Ethiopian forces burned Tigrayan man alive - rights body

 

The Ethiopian Human Rights Commission (EHRC) announced on Sunday that government troops were responsible for the burning to death of a Tigrayan man, an atrocity depicted in a widely distributed video that drew anger on social media.

 

On Saturday, Ethiopia's government promised to investigate and prosecute anybody engaged in "the exceedingly brutal conduct" portrayed in the video, which shows an unarmed man being set on fire while a number of others insult him, including some wearing army uniforms.

The victim was a Tigrayan male, according to the EHRC, who was "burned alive... with the cooperation of government security officers and other persons."

 

The massacre took place on March 3 in Benishangul Gumuz, in the northwestern area of Sudan, near the border with South Sudan. It came after an incident a day before that killed at least 20 people, according to the state-affiliated independent rights organization.

 

Security personnel eventually apprehended and killed eight Tigrayans accused of being involved in the attack, according to the report.

 

"The bodies of the deceased were taken by security forces to a nearby forest and burned," the EHRC said in a statement, citing eyewitness testimony.

 

"In between this, an ethnic Tigrayan who was suspected of having contact with the deceased, was arrested... and thrown (on the pyre) with the deceased, with him dying of fire burns," the EHRC quoted eyewitnesses as saying.

 

"Those who were in the area were Ethiopian army soldiers, Amhara region special police forces and Southern region police forces," the rights body said, calling for a criminal investigation.

 

Thousands of people have died in the battle between government forces and Tigrayan rebels in Africa's second most populated country. Atrocities, such as mass murders and sexual assault, have been widely reported.

 

The war has also uprooted more than two million people, forced hundreds of thousands to the verge of hunger, and left more than nine million people in need of help, according to the UN.

 

Fatou Bensouda, a former chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Court (ICC), was appointed by the UN Human Rights Council earlier this month to lead an inquiry into a wide variety of alleged crimes perpetrated by both parties in the conflict.