According to a report by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, Ethiopia’s civil war has seen crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing.
The population of the Tigray region is affected, and militias from the neighboring Amhara region are said to be primarily responsible for the crimes. The Ethiopia expert Tobias Hagmann with an assessment.
SRF News: How plausible are the allegations by the human rights organization?
Tobias Hagmann: They are not only plausible, they are also proven and documented. Since the beginning of the war in November 2020, it has been known that atrocities, massacres and displacements have taken place. Now, for the first time, there is a document that tries to prove what happened.
So the findings of HRW and AI’s report don’t surprise you?
No. The affected area in the west of the Ethiopian region of Tigray has been sealed off since the beginning of the war, and journalists or helpers have little or no access at all. From the beginning, however, reports of atrocities came from there.
There were reports of atrocities from the beginning.
However, they could not be verified. Both the Ethiopian central government and the government of the Amhara region south of Tigray denied the incidents and spoke of “propaganda”.
How did the organizations go about their report?
You have conducted interviews with victims and witnesses of the atrocities, many in Sudan. In total, more than 100,000 people fled the Tigray region because of the war, up to 20,000 of them to the neighboring country. In total, HRW and AI conducted around 400 such interviews. Some on site, some over the phone.
Who are the Amhara militias who are primarily accused of the atrocities?
These are a type of paramilitary force, which includes armed civilians from the Amhara region south of Tigray. They fight for the concerns and rights of the Amhara ethnic group. The background to the involvement of these militias in the Tigray conflict is the long-standing dispute over whether the western part of Tigray should belong to the Amhara region.
It’s about the long-standing dispute over who should own the western part of the Tigray region.
In 1991, the government at the time incorporated the disputed area into the Tigray region. Now, when the war broke out in Tigray in November 2020 between the Tigray militias and the central government troops, the Amhara militias took advantage of the situation to retake the disputed territory. They did it extremely brutally.
What can HRW and AI’s report do?
The local and Ethiopian authorities always denounce such reports as untrue and propaganda. Ethiopia also has no mechanism for bringing war criminals to justice. Nevertheless, it is extremely important that human rights organizations document the atrocities. Because if there ever is a trial where accountability or justice is at stake, these reports will be needed to document what happened.
Adam Fehr conducted the interview.