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Amnesty: ‘Massacre In Northern Ethiopia’

By Stefan J. Bos, Special Correspondent Worthy News

(Worthy News) – Rights group Amnesty International said Thursday that “scores and probably hundreds” of civilians have been massacred in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region. Witnesses blamed forces of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), which rules Tigray, for the bloodshed. They said the TPLF carried out the massacre after Ethiopia’s federal government troops defeated them in the Lugdi area.

Tigray’s president and TPLF chairman Debretsion Gebremichael denied wrongdoing saying Tigrayan troops were “acting in self-defense.” However, Amnesty confirmed that “scores, and likely hundreds, of people, were stabbed or hacked to death in Mai-Kadra (May Cadera) town in the southwest Zone of Ethiopia’s Tigray region on the night of 9 November”. It claimed it saw “digitally verified gruesome photographs and videos of bodies strewn across the town or being carried away on stretchers”.

Amnesty said the victims appeared to be laborers not involved in the conflict. Deprose Muchena, Amnesty International’s director for East and Southern Africa, called it a “horrific tragedy” and urged the government to restore communications and allow observers access.

The group quoted witnesses as speaking of wounds “inflicted by sharp weapons such as knives and machetes”. The report came as thousands of Ethiopians continued to flee across the border into neighboring Sudan, promoting fears of a humanitarian crisis. The United Nations says vital aid supplies to hundreds of thousands of people in northern Ethiopia are at risk because of the conflict.

Analysts warned the week-old conflict between federal government forces and the TPLF threatens to destabilize Ethiopia and the wider Horn of Africa. The conflict centers around cohesion among Ethiopia|s 115 million people, as clashes among different ethnic groups killed hundreds of people since Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed took office in 2018.

Abiy, who won last year’s Nobel Peace Prize, ordered airstrikes and sent troops into Tigray the previous week. He said the move came after forces loyal to the Tigrayan leadership attacked a federal military base.