Three Ethiopian opposition parties have claimed at least 52,000 people in the northern Tigray region have died since a conflict began there in November.
The Tigray Independence Party, the National Congress of Great Tigray and Salsay Weyane Tigray said in a joint statement on Tuesday.
Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed issued a statement after the claim was published, saying enemies of the state were disseminating misinformation, but without specifically mentioning the opposition statement. The parties’ estimates of the death toll have not been independently confirmed.
The leader of the Tigray Independece party, Girmay Berhe, did not immediately answer his phone when asked for comment.
“Towns and villages were demolished by blind artillery shelling, our health and educational facilities were looted and destroyed,” the groups said in the email. They called on the Ethiopian government to end the war, start negotiations and ensure access to humanitarian aid.
UN says 20,000 refugees missing after Ethiopian camps were destroyed
Ethiopian federal troops launched an invasion of Tigray on November 4 and toppled the ruling Tigray People’s Liberation Front, which has put itself in opposition to Abiy since its rule in April 2018. Although the government announced an end to hostilities on 28 November. , the region’s deposed leader, Debretsion Gebremichael, has promised to keep fighting.
Neither the federal authorities nor the TPLF have given a death toll since the fighting began.
The reports of civilian casualties are “unfounded and suffer from unfortunate political motives”, the government-controlled Ethiopia emergency test said on its Twitter account on Wednesday. Redwan Hussein, spokeswoman for the Ethiopian emergency task force, and Abiy’s spokeswoman Billene Seyoum did not immediately respond to text messages to comment.
“The number of people in need is higher than the estimated population of Tigray, so the probability of the number of civilian deaths is also significantly inflated by the three parties,” said William Davison, a senior analyst at the International Crisis Group.
The fate of the emerging economic giant depends on the peacemaker who chose war
(Updates with government comments in eighth paragraph)