NEW ABUSES AGAINST TIGRAYANS ALLEGED
New witness accounts allege that thousands of ethnic Tigrayans have been forcibly expelled, detained or killed in one of the most inaccessible areas of Ethiopia’s yearlong war in the latest wave of abuses carried out with machetes, guns and knives.
Following a report by The Associated Press early last month citing people who fled, Thursday’s joint statement by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International is based on interviews with more than 30 witnesses and relatives. It comes ahead of a U.N. Human Rights Council session today on Ethiopia, whose government objects to what it considers meddling by the West over the war that has killed tens of thousands of people.
Ethnic Tigrayans have been targeted throughout the conflict as Ethiopian and allied forces battle the Tigray fighters who long dominated the national government before Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed took office three years ago.
The new joint statement by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International says Amhara security forces are responsible for the latest wave of expulsions, detentions and killings, and it warns that Tigrayans in detention are “at grave risk.” It says security forces systematically rounded up Tigrayans in the communities of Humera, Adebay and Rawyan, separating families and expelling women and children.
“They separated the old from the young, took their money and other possessions. Older people, parents were loaded on big trucks (going) east,” one witness in Rawyan told the human rights groups. In Humera, witnesses described seeing as many as 20 trucks carrying people away. It’s not often clear where they are taken.
A spokesman for the Amhara region, Gizachew Muluneh, rejected the allegations as “totally groundless and unjustifiable. First of all, there is no place called western Tigray in Amhara region” — underlining the claim that Amhara authorities are simply retaking land they see as theirs. He also urged the international community to investigate alleged widespread abuses by Tigray forces against civilians in the Amhara region.