The civil war in Tigray is becoming more and more like the Rwandan genocide
Posted: 29 Mar 2021, 08:05
A year after Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, he is also held responsible for heinous war crimes in the renegade Tigray region. ‘He could even be complicit in genocide.’
Erik van Zwam 23 March 2021, 8:50
Some reports from Ethiopia’s Tigray province, where civil war has been raging for more than four months.
November 9th, 2020. The town of Humera on the border with Eritrea is being bombarded with artillery fire. Civilians are targeted and fleeing.
November 9th, 2020. In the town of May Cadera, about 600 people are killed in the street with machetes and cleavers.
November 19th, 2020. The city of Aksum is under fire from a hill with mortar shells. The bombs are falling on residential areas.
November 28th, 2020. Residential areas in Tigray’s capital, Mekele, are heavily bombed by the Ethiopian army, killing 27 people and wounding 100.
28 and 29 November 2020. Hundreds of unarmed civilians are executed in Aksum. The city is completely looted by Eritrean troops.
January 29th, 2021. The Ayder hospital in Mekele already treated 750 women who were raped by soldiers.
February 11th, 2021. The hospital in Adrigat treated 74 rape victims.
March 4 – 7, 2021. Executions and rapes in Wuqro by Eritrean and Ethiopian troops. Similarly, nuns from the Wuqro monastery were also allegedly raped.
March 7th, 2021. In the city of Azeba, Eritrean soldiers opened fire on people in the market.
These news reports from Tigray, the northern Ethiopian province where civil war is raging, are just a few of a much larger number. Senders: Amnesty, Human Rights Watch, UN human rights organisations, the Ethiopian Commission on Human Rights and NGOs. The data is based on witness statements from survivors, messages from foreign aid workers on the ground, satellite imagery and captured communications between Eritrean and Ethiopian troops in the area by U.S. intelligence agencies.
Qualifications such as crimes against humanity, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and even genocide fall. Comparisons with the crimes in the former Yugoslavia, such as in Srebrenica, and the massacre of the Tutsis in Rwanda, become self-evident.
It starts on November 4 last year when the Ethiopian army invaded the rebellious state of Tigray. Tigray is led by the TPLF, the party that ruled Ethiopia with a dictatorial hand for 29 years but was sidelined in 2018. Abiy Ahmed became Ethiopia’s new prime minister and promised to open the country’s windows and doors. Freedoms beckoned.
The TPLF retreated to its home base in Tigray and opposed all of Abiy’s innovations. Tigray was heading for autonomy. In the federal country, with ten regions and about 80 peoples, this was indigestible to the central authority in Addis Ababa. When TPLF militias attacked an Ethiopian Army base in Tigray in the fall of last year, the measure was full. Abiy sent troops to force Tigray into line.
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Erik van Zwam 23 March 2021, 8:50
Some reports from Ethiopia’s Tigray province, where civil war has been raging for more than four months.
November 9th, 2020. The town of Humera on the border with Eritrea is being bombarded with artillery fire. Civilians are targeted and fleeing.
November 9th, 2020. In the town of May Cadera, about 600 people are killed in the street with machetes and cleavers.
November 19th, 2020. The city of Aksum is under fire from a hill with mortar shells. The bombs are falling on residential areas.
November 28th, 2020. Residential areas in Tigray’s capital, Mekele, are heavily bombed by the Ethiopian army, killing 27 people and wounding 100.
28 and 29 November 2020. Hundreds of unarmed civilians are executed in Aksum. The city is completely looted by Eritrean troops.
January 29th, 2021. The Ayder hospital in Mekele already treated 750 women who were raped by soldiers.
February 11th, 2021. The hospital in Adrigat treated 74 rape victims.
March 4 – 7, 2021. Executions and rapes in Wuqro by Eritrean and Ethiopian troops. Similarly, nuns from the Wuqro monastery were also allegedly raped.
March 7th, 2021. In the city of Azeba, Eritrean soldiers opened fire on people in the market.
These news reports from Tigray, the northern Ethiopian province where civil war is raging, are just a few of a much larger number. Senders: Amnesty, Human Rights Watch, UN human rights organisations, the Ethiopian Commission on Human Rights and NGOs. The data is based on witness statements from survivors, messages from foreign aid workers on the ground, satellite imagery and captured communications between Eritrean and Ethiopian troops in the area by U.S. intelligence agencies.
Qualifications such as crimes against humanity, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and even genocide fall. Comparisons with the crimes in the former Yugoslavia, such as in Srebrenica, and the massacre of the Tutsis in Rwanda, become self-evident.
It starts on November 4 last year when the Ethiopian army invaded the rebellious state of Tigray. Tigray is led by the TPLF, the party that ruled Ethiopia with a dictatorial hand for 29 years but was sidelined in 2018. Abiy Ahmed became Ethiopia’s new prime minister and promised to open the country’s windows and doors. Freedoms beckoned.
The TPLF retreated to its home base in Tigray and opposed all of Abiy’s innovations. Tigray was heading for autonomy. In the federal country, with ten regions and about 80 peoples, this was indigestible to the central authority in Addis Ababa. When TPLF militias attacked an Ethiopian Army base in Tigray in the fall of last year, the measure was full. Abiy sent troops to force Tigray into line.
Continue reading