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“They
sprayed us with bullets and we all fell into the ditch below,” recalled Mesfin,
one of the men who survived. © 2022 John
Holmes for Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International
Goitom,
a 42-year-old ethnic Tigrayan farmer, lived in Adi Goshu, a town in Western
Tigray, a large and fertile district known for growing sesame, sorghum, and
cotton in Ethiopia's northern Tigray region. On January 17, 2021, he watched
helplessly from his home as Amhara Special Forces and local militias beat up
and detained Tigrayans in his town. Tigrayans had already faced months of
intimidation by local authorities and Amhara security forces, and so Goitom ran
to a nearby forest to escape the latest onslaught until the situation subsided.
He waited a day and then called his relatives back in Adi Goshu, who informed
him that the forces had rounded up dozens of Tigrayans and summarily executed
them at the Tekeze bridge. He said:
Our
numbers were decreasing by the day. After the Tekeze incident happened,
Tigrayans left in big numbers. There was nothing to live for. We were not part
of the town; it was taken over by other people. We were not allowed to live.
Fearful
for his life if he remained, Goitom, like thousands of other Tigrayans who were
forced to flee - others were simply expelled from the territory - headed east
across the Tekeze River to northwestern Tigray to escape Amhara authorities and
regional security forces. Far from the world's attention, Goitom was among the
first wave of Tigrayans fleeing abuses in the Western Tigray Zone - waves that
have recurred while the conflict, and the world's attention, has moved on.
Since the outbreak of armed conflict on November 4, 2020, - pitting forces aligned with Ethiopia's federal government against those affiliated with Tigray's regional government led by the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) - hundreds of thousands of Tigrayans living in Western Tigray have been displaced from their homes through threats, intimidation, and a campaign of violence and forcible removal.
In
several towns in Western Tigray, signs were displayed demanding that Tigrayans
leave, and pamphlets distributed issuing Tigrayans a 24-hour or 72-hour
ultimatum to leave or be killed. © 2022
John Holmes for Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International
In
communities across the region, Amhara security forces acting under newly
appointed Amhara and Walqayte officials have been responsible for extrajudicial
executions, rape and other acts of sexual violence. The widespread pillage of
crops and livestock, and the looting and occupation of Tigrayan homes,
destroyed sources of livelihood. Tigrayans have faced mass arrest and prolonged
arbitrary detention in formal and informal detention sites where detainees were
killed, tortured, and ill-treated. Regional authorities have also imposed
discriminatory rules that deny Tigrayans basic services and access to
humanitarian aid, and measures that seem designed to suppress their rights and
presence from the area. Tigrayans endured ethnic-based slurs that targeted their
Tigrayan identity and were banned from speaking their language, Tigrinya.
People with disabilities and older people have been especially affected.
This
report is based on 427 interviews and other research conducted between December
2020 and March 2022 by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, as well as
previous research used for background and context. The organizations found that
since November 2020 in Western Tigray, civilian authorities, and Amhara
regional security forces, with the acquiescence and possible participation of
Ethiopian federal forces, committed numerous grave abuses as part of a
widespread and systematic attack against the Tigrayan civilian population that
amount to crimes against humanity as well as war crimes. These crimes include
murder, enforced disappearances, torture, deportation or forcible transfer,
rape, sexual slavery and other sexual violence, persecution, unlawful
imprisonment, possible extermination, and other inhumane acts.
Amnesty
International and Human Rights Watch found that Amhara regional officials and
regional special forces and militias, with federal forces' complicity, are
responsible for the ethnic cleansing of Tigrayans from Western Tigray. Although
not a formal legal term or a recognized crime under international law,
"ethnic cleansing" was defined by the final report of the United
Nations Commission of Experts on the former Yugoslavia as a purposeful policy
by an ethnic or religious group to remove, by violent and terror-inspiring
means, the civilian population of another ethnic or religious group from
certain geographic areas. As this report makes clear, the campaign of ethnic
cleansing in Western Tigray was conducted through resort to serious human
rights violations and violations of international humanitarian law, including
war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Simmering
tensions in Western Tigray and rights abuses over many years, mainly by Tigray
regional security forces against ethnic Amharas and Walqaytes (Tigrinya and
Amharic-speaking people historically inhabiting the highland areas of Western
Tigray) served as a backdrop for the eventual physical violence and expulsion
of Tigrayan communities from the area. The takeover by Amhara regional
officials of Western Tigray Zone - an administrative area bordering Sudan to
the west, Eritrea to the north, and neighboring Amhara region to the south -
represents a violent reversal of changes to Ethiopia's contested internal
boundaries enacted by the TPLF-led Ethiopian federal government in 1992.
