UN Rights Chief Seeks Access to Ethiopia's Tigray to Probe War Crimes
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – United Nations human rights chief Michelle Bachelet called on Ethiopia on Thursday to grant UN monitors access to the Tigray region to investigate reports of continuing killings and sexual violence that may amount to war crimes.
In a statement, she said that multiple parties to the conflict had been identified as possible perpetrators, including the Ethiopian National Defense Forces, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), Eritrean armed forces, and Amhara regional forces and allied militia, Reuters reported.
UN Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, Alice Wairimu Nderitu, said last month she had received reports of serious human rights violations and abuses by the parties to the conflict in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region and their allies.
“These include extra-judicial killings, sexual violence, looting of property, mass executions and impeded humanitarian access,” Nderitu said in a statement, adding that she had also received “disturbing reports of attacks against civilians based on their religion and ethnicity” in other parts of the country.
Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed ordered air strikes and a ground offensive against Tigray’s former ruling party - the TPLF - after regional forces attacked federal army bases in the region on Nov. 4, 2020.
