University of Gondar denies aiding grave destruction in west Tigray

 

Mass graves in the Abune Aregawi Ethiopian Orthodox Church cemetery, Mai Kadra.

University of Gondar in Ethiopia has refuted claims that some of its specialists assisted Amhara militants in destroying evidence of mass graves holding Tigrayan dead.

 

The specialists were spotted advising militia members, witnesses told the BBC.

The university denounced this as an "unsubstantiated claim" in a letter to the BBC.

It further denied there was any proof that Tigrayans' dead had been discovered in mass graves.

 

If something similar had been discovered, the institution stated that the "research team... would have been the first to admit and disclose the proof."

 

"The university is one of Ethiopia's most prestigious research-based educational institutions, dedicated to addressing some of society's most critical concerns," it continued.

 

                                                                           University of Gondar

Gondar University researchers identified mass burial sites in the region as part of their investigation, but they discovered that they were the consequence of the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) killing thousands of ethnic Amharas during the mid-1990s.

 

Witnesses had described to the BBC how, in western Tigray, an area under the control of forces from the neighbouring Amhara region, the bodies of ethnic Tigrayans in freshly dug mass graves had been exhumed and destroyed. This came ahead of a possible visit by UN investigators looking into war crimes.

The TPLF was previously Ethiopia's most powerful political party, but that changed in 2018 when Abiy Ahmed was elected Prime Minister.

 

Political tensions between the federal government and the TPLF, which controls the majority of northern Tigray, erupted in civil war in November 2020.

 

All parties in the ongoing conflict have been accused of committing mass murder.