At
that time, Ethiopia's internal boundaries were redrawn following the
recommendations of a government boundary commission, and the districts that
make up Western Tigray, which previously fell under the administrative
authority of the former Begemdir province, were incorporated into the Tigray
regional state. Ever since, Amhara activists living in the Western Tigray Zone,
and in the Amhara region, resisted the government decision. In response, the
government suppressed, at times through violence and force, those attempting to
assert their Amhara identity in the territory and raise their claims with the
regional and federal government. The outbreak of conflict, in November 2020,
brought these longstanding and unaddressed grievances to the fore: Amhara
regional forces, along with Ethiopian federal forces, seized these territories
and displaced Tigrayan civilians in a brutal ethnic cleansing campaign.
Abuses
during the military offensive's initial stages, early November 2020
When
the armed conflict started on November 4, 2020, fierce fighting, initially
centered on the Western Tigray administrative Zone, and pitted Tigrayan forces
against Ethiopian National Defense Forces (ENDF) and allied forces from the
Amhara region - including Amhara regional police special forces (ASF), Amhara
militias, and irregular militia known as "Fanos." Federal and allied
forces shelled towns and villages, including Humera town from the Eritrean
border. Tigrayan forces detained and allegedly summarily executed suspected
government informants in the course of fighting but were quickly pushed out of
Western Tigray.
Within
about 10 days, the Ethiopian federal forces and allied forces perpetrated
numerous abuses amounting to war crimes against Tigrayan communities throughout
the Zone. Forces destroyed villages and settlements, looted property,
livestock, and harvests, and subjected Tigrayan civilians, suspected TPLF
sympathizers, and local Tigrayan militia members, to extrajudicial executions,
arbitrary detentions, and torture and other ill-treatment. These abuses drove
tens of thousands of Tigrayans to flee to neighboring Sudan to the west, and
central Tigray to the east.
Mai
Kadra, a town near the border with Sudan, was the site of the first publicly
reported large-scale massacre. Starting from mid-afternoon on November 9,
Tigrayan militia and local residents brutally beat, stabbed, and hacked with
knives, machetes, and axes, scores of Amhara civilians. Later that same
evening, Amhara attackers retaliated, killing and injuring Tigrayans. The
violence left approximately 229 people dead. An additional 100 people,
primarily Amhara residents and laborers, who had been injured were brought to
nearby hospitals and health centers. A joint investigation by the Ethiopian
Human Rights Commission (EHRC) and the UN Office of the High Commissioner for
Human Rights (OHCHR) similarly found that more than 200 people were killed.
After
federal and allied forces took control of Mai Kadra on November 10, Amhara
Special Forces and militias, over the following days, targeted Tigrayans in a
wave of revenge killings. The Tigrayan residents who had not fled were detained
in official and makeshift detention facilities. Tigrayan property was pillaged
and occupied, while security forces obstructed the provision of relief to
detained Tigrayan residents before organizing their eventual expulsion from
West Tigray in late December 2020.
The
November 9 massacre in Mai Kadra was uniquely tied to a combination of local
factors, including preexisting tensions in the town among and between residents
and laborers from out of town, the proximity of the town to fast-evolving
fighting between the warring parties, and widespread rumors. Differing accounts
of what occurred during the massacre fueled further hatred, mutual fear, and
mistrust well beyond the town. Accounts of the massacre served as a tool of
mobilization to support and justify war efforts by federal and Amhara regional
authorities. In other places in Western Tigray, the accounts of what had transpired
in Mai Kadra precipitated revenge attacks on Tigrayans. The persecution of
Tigrayans in the town, in the days after November 9, including the targeted
killings, the looting, the mass detentions, and the subsequent organized
expulsion of the town's Tigrayan population, would repeat as a pattern and
unfold across the territory in the year that followed.
Abuses in Western Tigray from
November 2020 to June 2021
For
the many Tigrayan men, women, and children who remained behind in Western
Tigray, the abuses did not stop after federal and allied forces established
control of the Zone. The Amhara regional authorities took over the
administration of the area, which until now remains under their authority.
Interim authorities were also drawn from the local Walqayte and Amhara
community in Western Tigray, as well as from the Amhara region.
The
newly appointed authorities imposed a regime of ethnically targeted
restrictions on movement and access to farmland, as well as on speaking
Tigrinya - the local language of Tigrayans. Tigrayan residents described how newly
appointed authorities and security forces in Western Tigray restricted, and at
times outright blocked, their access to the critical aid that was available.
Amhara and Fano militias, in some cases alongside non-Tigrayan residents and
Eritrean federal forces, pillaged crops and tens of thousands of livestock -
the backbone of economic survival and livelihoods of the largely farming
communities in the area - leaving Tigrayans with little to survive on, and no
choice but to leave. Authorities and security forces began detaining Tigrayans
by the thousands.
