Johannesburg, Dec 16, (dpa/GNA) – Human Rights Watch (HRW), said Tigrayan forces battling the Ethiopian government, executed civilians in two towns located in the country’s Amhara region earlier this year.
In a report released on Thursday, the rights group said the killings took place between August 31 and September 9.
“On August 31, Tigrayan forces entered the village of Chenna and engaged in sporadic and at times heavy fighting with Ethiopian federal forces and allied Amhara militias,” the HRW report said.
Residents told the group that over the next five days Tigrayan forces executed 26 civilians in 15 separate incidents, before withdrawing on September 4.
“In the town of Kobo on September 9, Tigrayan forces summarily executed a total of 23 people in four separate incidents, witnesses said. The killings were in apparent retaliation for attacks by farmers on advancing Tigrayan forces earlier that day.”
One man who fled Kobo in mid-September told dpa by phone he personally knew of one such incident on the outskirts of the town, in which three people were killed by Tigrayan fighters.
HRW called for “an independent international inquiry into alleged war crimes in Ethiopia’s Tigray and Amhara regions.”
Tigray officials have not so far responded to the HRW report but have previously denied their forces have committed atrocities.
The conflict in Ethiopia, which started in November 2020, is feared to have caused the deaths of tens of thousands of people and displaced millions of others.
Both sides in the conflict are accused of carrying out killings, human rights abuses and other forms of violence.
GNA