UN: Warring sides committing atrocities in Ethiopia’s Tigray
The UN’s International Commission of Human Rights Experts on Ethiopia says it has found evidence of widespread violations by all sides since fighting erupted in 2020.
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.
The commission, created by the UN Human Rights Council last year and made up of three independent rights experts, said it had “reasonable grounds to believe that, in several instances, these violations amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity”.
The report was issued as fighting resumed between the Ethiopian government and its allies, and forces backing the Tigray authorities following a tense five-month cessation of hostilities.
The commission said that Ethiopia’s beleaguered civilian population now faces renewed risks after enduring nearly two years of conflict, which has now expanded beyond Tigray to other areas of the country and risks spreading beyond Ethiopia’s borders, with consequences for peace in 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.
In a statement, Commission Chair Kaari Betty Murungi described the humanitarian crisis in Tigray as “shocking, both in terms of scale and duration”.
“The widespread denial and obstruction of access to basic services, food, healthcare, and humanitarian assistance is having a devastating impact on the civilian population, and we have reasonable grounds to believe it amounts to a crime against humanity,” she said.
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