In
several towns, including Humera, Ruwassa, Adi Goshu, Adebai, and Baeker, the
plans to remove Tigrayans from the area were a matter of public discussions and
displays. Local administrators openly discussed such plans during public town
meetings. Signs were displayed demanding that Tigrayans depart, and pamphlets
distributed issuing Tigrayans a 24-hour or 72-hour ultimatum to leave or be
killed. Interim authorities and security force officials repeated slogans such
as "Tigrayans belong east of the Tekeze River," and "This is
Amhara land," further underscoring that Tigrayans were being pushed out.
On
January 17, 2021, Fano militia and local Walqayte and Amhara residents rounded
up dozens of male Tigrayan residents of Adi Goshu. Amhara Special Forces (ASF)
took about 60 of them to the Tekeze River bridge that same day, and summarily
executed them. This is the massacre Goitom escaped from. Residents and the few
survivors believed the killings were a revenge attack after ASF forces suffered
heavy losses during fighting with Tigrayan forces near the river the previous
night. The persecution of Tigrayans in Adi Goshu escalated in the aftermath of
the massacre, prompting a mass exodus from the town. For several weeks,
Tigrayans who fled across the Tekeze bridge could see the bodies, which had
remained unburied, and served as a terrifying reminder of the atrocities
committed.
Amnesty
International and Human Rights Watch found that the authorities in Western Tigray
deprived Tigrayan communities of resources key to their survival, and coerced
people to depart for Sudan or other parts of Tigray. In some places, local
authorities provided the means to forcibly remove Tigrayans from the area,
organizing the trucks or buses that took Tigrayans from their homes or places
of detention to the Tekeze bridge, the crossing marking the limits of the area
newly under the Amhara authorities' control. Before allowing Tigrayans to
cross, Amhara security forces manning the final checkpoint on the bridge
confiscated their identification cards and the property documents that linked
them to land in Western Tigray, warning them not to return. They also prevented
Tigrayans who were fleeing the violence in other parts of Tigray from entering
Western Tigray.
The
forcible displacement escalated during late February and March and led to a
surge in the numbers of internally displaced Tigrayans in towns east of the
Tekeze River, such as Shire, Sheraro, and Axum in central and northwestern Tigray,
where, for months, many lived in overcrowded displacement sites. By June 2021,
a preliminary assessment carried out by the federal interim administration of
Tigray estimated that 723,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) from Western
Tigray had been registered in other parts of Tigray, while the UN refugee
agency (UNHCR) had registered 51,207 refugees in Eastern Sudan by January 2022.
Meanwhile, interim authorities and Amhara regional officials called for the
settlement of Amhara residents into Western Tigray, with promises of available
homes and land.
Abuses In Western Tigray from June to December 2021
As
Tigrayan forces recaptured many parts of Tigray in late June, Amhara
authorities and forces escalated the arbitrary arrests and killings of the remaining
Tigrayan residents, particularly in the border town of Humera and nearby towns
and villages. By August, as Tigrayan residents were being rounded up and
killed, dozens of mutilated bodies with restraints appeared in the Tekeze
River, which marks the de facto border between Western Tigray and Sudan. In
November, the roundups and forced displacements escalated again in Humera,
Adebai, and Rawyan towns, as Amhara Special Forces, Fano militia, in some cases
alongside Eritrean forces, detained men and removed many women, children, and
older Tigrayans from their homes, before forcibly expelling them towards the
Tekeze River. Thousands of other adult and adolescent men and women remained in
detention facilities, facing life-threatening torture, starvation, and denial
of medical care in overcrowded sites.
The
scale of the forced displacements and flight, the way the abuses were carried
out, and the number of areas where they occurred within the Zone, all indicate
a degree of control, coordination, and purpose among the authorities overseeing
the Amhara regional forces and militias that appear aimed at terrorizing and
directly removing Tigrayans from Western Tigray.
The
Ethiopian government's efforts to halt these grave abuses or punish those
responsible have been grossly inadequate. Federal and regional authorities
dismissed allegations of ethnic cleansing, including in response to a February
2021 statement by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken that "acts of ethnic
cleansing had been committed in Western Tigray." Since then, federal
authorities investigated the reports of the mass killing of Amhara residents
and communities in Mai Kadra but have taken little action to investigate
ongoing human rights violations against Tigrayan civilians in Western Tigray.
Instead, the government's continued dismissal of accounts from refugees who
fled their homes to Sudan, and its characterization of credible reports of
killings and detentions in Western Tigray as "fake," has only further
obfuscated the lived realities that survivors and victims endure.
Although
Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch contacted a range of Ethiopian
federal government officials and agencies to seek their response to the
findings set out in this report, only the Amhara Regional Government responded.
Their response letter did not provide any contrary evidence or rebut our
specific findings, but rather denounced allegations against "the people,
governance, and security forces," as "unfounded" and
"bothersome." It described our conclusions as "baseless,"
and the "accusations to expel Tigrayans," from what it characterized
as the Amhara region, as "cynical."
