KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) – The Ethiopian leader said on Tuesday that atrocities had been reported in Tigray, his first public recognition of possible war crimes in the northern region of the country, where fighting continues as government troops pursue fugitive leaders.
Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed also acknowledged, after repeated denials by authorities, that troops from neighboring Eritrea had entered Tigray, where their presence had caused “damage” to residents in the region.
“Reports indicate that atrocities have been committed in the Tigray region,” Abiy said in an address to lawmakers in the capital Addis Ababa on Tuesday.
War is “an ugly thing,” he said, speaking the local Amharic language. “We know the destruction caused by this war.” He said soldiers who raped women or committed other crimes would be held accountable, even as he cited “propaganda of exaggeration” by the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, the once-dominated party whose leaders challenged Abiy’s legitimacy after the postponement of the election. from last year.
Commenting on the reported presence of Eritrean troops in Ethiopia, Abiy said they had crossed the border and moved across the Tigray, “causing damage to our people … We will not accept this.”
He suggested that Eritrean soldiers are not there with his blessing. “The Eritrean government’s argument is that it is a national security issue because Ethiopian troops are pursuing forces (Tigrayan) elsewhere, so they want to continue to control border areas,” he said. “But they told us they didn’t want to stay as long as we controlled the trenches along the border.”
Abiy spoke as concern continued to rise over the humanitarian situation in the attacked region, which is home to 6 million of Ethiopia’s more than 110 million people. Authorities have not cited a death toll in the war, but a trio of Tigray-based opposition groups say more than 50,000 they were killed.
The United States has described some of the abuses in the Tigray War as “ethnic cleansing,” allegations the Ethiopian authorities have dismissed as unfounded. He also called on Eritrean troops fighting on Ethiopian government forces to withdraw from Tigray.
The Ethiopian prime minister, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019 for his efforts to make peace with Eritrea, is facing pressure to end the Tigray conflict, as well as to initiate an international investigation into alleged war crimes, led by ideal of the United Nations. Critics of the government say an ongoing federal investigation is simply not enough because the government cannot effectively investigate itself.
Rupert Colville, a Geneva spokeswoman for UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet, told the Associated Press last week that the Ethiopian Commission on Human Rights had called for a joint inquiry into the allegations of serious violation of human rights by all parties ”In Tigray.
Reports of Ethiopian and Allied forces’ atrocities against Tigray residents were detailed in The Associated Press reports and Amnesty International.
But Abiy said in a speech on Tuesday, which included answers to questions from lawmakers, that fighters loyal to the Tigray People’s Liberation Front had committed a massacre in the town of Mai Kadra. “But he is not getting enough attention,” he said of the massacre, describing it as “the worst” in the conflict.
The Tigray conflict began in November, when Abiy sent government troops to the region after an attack there on federal military facilities. The federal military is now hunting down fugitive regional leaders who have retreated to remote mountainous areas of Tigray.
Abiy accused Tigray’s leaders of conducting a “war narrative” as the area faced challenges such as a destructive locust invasion and the COVID-19 pandemic. “It was replaced and premature arrogance,” he said a transcript of his comments posted on Twitter by the prime minister’s office.
President Joe Biden sent Senator Chris Coons to Ethiopia last week to express the administration’s “grave concerns” about the growing humanitarian crisis and human rights abuses in Tigray and the risk of wider instability in the Horn of Africa. Details of Coons’ weekend visit have not been released.
Humanitarian officials have warned that a growing number of people could starve to death in Tigray. Fighting broke out at the edge of the harvest in the largely agricultural region and sent an unspeakable number of people fleeing their homes. Witnesses described the widespread looting of Eritrean soldiers as well as the burning of crops.