The United States (US) has concluded that all warring parties involved in the brutal war including the Ethiopian and Eritrean troops as well as rebels committed war crimes during the brutal two-year conflict in northern Ethiopia, reported Reuters.
On Monday, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said his department had carefully reviewed the laws and the facts to determine that the members of the Ethiopian National Defence Force, Eritrean Defence Forces, Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) and Amhara forces of committing war crimes during the two-year long conflict.
Blinken visited Ethiopia last week and met the Ethiopian government and Tigrayan officials. He also blamed the Ethiopian and Eritrean Defence forces and the Amhara forces for committing crimes against humanity including killings, rape and other forms of sexual violence and persecution.
“Many of these actions were not random or a mere by-product of war,” the US Secretary of State said adding that they were calculated and deliberate.
The conflict in Tigray started back in 2020 when Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed ordered troops to barge into Tigray to stem an alleged attack on federal army camps. Later on, Eritrean forces joined the war to support the Ethiopian government, but, have been accused of some of the conflict’s worst abuses.
Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed in the conflict, with some estimates placing the death toll as high as 600,000.
The US Secretary of State urged the Ethiopian and Eritrean governments as well as the TPLF to hold those responsible for these atrocities accountable.
A landmark peace agreement was signed in November last year between the Ethiopian government and the TPLF that finally ended the conflict.
On Tuesday, the UN Human Rights Council is expected to hear a briefing of a Commission of Human Rights Experts on Ethiopia, an independent group mandated to investigate the reported human rights crimes.