The
crimes outlined in this report, while not a full and comprehensive accounting
of the abuses that occurred in Western Tigray, require meaningful
accountability and redress. Ethiopian authorities should facilitate safe and
unhindered access to humanitarian agencies, while granting independent human
rights monitors - including the Commission of Inquiry established by the
African Commission for Human and Peoples' Rights, and the United
Nations-established International Commission of Human Rights Experts on
Ethiopia -access to conflict-affected areas in Ethiopia, including Western
Tigray.
Ensuring
accountability for these abuses needs a coordinated global response. The United
Nations, the African Union, and Ethiopia's international and regional partners
must take concrete steps to press for the immediate protection of all
communities, including at-risk Tigrayan communities who remain in the area.
They must also immediately support the work of the UN's independent
International Commission of Human Rights Experts on Ethiopia and ensure its
operationalization to investigate allegations of human rights abuses and
alleged war crimes carried out by all parties to the conflict in northern
Ethiopia since November 2020. Many of the Tigrayans interviewed for this
research hoped that the abuses would end, and that the world would finally know
of their suffering. States should ensure that their suffering is not being
ignored and press for credible justice and redress for the serious crimes that
were committed.
Summary of Key Recommendations
To
the Ethiopian federal government and regional authorities
Publicly
order federal and regional security forces to end all violations of
international human rights and humanitarian law against the Tigrayan population
in Western Tigray and elsewhere.
Immediately
demobilize and disarm all abusive irregular forces from Western Tigray, such as
Fano and other militias.
Suspend
civilian officials, including interim Amhara officials, and security force
personnel from the Amhara Special Forces and Ethiopian federal forces
implicated in serious abuses in Western Tigray pending investigations into
their actions.
Discipline
or prosecute as appropriate those found to be responsible for crimes against
humanity and war crimes committed in Western Tigray Zone since November 2020.
Investigate the three individuals named in this report.
As
part of any consensual agreement between the warring parties, allow the
deployment of an AU-led international peacekeeping force in Western Tigray with
a robust mandate and the means to protect civilians, promote human rights, and
create an environment conducive to the delivery of humanitarian aid.
Promptly
release all those arbitrarily detained in Western Tigray. Amhara interim
authorities and security forces should also immediately make public information
about the fate of all Tigrayans detained since the conflict began in November
2020 in Western Tigray. Ethiopian authorities should immediately allow
international humanitarian agencies access to formal and informal detention
sites without prior notification, and provide detainees with immediate emergency
food, water, and medical care.
Immediately
restore basic services and facilitate safe, sustained, and unhindered access to
humanitarian agencies to all affected populations across Tigray, remove
bureaucratic and physical restrictions on United Nations agencies and
humanitarian organizations that unnecessarily hinder the delivery of
assistance, and allow independent oversight and monitoring of assistance.
In
consultation with displaced communities and with the involvement of relevant UN
agencies, establish an independent body that can organize and monitor returns
that are safe, voluntary, well-informed, and dignified. Ensure that returns of
displaced persons and refugees take place in accordance with international
standards, on a voluntary basis, and with attention to the safety and dignity
of returning populations.
Ensure
that any mechanism established for addressing grievances between groups,
including regarding administrative boundaries, is in consultation with a
diverse range of stakeholders and independent institutions, and operated in
full respect of individuals' human rights, including the right to return.
To African Union and the United Nations Member States:
Press
all parties to the conflict to immediately facilitate safe, sustained, and
unhindered access to humanitarian assistance in conflict-affected areas. Urge
the Ethiopian government to immediately restore basic services, including
banking, communications, and electricity to Tigray. AU and UN member states
should also press the Ethiopian federal and regional authorities to facilitate
prompt access of United Nations human rights protection monitors in Western
Tigray.
Security
Council member states should place Ethiopia on the council's formal agenda and
establish a comprehensive arms embargo on all parties to the conflict in
northern Ethiopia, and a UN monitoring body to report on the implementation of
the embargo.
Support,
as part of any consensual agreement between the warring parties, the deployment
of an AU-led international peacekeeping force in Western Tigray, with a robust
mandate and the means to protect civilians, promote human rights, and
facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid.
In
consultation with displaced communities, and with the involvement of relevant
UN agencies, assist with the establishment of an independent body that can
organize and monitor returns that are safe, voluntary, well-informed and
dignified.
Given
the gravity of the crimes documented in this report, the international
commission of human rights experts on Ethiopia should include events in Western
Tigray, since November 2020 as part of its investigations, identify individuals
responsible where possible, and make recommendations on how perpetrators can be
held accountable, including through national, regional, and international
justice bodies.
Support,
under the principle of universal jurisdiction and in accordance with national
laws, the investigation and prosecution of those credibly implicated in serious
crimes under international law.
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