Amnesty says Eritrean troops killed hundreds of Ethiopian civilians in
Axum
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[February 27, 2021]
NAIROBI (Reuters) - Amnesty
International accused Eritrean forces on Friday of killing hundreds of
civilians in northern Ethiopia over 24 hours last year, an incident it
described as a potential crime against humanity.
Eritrea rejected the accusations. But an Ethiopian state human rights
body issued a statement that also described such killings, though with
fewer details. It was a rare official acknowledgment from Ethiopia that
Eritrean troops participated in the conflict during the government's
crackdown in the Tigray region last year.
Amnesty said it had spoken to 41 witnesses who described the mass
killings of "many hundreds of civilians" by Eritrean troops in Axum, an
ancient city in northern Ethiopia.
The killings took place during a 24-hour period from Nov. 28-29, Amnesty
said. That coincides with the date that Ethiopian government forces
separately captured Tigray's regional capital Mekelle from forces loyal
to a local political party the central government had accused of
rebelling.
Amnesty said the Axum killings were retaliation for an attack by local
militia, and that Eritrean soldiers executed men and boys in the streets
and engaged in extensive looting.
Eritrea has consistently denied that its troops participated in the
conflict on its neighbour's territory. Eritrea's information minister,
Yemane Meskel, rejected Amnesty's report.
"Amnesty made absolutely no attempt to seek any information from
Eritrea," he said on Twitter.
Reuters spoke to an ethnic Tigrayan man working in construction in the
capital Addis Ababa, who said this week that Eritrean soldiers had shot
dead six members of his family in Axum on Nov. 28, including his
17-year-old brother and 78-year-old father.
“Everything our family had - all the happiness - has turned to
darkness,” the man said in a phone interview. Reuters was not able to
reach people in Axum itself.
CONTENTIOUS
The participation of Eritrean forces in fighting in Tigray is among the
most contentious issues arising from the conflict. Many Tigrayans say
the Ethiopian army drew on support from Eritrean forces, former enemies,
in the campaign.
Ethiopia has long denied that it allowed Eritrea to send troops to
assist the government's military campaign. But it avoided any direct
denial of the Amnesty International report on Friday.
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Ethiopians, who fled the ongoing fighting in Tigray region, gather
at dawn within Hamdayet village on the Sudan-Ethiopia border, in the
eastern Kassala state, Sudan December 15, 2020. REUTERS/Mohamed
Nureldin Abdallah
Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed's Office said in a statement that it
welcomed "international technical assistance" in joint
investigations into alleged rights violations in Tigray.
A confidential U.S. government report says Ethiopian officials and
allied militia fighters are leading a systematic campaign of ethnic
cleansing in Tigray, according to the New York Times, which said it
obtained a copy of the report.
Fighters and officials from the neighbouring Amhara region of
Ethiopia are "deliberately and efficiently rendering Western Tigray
ethnically homogeneous through the organized use of force and
intimidation," the Times quoted the report as saying.
The Times did not say which U.S. agency prepared the report. The
U.S. State Department did not immediately respond to a request for
comment from Reuters.
The state-run Ethiopian Human Rights Commission released a statement
timed to coincide with the Amnesty report, saying preliminary
investigations indicated that Eritrean soldiers had killed an
unknown number of civilians in Axum.
It said the killings were in retaliation for an earlier attack by
soldiers of the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), the
region's ousted ruling party.
Reports of the mass killing took months to confirm; communications
to Tigray were down for many weeks and media access has been tightly
restricted, although that is now loosening slightly.
Mulu Nega, head of Tigray’s government-appointed interim
administration, told Reuters: “The police and the judiciary are
investigating.”
Axum is a UNESCO World Heritage site, famed for its tall obelisks
and ancient churches, including one reputed to house the biblical
Ark of the Covenant.
(Reporting by Nairobi and Addis Ababa newsroom Editing by Steve
Orlofsky, Peter Graff and Cynthia Osterman)
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