KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) – The Ethiopian leader said on Tuesday that atrocities were reported in Tigray, his first public recognition of possible war crimes in the northern region of the country, where fighting persists as government troops chase its fugitive leaders.
Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed also admitted, after repeated denials by authorities, that troops from neighboring Eritrea have entered Tigray, where his presence has caused “damage” to residents of the region.
“Reports indicate that atrocities have been committed in the Tigray region,” Abiy said in a speech Tuesday to lawmakers in the capital, Addis Ababa.
War is “a nasty thing,” he said, speaking the local Amharic language. “We know the destruction that this war has caused.” He said soldiers who raped women or committed other crimes will be held responsible, though he cited the “exaggeration propaganda” of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, the party once dominating whose leaders challenged the Abyy’s legitimacy after the postponement of elections last year.
Commenting on the presence of Eritrean troops in Ethiopia, Abiy said they crossed the border and crossed Tigray, “causing damage to our people … We will not accept it.”
He suggested that the Eritrean soldiers were not there with his blessing. “The argument presented by the Eritrean government for this is that it is a national security issue because Ethiopian troops are going to look for (Tigraian) forces elsewhere, so they want to control the border areas,” he said. “But they’ve told us they don’t have the will to stay while we control the trenches along the border.”
Abiy spoke as concern continues to grow over the humanitarian situation in the troubled region that houses 6 million more than 110 million people in Ethiopia. Authorities have not cited the death toll in the war, but a trio of Tigray-based opposition groups say more than 50,000 they have been murdered.
The United States has characterized some abuses in the Tigray War as “ethnic cleansing,” charges rejected by Ethiopian authorities as unfounded. He also urged Eritrean troops, fighting alongside Ethiopian government forces, to withdraw from Tigray.
Ethiopian Prime Minister, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019 for his efforts to make peace with Eritrea, faces pressure to end the conflict in Tigray and also to launch an international investigation into alleged war crimes , ideally led by the United Nations. Government critics say an ongoing federal investigation is simply not enough because the government cannot be investigated effectively.
Rupert Colville, spokeswoman for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva Michelle Bachelet, told The Associated Press last week that the Ethiopian Commission on Human Rights had asked to participate with its office in ” a joint investigation into allegations of serious human rights violations by all parties ”In Tigray.
Reports of atrocities by Ethiopian and Allied forces against Tigray residents have been detailed in reports from The Associated Press and by Amnesty International.
But Abiy said in Tuesday’s speech, which included answering questions from lawmakers, that fighters loyal to the Tigray People’s Liberation Front had committed a massacre in the town of Mai Kadra. “But it doesn’t get enough attention,” he said of that massacre, which he described as “the worst” of the conflict.
The Tigray conflict began in November, when Abiy sent government troops to the region after an attack on federal military facilities. The federal army is now looking for fugitive regional leaders, who reportedly retreated to remote mountainous areas of Tigray.
Abiy accused Tigray leaders of beating “a war story” as the area faced challenges such as a destructive lobster invasion and the COVID-19 pandemic. “This was out of place and untimely arrogance,” he said, according to a transcript of his comments posted on Twitter by the prime minister’s office.
Last week, President Joe Biden sent Senator Chris Coons to Ethiopia 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 Tigray. 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 on the brink of harvest in the mainly agricultural region and sent countless people fleeing their homes. Witnesses have described the widespread looting of Eritrean soldiers as well as the burning of crops.