“War crimes and crimes against humanity have been committed by the Ethiopian government in Tigray” - UN

UN experts on Monday said that there are reasonable grounds to believe that “war crimes and crimes against humanity” have been committed by the Ethiopian government in the Tigray region, warning that renewed conflict there increased the risk of “further atrocity crimes”.

 

In its first report, the International Commission of Human Rights Experts on Ethiopia said it found that violations, such as extrajudicial killings and rape, have been committed by warring sides in Ethiopia since fighting erupted in the northern Tigray region in November 2020.

 

Three independent human rights experts made up the committee, which was established by the UN Human Rights Council last year, and it stated that it had "reasonable reasons to suspect that, in certain instances, these violations amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity."

 

The report was released as hostilities between the forces supporting the Tigrayan administration and the Ethiopian government and its supporters resumed after a tense five-month ceasefire.

 

According to the commission, the beleaguered civilian population of Ethiopia now faces fresh dangers after enduring nearly two years of fighting that has spread outside of Tigray to other parts of the nation and runs the risk of going beyond Ethiopia's borders, with implications for the stability of the entire Horn of Africa.

 

The experts highlighted the horrifying situation in Tigray, where the government and its allies have denied people access to basic services, including the internet, banking and electricity, for over a year.

 

This, combined with shortages of food, medicine and fuel as well as severe restrictions on humanitarian access have left some 20 million people in need of assistance and protection, nearly three-quarters of them women and children.

 

“The combined effect of these measures, which remain in effect more than a year later, has forced much of the population in Tigray to eat less and sell harvest and reproductive livestock. Sources also reported an increase in desperate means to survive, such as child marriage and child labour, human trafficking, and transactional sex,” the report said.

 

Testimonies from parents of severely malnourished children, medics, IDPs and residents who beg for food suggest dramatic worsening of situation in Ethiopia’s war-hit region. 

 

The Tigray humanitarian catastrophe, according to Commission Chair Kaari Betty Murungi, is "striking, both in terms of extent and duration."

 

"We have reasonable grounds to suspect that amounts to a crime against humanity," she said. "The widespread denial and blockage of access to basic services, food, healthcare, and humanitarian assistance is having a catastrophic impact on the civilian population."

 

“We also have reasonable grounds to believe that the Federal Government is using starvation as a method of warfare,” she added, calling on the government to “immediately restore basic services and ensure full and unfettered humanitarian access”.

 

In response to the report, Tigrayan authorities said they “have always maintained” that Ethiopia’s government was responsible for crimes against humanity in Tigray, according to a Tigrayan fighter’s spokesman.

 

“We have always maintained that,” Getachew Reda, a spokesman for the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), told AFP in response to the commission’s accusation that Addis Ababa was committing atrocities in the conflict-torn region.

 

Murungi urged the Tigrayan military, however, to "guarantee that humanitarian services can function without hindrance." According to information provided to the commission, Tigrayan forces may have misused or looted humanitarian aid.

 

The nation's ruling Ethiopian Peoples' Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF) appointed Abiy Ahmed as its new prime minister in 2018 following four years of anti-government demonstrations and escalating ethno-nationalist fervor.

 

The federal administration accuses the TPLF-led forces of being responsible for a number of violent attempts to topple the government; the group strongly refutes these claims. Others contend that the dehumanization of ethnic groups became the norm because of anti-Tibetan prejudice and hate speech in official government utterances.

 

Tigray has been bombed several times since fighting resumed in late August between government forces and their allies, and Tigrayan forces led by the TPLF, shattering a March truce and dashing hopes of peacefully resolving the conflict.

 

“The international community should not turn a blind eye, and instead increase efforts to secure a cessation of hostilities and the restoration of humanitarian aid and services to Tigray,” Murungi said.

 

“Failure to do so would be catastrophic for the Ethiopian people, and has wider implications for peace and stability in the region.”

Source: Aljazeera