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Hundreds of unarmed Ethiopian civilians were systematically killed by Eritrean troops in the northern city of Axum, a new report by Amnesty International says.
Tigray has been the theater of fighting since early November 2020, when Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed announced military operations against the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, accusing them of attacking federal army camps. He declared victory after pro-government troops took regional capital Mekele in late November, though the TPLF vowed to fight on and clashes have persisted in the region, hampering efforts to deliver sorely-needed humanitarian assistance. FRANCE 24’s Maria Gerth-Niculescu gained exclusive access to the region.
Eritrean troops fighting in Ethiopia’s Tigray state systematically killed hundreds of unarmed civilians in the northern city of Axum on 28-29 November 2020, opening fire in the streets and conducting house-to-house raids in a massacre that may amount to a crime against humanity, Amnesty International said today in a new report.
February 26, 2021
All of the witnesses to this massacre have been given pseudonyms at their request due to fears of retribution.
Ethiopian refugees gather to celebrate the 46th anniversary of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front at Um Raquba refugee camp in Gedaref, eastern Sudan, on Feb. 18. (Photo: Hussein Ery/AFP)
Catholic relief agencies in Ethiopia welcomed a move by the government to allow more access in Tigray, the semi-autonomous region in the north, where a military operation displaced millions and left an unspecified number of people dead.
Amid increased international calls for unrestricted access, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Ali announced Feb. 24 that 135 personnel from bilateral and multilateral organizations had been cleared to travel and undertake aid work in the region.
Troops from a “neighbouring country” destroyed factories and universities during the conflict in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray state, an official with the region’s interim administration told state media Thursday in an apparent reference to Eritrea.
IMAGE COPYRIGHTGETTY IMAGESEritrean troops fighting in Ethiopia’s northern region of Tigray killed hundreds of people in Aksum mainly over two days in November, witnesses say.
The mass killings on 28 and 29 November may amount to a crime against humanity, Amnesty International says in a report.
An eyewitness told the BBC how bodies remained unburied on the streets for days, with many being eaten by hyenas.
Reports are mounting of atrocities in Ethiopia’s civil war
In late november Hailay Haileselassie said goodbye to his children and drove towards Edaga Hamus, a town in the mountainous northern Ethiopian region of Tigray, where his ageing parents live and his father is a priest. As churchgoers gathered in his father’s church on November 30th, the familiar murmur of prayer was replaced by the crackle of gunfire.
Witnesses say that Eritrean soldiers had entered the village that morning, looting homes and burning crops. Then they went from door to door, seizing young men and killing anyone who resisted. Scores died. Many families lost more than one member. Hailay was dragged from his parents’ home and shot in front of them. The killers drove off in his pickup truck.
26 FEBRUARY 2021
ALAMY/PA
Protesters with Tigray flags and posters stage a rally on Dag Hammarskjold Plaza in New York, earlier this month, to demand an end to the violence against civilians in Ethiopia
Amnesty says in new report that hundreds of civilians were killed by Eritrean troops in Ethiopian town of Axum last November.
![On November 28 and 29, Eritrean troops killed hundreds of civilians in a 'coordinated and systematic' manner in order 'to terrorize the population into submission' [File: Nariman El-Mofty/AP]](https://i2.wp.com/www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/AP_21036385604494.jpg?w=500&ssl=1)
The killings of hundreds of civilians by Eritrean troops in the ancient Ethiopian town of Axum in November last year amounted to “a series of human rights and humanitarian law violations”, according to Amnesty International.
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) – Soldiers from Eritrea systematically killed “many hundreds” of people, the large majority men, in a massacre in late November in the Ethiopian city of Axum, Amnesty International says in a new report, echoing the findings of an Associated Press story last week and citing more than 40 witnesses.
