War crimes and ethnic cleansing ongoing in Tigray, say charity

Amhara regional security forces and civilian authorities have committed widespread abuses against Tigrayans since November 2020

Hundreds of thousands of Tigrayan civilians expelled from homes using threats, killings, mass arbitrary detention, pillage, forcible transfer, and the denial of humanitarian assistance

Security forces also used gang rape, accompanied by verbal and physical abuse, abduction, and sexual slavery

‘Concerned governments must… make a concerted effort to obtain justice for these heinous crimes’ – Agnès Callamard

Amhara regional security forces and civilian authorities in Ethiopia’s Western Tigray Zone have committed widespread abuses against Tigrayans since November 2020 that amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch said in a new report released today.

The report, ‘We Will Erase You From This Land’: Crimes Against Humanity and Ethnic Cleansing in Ethiopia’s Western Tigray Zone, documents how newly-appointed officials in Western Tigray and security forces from the neighbouring Amhara region – with the compliance and possible participation of Ethiopian federal forces – systematically expelled several hundred thousand Tigrayan civilians from their homes using threats, unlawful killings, sexual violence, mass arbitrary detention, pillage, forcible transfer, and the denial of humanitarian assistance. These widespread and systematic attacks against the Tigrayan civilian population amount to crimes against humanity, as well as war crimes.

Ethiopian authorities have severely restricted access and independent scrutiny of the region, keeping the campaign of ethnic cleansing largely hidden.

Kenneth Roth, Executive Director of Human Rights Watch, said: “Since November 2020, Amhara officials and security forces have engaged in a relentless campaign of ethnic cleansing to force Tigrayans in Western Tigray from their homes.

“Ethiopian authorities have steadfastly denied the shocking breadth of the crimes that have unfolded and have egregiously failed to address them.”

The Ethiopian government must ensure immediate and sustained access to the region for humanitarian agencies, release all those arbitrarily detained, and investigate and appropriately prosecute those responsible for abuses.

Additionally, any agreement reached by parties involved in the armed conflict should include the deployment of an African Union-led international peacekeeping force to the Western Tigray Zone to ensure the protection of all communities from abuses.

The Western Zone is a fertile administrative area in Ethiopia’s Tigray region. Claims over Western Tigray have been the source of heightened boundary and identity disputes since 1992. Western Tigray came under the control of the Ethiopian National Defence Forces (ENDF) and allied forces and militias from the Amhara region within two weeks of the outbreak of conflict in Tigray in November 2020.

During the initial offensives, Ethiopian federal and allied forces carried out war crimes against Tigrayan communities – including indiscriminate shelling of towns and extrajudicial executions, forcing tens of thousands to flee to neighbouring Sudan and to other parts of Tigray.

Tigrayan militias and local residents also carried out war crimes against Amhara residents and visiting labourers in a massacre that occurred in Mai Kadra town on 9 November, the first publicly reported large-scale massacre of this conflict.

In the ensuing months, newly-appointed administrators in Western Tigray and Amhara Special Forces – a regional paramilitary force – undertook a campaign of ethnic cleansing against Tigrayan residents of the area.

Over 15 months, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch researchers interviewed more than 400 people, including in-person interviews of Tigrayan refugees in Sudan, and remote interviews of Tigrayan and Amhara residents of Western Tigray and the Amhara region who suffered or witnessed abuses.

Researchers also consulted medical and forensic reports, court documents, satellite imagery, and photographic and video evidence that corroborated accounts of grave abuses.

On 24 March, the government announced a humanitarian truce. Regardless of any truce or ceasefire, Ethiopia’s federal and regional authorities should allow unhindered, independent, and sustained humanitarian assistance.

Amhara regional security forces, militias, and newly appointed authorities carried out a coordinated campaign of ethnically targeted persecution beginning in late 2020.

In several towns across Western Tigray, signs were displayed ordering Tigrayans to leave, and local administrators discussed their plans to remove Tigrayans in open meetings.

A Tigrayan woman from Baeker town described threats she faced by Fanos, an irregular Amhara militia: “They kept saying every night, ‘We will kill you… Go out of the area’.”

Pamphlets appeared giving Tigrayans 24-hours or 72-hour ultimatums to leave or be killed.

The authorities rounded up thousands of Tigrayans for long-term detention and abuse in overcrowded facilities. Amnesty and Human Rights Watch believe thousands of Tigrayans are still held in life-threatening conditions today.

Security forces also used gang rape, accompanied by verbal and physical abuse, abduction, and sexual slavery.

One 27-year-old Tigrayan woman said that a militia member told her as the men raped her: “You Tigrayans should disappear from the land west of [the Tekeze River]. You are evil and we are purifying your blood.”