mai Kadra, as Amnesty said it had “digitally verified horrific photos and videos of corpses scattered around the city or transported in stretchers “.
“If it is confirmed that one of the parties to the current conflict did it intentionally, these killings of civilians would, of course, be war crimes,” Commissioner Michelle Bachelet said in a statement.
Amnesty said it could not confirm the identity of the person responsible for the killings, but eyewitnesses pointed the finger at the forces that support the Popular Front for the Liberation of Tigray, which governs the region.
Eyewitnesses also stated that the identity cards of some of the victims indicate that they are from the region, which has a long history of tension with Tigray, especially with regard to the territories.
Thousands of armed elements from Amhara were deployed to the Tigray border to fight alongside the Federal Forces.
Tigrayan leader Debrecion Gebramikail told AFP on Friday that the accusations were “null and void.”
Abyei Ahmed says his military operation is a response to attacks on two federal forces military bases launched by the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, which previously controlled political and security institutions in Ethiopia, and accused Abyei of marginalizing them.
The Front denies having carried out the attacks.
Tensions escalated between Abyei and the front in September when the region proceeded to hold its own elections, noting that Ahmed is an illegal leader after national elections were postponed due to the emerging Corona virus.
Surrounded on all sides –
On Friday, Ahmed addressed soldiers in the region, urging them to “stand up” and join the National Army.
“This malicious force is surrounded on all sides. It is a force that is taking its last breath,” he said in a Tigrin-language speech broadcast on Facebook.
He added: “They rose up against the clique or deserted and joined the Ethiopian Defense Forces.”
A communications blackout in Tigray prevented the verification of conflicting reports on the ground, but Ahmed promised to achieve a decisive victory “in a relatively short period of time”.
Gebramikail called this a “dream” and added: “We are a proud people who can defend themselves. This is a graveyard for invaders.”
Bachelet warned that if the conflict continues, “there is a risk that the situation will get completely out of control, causing great losses and destruction as well as massive exoduses” within Ethiopia and across borders.
“I am also deeply concerned by reports of vital power and water outages, as well as the imposition of a communications cut and the prevention of access by land and air,” he said.
– Monkhon –
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said more than 14,500 people had fled to Sudan this week, while humanitarian workers were overworked.
“People are arriving with few possessions, indicating that they have fled in a hurry. The children are arriving, exhausted and scared,” he said.
UNHCR also warned that fighting is closing in on a camp in Tigray that is home to 6,500 Eritrean refugees.
Concern over reports of ethnic tension is mounting.
UN Special Adviser for the Prevention of Genocide, Pramila Patten, and Special Adviser on the Responsibility to Protect, Karen Smith, condemned in a statement “reports of attacks directed against civilians based on their ethnicity or religion.”
They considered this “a dangerous path that increases the risks of genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity.”
On Friday, an African Union official confirmed the change in its security official, who is from the Tigrayan ethnic group, after the Ethiopian Defense Ministry complained that it “believed it was not sincere” and could destabilize the relationship between Ethiopia and the Addis Ababa-based union.
Ethiopian official media confirmed the issuance of an arrest warrant against Dipros and other commanders of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, in addition to the arrest of some 250 in the capital for their alleged collusion with the front.
The government stated in a statement that it had “specific and credible evidence” of elements of the TPLF working for local and international organizations.
The statement said that the police had submitted a list of these people to the World Food Program in the Amhara region, but it was not a “general ethnic classification”.
“We continue to receive credible reports of the suspension of Tigrayan jobs in other parts of the country as fighting intensifies in Tigray,” said Letitia Bader of Human Rights Watch.
“Given the tense and highly explosive context in the country, Ethiopian authorities must resist measures that would exacerbate intolerance and risk deporting Tigrayans from life,” he added.
© 2020 AFP
