Human Rights Watch (HRW) has reported that local authorities and Amhara forces in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region have continued to forcibly expel Tigrayans as part of an ethnic cleansing campaign in Western Tigray Zone.

Development Diaries reports that the human rights watchdog revealed this in a recent report calling on the Ethiopian government to suspend, investigate, and prosecute commanders and officials implicated in rights abuses.

About 35 witnesses and victims shared their experiences in a phone interview, according to HRW.

‘The November truce in northern Ethiopia has not brought about an end to the ethnic cleansing of Tigrayans in Western Tigray Zone’, the report quoted the Deputy African irector at HRW, Laetitia Bader, as saying.

‘If the Ethiopian government is really serious about ensuring justice for abuses, then it should stop opposing independent investigations into the atrocities in Western Tigray and hold abusive officials and commanders to account’.

According to the interviewees, over a thousand Tigrayans were held in detention on the basis of their identity in Humera, Rawyan, and Adebai towns before forcibly expelling them in November 2022 or January 2023.

‘Several former detainees told Human Rights Watch that … in early January 2023, at least 70 people, including residents and detainees, were forcibly expelled from Western Tigray’, the report said.

Furthermore, the report highlighted that security forces killed at least six detainees in Bet Hintset prison, Humera, between June and August 2022, after 16 detainees, most held in one cell, took advantage of heavy rains and managed to escape in mid-June.

Development Diaries joins HRW in calling on the government of Ethiopia to carry out independent investigations to ensure those found culpable of these violations are brought to justice.

Photo source: HRW