Growing political and ethnic polarization throughout Ethiopia is a matter of deep concern for the United States, the U.S. State Department said on Friday, reported Reuters.
The U.S. State Department added that Washington will work with allies to achieve a ceasefire in the embattled Tigray region, provide assistance to the needy and hold those accountable for human rights violations.
Jeffrey Feltman, the newly appointed U.S. Special Envoy for the Horn of Africa, returned from his first trip to the region on Thursday. He visited Egypt, Eritrea, Sudan and Ethiopia.
Thousands of people have been killed and hundreds of thousands more forced to flee from their homes in the Tigray region since November when President Abiy Ahmed launched an offensive on the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) after accusing the once-dominant regional ruling party of attacking federal army camps. Ethiopian troops and soldiers from Eritrea have been accused of massacres, killings, and rapes in their fight against the rebel group.
The Ethiopian government has assured that it is committed to investigating human rights violations and both countries have promised a withdrawal of Eritrean troops.
“The atrocities being perpetrated in Tigray and the scale of the humanitarian emergency is unacceptable,” the U.S. State Department said in a statement.
It added that Feltman appealed to Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki to get the Eritrean troops to withdraw from Ethiopia immediately.
“The crisis in Tigray is also symptomatic of a broader set of national challenges that have imperiled meaningful reforms,” the statement said.
The U.S. State Department said that Feltman also discussed the need for an inclusive effort to build a national consensus on Ethiopia’s future that is based on respect for the human and political rights of the people with Abiy and other Ethiopian leaders.
Meanwhile, on Friday, the European Union also condemned the ongoing blocking of humanitarian aid to Ethiopia’s conflict-hit Tigray region and warned that those responsible would be held to account.
