NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) – Eritrean soldiers have systematically killed “hundreds of people”, the men with the vast majority, in a massacre in late November in the Ethiopian city of Axum in the Tigray region, Amnesty International said on Friday. The new report reproduced the findings of an Associated Press story last week, quoting more than 40 witnesses.
While pressure on Ethiopia increased due to the deadliest massacre of the Tigray conflict, the prime minister’s office announced that ‘humanitarian agencies now have unrestricted access to aid in the region’. It added that the government “welcomes international technical assistance to investigate (after alleged abuses), as well as the potential to cooperate in joint investigations.”
And yet the government claimed that the Amnesty report was based on ‘little information’, saying that the human rights group should have visited the Tigray region. Amnesty said it had sought government permission in December and had never received a response.
“As you know, no independent human rights monitors have been allowed in the region since the conflict began,” spokesman Conor Fortune said in an email to the AP.
FILE – On this Monday, November 4, 2013 file photo, the Church of St. Mary of Zion in Axum, in the Tigray region of Ethiopia. A new Amnesty International report released on Friday, February 26, 2021, states that Eritrean soldiers systematically killed “many hundreds” of men, the vast majority, in a massacre at the end of November 2020 in the Ethiopian city of Axum. (AP photo / file)
Most importantly, the head of the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission, Ethiopia, Daniel Bekele, must ‘take Amnesty’ findings very seriously. The commission’s own preliminary findings “indicate the killing of an as yet unknown number of civilians by Eritrean soldiers” in Axum, its statement said.
The Amnesty report describes the soldiers who shot down civilians while fleeing, lined up men and shot them in the back while gathering ‘hundreds, if not thousands’ of men for beating and denying that the bereaved buried dead.
Over a period of about 24 hours, ‘Eritrean soldiers deliberately shot civilians on the street and conducted systematic house-to-house investigations and carried out men and boys outside,’ reads the report released early Friday. “The massacre was done in retaliation for an earlier attack by a small number of local civilians, along with locals armed with sticks and stones.”
The ‘mass execution’ of Axum civilians by Eritrean troops could amount to crimes against humanity, the report said, calling for an international inquiry led by the United Nations and full access to Tigray for human rights groups, journalists and humanitarian workers. . The region has been largely cut off since fighting began in early November.
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The federal government of Ethiopia has denied the presence of soldiers from neighboring Eritrea, which has long been an enemy of the leaders of the Tigray region, and the Eritrean government has dismissed the AP story of the Axum massacre as ‘outrageous lies’. ‘finished. Eritrean Information Minister Yemane Gebremeskel said on Friday that his country was “furious” and categorically rejected the ridiculous allegations in the Amnesty report.
But even senior members of the Ethiopian-appointed interim government in Tigray acknowledged the Eritrean soldiers’ presence and the allegations of widespread looting and murder.
Ethiopia said the “alleged incident” in Axum “should be thoroughly investigated.”
And Ethiopia’s ambassador to Belgium, Hirut Zemene, told a webinar on Thursday that the alleged massacre in November was a ‘very unlikely scenario’ and ‘we suspect it’s a very, very crazy idea.’
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No one knows how many thousands of civilians have been killed in the conflict between Ethiopian and allied forces and that of the Tigray regional government, which long dominated the Ethiopian government before Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed took office in 2018. Humanitarian officials have warned that a growing number of people could starve because access, while improving, remains limited.
“Hostilities must stop immediately,” European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said in a statement in response to the Amnesty International report, adding that “the level of suffering suffered by civilians, including children, is appalling. . “
The presence of Eritrean soldiers in Tigray has raised concerns. The United States has repeatedly urged Eritrea to withdraw its troops, citing credible reports of ‘serious’ human rights abuses.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Saturday that the United States was “seriously concerned” about reports of atrocities.
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“The United States has repeatedly implicated the Ethiopian government in the importance of ending the violence, ensuring unhindered humanitarian access to Tigray, and allowing a full, independent, international investigation into all reports of human rights abuses, abuses and atrocities. , “Blinken said. in a statement. “Those responsible for it should be held accountable.”
Witnesses to the Axum massacre told Amnesty International that Ethiopian and Eritrean soldiers had jointly taken control of the city, but the Eritreans carried out the killings and then conducted house-to-house raids for men and teenage boys.
Bodies were scattered in the streets after the events of November 28 and 29, witnesses said.
“The next day they did not allow us to choose the dead. The Eritrean soldiers said that you could not bury the dead until our dead soldiers were buried,” one woman told Amnesty International. While hospitals were looted or health workers fled, some witnesses said a number of people died due to their lack of wounds.
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“It took days to gather the bodies and carry out the funerals. It looks like most of the dead were buried on November 30, but witnesses said people found many additional bodies in the days that followed,” the new report.
After witnesses of Ethiopian soldiers obtained permission to bury the dead, witnesses said they feared the killings would resume at any moment, even as they piled up corpses on horse-drawn carriages and took them to churches for burial, sometimes in mass graves.
The AP met with a deacon in one church, the Church of St. Mary of Zion, spoke who said he helped count the bodies, collected victims’ identity cards and helped with funerals. He believes about 800 people died in the city that weekend.
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After being exposed for a day or more, the bodies began to rot, further traumatizing families and those who gathered to help.
The new report states that satellite imagery shows new “disturbed ground” next to churches.