Scores of people, and likely hundreds, were killed by militia groups thought to be allied to the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), rights watchdog Amnesty International has reported.
Amnesty says its investigation team located bodies strewn about in Mai-Kadara area, western Tigray region, where Ethiopian forces reported victory against the TPLF on Thursday.
The massacre, the rights group said, may have been carried out on November 9 this week by forces loyal to TPLF after they suffered defeat from government forces. Victims had wounds supposedly from sharp objects like knives or machetes, according to witnesses.
“Amnesty International can today confirm that scores, and likely hundreds, of people were stabbed or hacked to death in Mai-Kadra (May Cadera) town in the South West Zone of Ethiopia’s Tigray Region on the night of 9 November,” it said in a Thursday bulletin.
Using what it called geolocation technology, analysts from AI examined photos from the scene of bodies strewn about and others carried away on stretchers.
Deprose Muchena, the Amnesty International Director for East and Southern Africa, said his team had confirmed that the victims may have been casual labourers in the town. But he said AI has been unable to pin the exact groups responsible for the killings, given difficulty communicating with the region.
“This is a horrific tragedy whose true extent only time will tell as communication in Tigray remains shut down,” Mr Muchena said.
“The government must restore all communication to Tigray as an act of accountability and transparency for its military operations in the region, as well as ensure unfettered access to humanitarian organisations and human rights monitors.”
The Ethiopian government has refuted continual “misinformation” about the Tigray situation although officials on Thursday appeared to share the AI suspicion that the TPLF was committing massacres.
In a statement to the international community on Wednesday, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said the Ethiopian army had found bodies in areas they liberated in western Tigray.
“The Tigray Special Forces surrounded and massacred their own brothers and sisters in several places in Tigray. This incident was painfully gruesome and inhumane,” Abiy said in a video message.
Last week, Abiy ordered the army to launch attacks on Tigray Special Forces after they “crossed the last red line” by attacking the federal defence command in Tigray.
With communication shut down in the region, it has been difficult to verify claims from both sides. TPLF leader Debrestion Gebremichael claimed on Wednesday there was “ethnic cleansing” by Ethiopian and Eritrean forces, claims denied by both Addis Ababa and Eritrea.
On Thursday, Redwan Hussein, the spokesperson of the State of Emergency committee set up to manage the operation in Tigray, said TPLF is manipulating communication channels.
“For lack of information that everybody has, it is also true for the government because we cannot call, we cannot travel there. The only access we have is through our aircrafts which are bombarding areas where we have (TPLF) depots of fuel and artillery,” Redwan said in a briefing.
Meanwhile, the Ethiopian government has appointed Dr Mulu Nega Kahsay as the chief executive of the Tigray Regional State. He will now work as a temporary head of the regional government after the federal parliament lifted immunity on Debrestion to face criminal charges.
