Nairobi, Kenya – Ethiopian officials and allied military fighters are leading a systematic campaign of ethnic cleansing in the war-torn Tigris of northern Ethiopia, according to a secret U.S. report obtained by The New York Times.
The report, written earlier this month, lists looted houses and land in desolate villages where thousands of people are homeless.
Fighters and officials from Ethiopia’s neighboring Amhara region, who entered Tigre in support of Prime Minister Abiya Ahmed, have “racially integrated the Western Tigris through the organized use of force and intimidation,” the report said.
“The entire village was severely damaged or completely wiped out,” the report said.
In another report released on Friday, Amnesty International said Eritrean troops systematically killed hundreds of Tigrian civilians in the ancient city of Umsum during a 10-day period in November, some of them shot in the streets.
Tigre’s deteriorating situation – where 2019 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Abi launched a surprise military offensive in November – will be the first major test of Biden’s administration in Africa. Former President Donald J. Trump paid little attention to the continent and never visited it, but President Joseph R. Biden promises a more engaged approach.
In a call with Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta on Thursday, Mr. Biden brought the Tigers crisis. The two leaders discussed the deteriorating humanitarian and human rights crisis in Ethiopia’s Tigris region and the need to prevent further casualties and ensure humanitarian access, the White House said in a statement.
But in this way Mr. Biden and other American officials have been reluctant to openly criticize Mr. Abien’s war behavior, while European leaders and UN officials concerned with reports of widespread atrocities are increasingly clarifying.
On Tuesday, the EU envoy, Finland’s foreign minister, Pekka Havisto, told reporters that Tigre’s situation was “out of control” after he returned from a fact-finding trip to Ethiopia and Sudan. The group suspended 110 110 million in aid to Ethiopia at the start of the conflict, and last month EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell warned of possible war crimes in Tigris, saying the crisis was “upsetting” the entire region.
Ethiopia regularly dismisses critics of its campaign in Tigre as a fanatic of its enemies. But on Friday afternoon, in response to a report by Amnesty International, Mr Abi’s office said it was ready to co-operate in an international investigation into the atrocities in Tigre. “The government is re-establishing its commitment to a stable and peaceful region,” a statement said.
Mr Abi’s office also claimed that Ethiopia had given “unwarranted” access to international aid groups in the Tigris – contrary to UN officials who estimated that only 20 per cent of the region’s people could be reached by aid groups due to government-imposed sanctions.
The new Secretary of the U.S., Antony J. Blinken spoke with Mr. Ahmed on the phone on Feb. 4 and requested that he allow humanitarian entry into Tigre, the State Department said.
“It’s time for the United States to focus urgently on the Tigris crisis, before more atrocities take place and the humanitarian crisis leads to church drought,” said Alex de Vale, an expert at Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Horn Africa in Diplomacy
“There is a need for high-level political leadership, and that means the U.S.,” he said.
When the United States took over the presidency of the United Nations Security Council in March, Mr. de Vale said he should use that position to bring about international pressure to bear the brunt of the conflict.
Mr Abi launched the Tigre campaign on November 4, after months of tensions with the regional ruling party, the Tigre People’s Liberation Front, which ruled Ethiopia with a tight grip for almost three decades until Mr Abi came to power in 2018.
But the worst neglect of the war has not been blamed on the Ethiopian army or the TPLF – whose armed wing is now known as the Tigre Defense Force – but on the irregular and undeclared forces rallying behind Mr Abiy’s military campaign.
In the early weeks of the conflict, the first reports came that the two countries had quietly reached Tigre to help Mr Abiyan’s powerful federal forces, Eritrea-Ethiopia’s fiercest rivals until the 2018 peace agreement.
Amharana – a region that has long been at loggerheads with the Tigris – was flooded by the western Tigris ethnic warriors, helping Mr. Abien quickly capture the area.
Now it’s Eritrean and our fighters who have faced serious charges, including rape, robbery and murder, which, according to experts, could lead to war crimes.
The American government reports on the situation in the Western Tigris, an area now largely controlled by our Malaysians, with vivid words presenting documents clearly described as a clear campaign to force an ethnic Tigris population under the cover of war.
The report documents how Tigris people were attacked in several towns and their homes were looted and burned. Some fled into the bushes; Others had crossed into Sudan illegally and some were still besieged and forcibly relocated to other parts of Tigre, the report said.
In contrast, the majority of Amhar’s populated towns flourished, with bustling shops, bars, and restaurants.
The American report is not the first allegation of ethnic cleansing since the Tigers crisis broke out. But it does reveal that U.S. officials are quietly documenting those abuses and reporting them to superiors in Washington.
The resurgence of mass hunger is also fueling a sense of urgency over Tigre. According to the Tigre Emergency Coordination Center, run by the federal government of Ethiopia, there are at least one million in the region. Millions upon millions of people are in urgent need of food assistance. Ethiopian officials say some people have already died.
A regional government document from Tigre, received on February 2 and the Times noted that 21 people starved to death in Gulomokeda in the eastern Tigre district. Aid officials have warned that such numbers could be just one tip of the iceberg.
“Today it could be one, two or three, but you know a month later it means thousands,” Abera Tola, president of the Ethiopian Red Cross Society, told reporters earlier this month. “After two months it will be thousands.”
However, especially among European legislators, political aggression against the Tigers is exacerbated by the growing number of human rights violations.
A report by Amnesty International, published on Friday, states that in November, Eritrean troops conducted house-to-house searches in Exim, shot civilians in the street and executed men and boys. Residents trying to get the bodies out of the street were fired upon when the shooting stopped, the report said.
Amnesty said the massacre was likely. Is a crime against humanity. Eritrea’s Minister of Information, Yemen G. Maskell dismissed the report as “transparently unprofessional”.
The city of ancient ruins and the church, Exim, is of great importance to the followers of the Ethiopian Orthodox faith. When Eritrean soldiers were resurrected and allowed to collect the bodies, hundreds were thrown into churches, including St. Mary of Zion, where many Ethiopians believe that the Covenant of the Covenant – commanded to hold ten written bullets – is kept.
Simon Marks contributed to the report from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