Most of the burials took place on 30 November, but the process of collecting and burying the bodies lasted several days © Maxar Technologies
Survivors of mass killing in town of Axum describe extrajudicial executions – scale of atrocities may amount to crime against humanity
Satellite images reveal evidence consistent with new burial sites
‘Eritrean troops went on a rampage and systematically killed hundreds of civilians in cold blood’ – Deprose Muchena
Eritrean troops fighting in Ethiopia’s Tigray state systematically killed hundreds of unarmed civilians in the northern city of Axum on 28-29 November last year, opening fire in the streets and conducting house-to-house raids in a massacre that may amount to a crime against humanity, Amnesty International said today (26 February) in a new report.
Accounts of atrocities in Tigray, Ethiopia continue to be reported this week, as communications are slowly restored to the embattled region. The fighting between forces supporting Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s government and forces supporting the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, who long dominated Ethiopia’s government, was declared over months ago by Abiy Ahmed’s administration, but Tigray is still volatile.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – A U.N. human rights expert is calling for an urgent investigation into allegations that Eritrean forces have forcibly repatriated Eritrean refugees who were living in northern Ethiopia’s Tigray province. His report has been submitted to the U.N. Human Rights Council.
Ethiopia’s Hitsats refugee camp, along with the camp of Shimelba, was allegedly destroyed by Eritrean and Ethiopian troops
The UN’s special rapporteur on Eritrea on Wednesday demanded a swift, independent investigation into allegations that the country’s troops attacked refugee camps in neighbouring Ethiopia and abducted Eritrean asylum seekers.
Reporting to the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, Mohamed Abdelsalam Babiker said he was concerned for thousands of Eritreans who were in two camps in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region — now allegedly destroyed by Eritrean and Ethiopian troops
By Vince Chadwick // 23 February 2021
When it comes to the conflict in northern Ethiopia, the federal government in Addis Ababa has no common understanding of events and is in “denial” over the scale of the problem, said Pekka Haavisto, European Union envoy, on Tuesday.
With negligible humanitarian access to the Tigray region since fighting broke out in November, Haavisto, Finland’s foreign minister, traveled to the region recently to assess the situation on behalf of the EU. He met with Ethiopian government ministers and Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, and he visited the Um Rakuba refugee camp in Sudan
Finland’s Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto warned Tuesday (23 February) that the crisis in Ethiopia’s conflict-hit Tigray region appears “out of control”, after visiting the country on behalf of the EU.
“You have come to the situation which is militarily and human rights-wise, humanitarian-wise very out of control,” Haavisto told journalists in Brussels.
Finland’s Foreign Minister Pekka Haavisto warned Tuesday that the crisis in Ethiopia’s conflict-hit Tigray region appears “out of control”, after visiting the country on behalf of the EU.
“You have come to the situation which is militarily and human rights-wise, humanitarian-wise very out of control,” Haavisto told journalists in Brussels.
Feb 23, 2021(Nyamilepedia) — A fistfight broke-out at Juba International Airport on Monday afternoon as the Tigrayans forces, who served in the United Nations Mission in South Sudan(UNMISS), refused to board a scheduled plane to return to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Speaking to media after the fistfight, the UN spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, explained that the argument began in the airport on Monday afternoon as the Tigrayan soldiers serving with UNMISS were being forced to board an Ethiopian airplane by the South Sudanese police.
CAIRO (AP) – At least 7,000 people who fled escalating ethnic violence in western Ethiopia have sought asylum in neighboring Sudan, the U.N. refugee agency said Tuesday, amid heightened tensions between the two Eastern African nations.
Violence in the Metekel Zone of the Benishangul-Gumuz region is separate from the deadly conflict in Ethiopia´s northern Tigray region. That’s where Ethiopian and allied regional forces began fighting Tigray regional forces in early November. The Tigray war sent more than 61,000 Ethiopians into Sudan´s provinces of al-Qadarif and Kassala.
UNHCR says most of the asylum seekers who fled ethnic violence in Benishangul-Gumuz region have been living among Sudanese host communities.
![The UN refugee agency said the situation escalted rapidly in the past three months [Ashraf Shazly/AFP]](https://i2.wp.com/www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/000_8YC27Q.jpg?w=500&ssl=1)
At least 7,000 people who fled escalating ethnic violence in western Ethiopia have sought asylum in neighbouring Sudan, the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) has said, amid heightened tensions between the two neighbouring countries.
