NAIROBI, Kenya – Eritrean troops continue to commit atrocities in the northern Ethiopian region of Tigray, despite assurances by Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed that they are leaving, a senior United Nations official said on Thursday.
Mr. Abiy came under pressure over reports of massacres, looting and sexual assaults by Eritrean troops. Last month, he flew to the Eritrean capital Asmara and announced that his ally, the autocratic Eritrean leader Isaias Afwerki, had agreed to bring his soldiers home.
But the UN and its humanitarian partners saw no evidence that such a withdrawal had taken place, Mark Lowcock, the top UN humanitarian official, told the Security Council. In fact, Mr. Lowcock said Eritrean soldiers began disguising their identities by wearing Ethiopian military uniforms, and some killed civilians during indiscriminate attacks on Monday.
The Times gets a transcript from Mr. Lowcock’s remarks, made in a private briefing. They paint a bleak picture of the violence in Tigray, where a clash between Mr. Abiy and regional leaders in November degenerated into a chaotic and relentless conflict that threatens the entire Horn of Africa region.
Citizens are still being evicted from their homes in western Tigray, Mr. Lowcock said, despite the condemnation of ‘ethnic cleansing’ earlier this month by US Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken.
In a district south of the capital of Tigrayan, Mekelle, there are up to 150 people who died of starvation, said Mr. Lowcock told the Security Council.
And nearly one-third of all attacks on civilians involve sexual violence, the majority by men in uniform, he said. Girls of about eight were targeted.
In one case, says Mr. Lowcock, Eritrean soldiers raped a woman in front of her children, days after her husband was killed and she lost a newborn baby.
“It’s just the tip of the iceberg,” he said. Lowcock said.
Such heinous reports have begun to define the conflict in Tigray. This was the fifth time the Security Council has discussed the crisis behind closed doors since it erupted in November.
But beyond the expressions of condemnation and outrage, the international community has had little impact on the land in Tigray, where residents and aid workers say the killings, assaults and famine continue unabated.
The Human Rights Watch group says it is high time the Security Council held a public debate on Tigray and came up with concrete actions to stop the abuse.
“Tigrants from all walks of life have repeatedly described being abandoned not only by their government but also by the world,” said Laetitia Bader, director of the group in the Horn of Africa, in a statement. . “The UN’s most powerful body must end its paralysis.”
Rick Gladstone contributed reporting from New York.