Africa-Press-Ethiopia
The US State Department said Monday it was looking into reports of extrajudicial executions committed by the Ethiopian army following a CNN investigation.
A CNN report published on Thursday found that Ethiopian soldiers had executed unarmed men in the country’s war-torn Tigray region.
The investigation, carried out with Amnesty International, verified footage of soldiers killing a group of at least 11 men before disposing of their bodies near the Tigrayan town of Mahibere Dego. A BBC investigation, also published Thursday, corroborated the same massacre.
Asked about the reports that Ethiopian forces were responsible for the massacre, State Department spokesman Ned Price said: “We are gravely concerned by reported human rights violations, abuses, and atrocities in the Tigray region of Ethiopia. We strongly condemn the killings, the forced removals, the sexual assaults, the other human rights abuses that multiple organizations have reported.”
“We are, of course, looking into these reports. We have taken close note of them and we’ll continue to pay close attention,” Price added.
Ethiopia is facing a raft of intense scrutiny over human rights violations that may amount to war crimes in Tigray. Thousands of civilians are believed to have been killed since November, when Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed launched a major military operation against the region’s ruling party, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), sending in national troops and militia fighters from Ethiopia’s Amhara region.
CNN has previously compiled extensive eyewitness testimony that soldiers from neighboring Eritrea had crossed into Tigray during the conflict and had perpetrated massacres, extrajudicial killings, sexual violence and other abuses.
