United Nations human rights council has accused the Somali army illegally participating in a foreign war by fighting in Tigray with Eritrean troops.

In a new report, which focused on human rights in Eritrea, the human rights council noted that Somali soldiers in training were taken to the front lines in Tigray, including accounts that Somali troops were in Aksum.

However, the government of Somalia has dismissed the report, saying it did not participate in the Tigray conflict, considering it an internal matter between Ethiopia and Eritrea.

According to Somali law, any participation in a foreign war must be approved by the country’s parliament.

Ethiopian National Defence Forces (ENDF) mounted an offensive in Tigray last November, attacking the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) after its members allegedly attacked a northern command of the ENDF.

Eritrean foreign Minister Osman Saleh lashed out at the United States in his letter to the UN Security Council, blaming the U.S. for supporting the TPLF and ‘stoking further conflict and destabilisation’ through interference and intimidation in the region.

‘The apparent objective of these acts is to resuscitate the remnants of the TPLF regime’, he said.

Thousands of people are believed to have been killed in the war, with some two million people estimated to have fled.

Human rights groups and aid workers have collected numerous accounts of abuses from survivors, who allege that Eritrean and Ethiopian soldiers carried out rapes, killings and looting.

The UN has called for an independent investigation to these reports of atrocities that happened between November and February.

Source: rfi

Photo source: UNOCHA