2023-09-05 01:03:00
Amnesty International.Despite the signing of the Cessation of Hostilities Agreement (ACH), atrocities against the civilian population have continued in Tigray.
Following the signing of the ACH, the Eritrean Defense Forces (EDF) have extrajudicially executed civilians and sexually enslaved women for months.
The UN Human Rights Council (HRC) should renew the mandate of the International Commission of Human Rights Experts on Ethiopia to preserve evidence of crimes under international law and support future accountability efforts.
The FDEs committed war crimes and possibly crimes against humanity in the Tigray regionimmediately before and after signing a Cessation of Hostilities Agreement (ACH) between the federal government of Ethiopia and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Tigre (TPLF) in November 2022, Amnesty International said in a new report released today.
In the report —“Today or Tomorrow, They Should Be Brought Before Justice” – Rape, Sexual Slavery, Extra-Judicial Executions and Pillage by Eritrean Forces in Tigray— Documents the responsibility of FDE soldiers, allies of the Ethiopian federal government, in relation to rape and sexual slavery, extrajudicial killings and looting. Amnesty International interviewed witnesses, survivors and relatives, who witnessed the extrajudicial execution of at least 20 civilians, mostly men, by FDE in Mariam Shewito district between 25 October and 1 November 2022. In addition, a social worker who documented extrajudicial killings in the district provided a list with the names of more of 100 people who claimed they had been extrajudicially executed in that period, although Amnesty International has not been able to independently corroborate all of these cases, as it does not have a presence on the ground. After the ACH was signed, for nearly three months, FDE soldiers raped and sexually enslaved women and extrajudicially executed 24 civilians in the Kokob Tsibah district.
“Atrocities against the civilian population of Tigre continued and Eritrean soldiers subjected the women to horrific abuses, including individual rape, gang rape and sexual enslavement”
“Despite the signing of the Cessation of Hostilities Agreement, atrocities against the civilian population of Tigre continued and Eritrean soldiers subjected women to horrific abuses, including individual rape, gang rape and sexual enslavement; they also extrajudicially executed male civilians,” said Tigere Chagutah, Amnesty International’s Regional Director for Eastern and Southern Africa.
At the time these crimes were committed, the conflict in northern Ethiopia, including the Tigrah region, was a non-international armed conflict subject to international humanitarian law whose purpose, inter alia, is the protection of the civilian population and combatants who have ceased to take part in hostilities. The grave violations documented in this report constitute war crimes and possibly crimes against humanity.
Survivors of the sexual violence and witnesses to the killings told Amnesty International that they had identified the soldiers based on their camouflage, the Tigrinya dialect they spoke and the type of interrogating questions they were asking. Kokob Tsibah and Mariam Shewito are near the Eritrean border and the survivors claimed to have easily identified them as Eritrean soldiers.
Rape and sexual slavery of women
Amnesty International interviewed 11 survivors of rape and sexual slavery in Kokob Tsibah district, where more than 40 women They told a local civil society organization that they had been victims of rape and sexual slavery in the period after the signing of the ACH. Some women were subjected to rape in an FDE military camp, others in their own home or in houses taken over by the FDE.
Amnesty International interviewed four survivors of sexual violence who had been held in an FDE camp in Kokob Tsibah district for almost three months and had been subjected to rape and sexual slavery.
Fanta*, one of the surviving women, told Amnesty International that five FDE soldiers had gang-raped her on three consecutive days, from 1 to 3 November 2022. They held her in a house taken over by the FDE and then moved her to the FDE military camp, where she was held with 14 other women.
Fanta stated: “They took turns raping me for the entire three months. They never let me. One would leave and the next would come. Is there anything the FDE didn’t do? we were locked up [en el campamento] since the day they took us there. We could not go out or receive medical assistance. We couldn’t visit our family. With me there were many other women detainees”.
According to testimonies from survivors, a Kokob Tsibah-based social worker and acting local government officials, the FDE detained the women in the camp on suspicion that their spouses, children or relatives were members of the Tigre forces. .
After entering the Kokob Tsibah district on 2 November 2022, FDE soldiers forced Bezawit*, 37 years old and mother of two children, to go into a nearby forest. Three of her FDE soldiers raped her and held her in her own home for almost three months.
“They told me: ‘No matter how much you scream, no one will come to rescue you.’ And then they raped me, for about three months. They took turns with me, as if I were there for their service,” he explained to Amnesty International.
Following an act of sexual violence, crucial health care must be provided within 72 hours to provide preventative measures against sexually transmitted infections and pregnancy. Despite having suffered numerous injuries, the survivors of rape and sexual slavery interviewed in the course of this research did not receive critical post-sexual violence health care or any comprehensive medical care. Most of them only received medical treatment after the FDE left Kokob Tsibah on January 19, 2023.
In conjunction with previous Amnesty International documentation, the cases of rape and sexual slavery documented in Kokob Tsibah may be considered as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against the civilian population and could constitute crimes against humanity.
Extrajudicial execution of civilians and looting
Eritrean soldiers detached in the districts of Mariam Shewito and Kokob Tsibah committed intentional killings of civilians, mostly malewhile searching houses and houses door to door, apparently looking for members of the Tigre forces and their supporters. The fact that the victims of the extrajudicial executions were civilians was reaffirmed in numerous interviews. Since these acts were committed in a non-international armed conflict, such executions amount to the war crime of murder.
On November 2, 2022, the priest Menheretab*, a member of the clergy, was sheltering with his wife, children and other residents at St. Michael’s Church in Kokob Tsibah district when EDF soldiers raided the building looking for members of the forces from Tigre. The soldiers forced everyone present to the ground and beat them while asking them to identify themselves.
The priest Meheretab* reported that during the assault on the church the FDE had shot dead a 70-year-old priest. Yemane*, 58, who was in the same room as the victim and witnessed the incident, described the death to Amnesty International:
“I don’t know what the priest said to one of the soldiers, but he shot the older man in the chest at point-blank range. After, [el soldado de las FDE] He came up to us and said: ‘If anyone tries to pick up the body or bury it, we will kill all of you.’
Most of the 49 survivors, witnesses and relatives of victims interviewed by Amnesty International reported that Eritrean soldiers had also looted their property and livestock. Many have been forced to rely on relatives for shelter and food, while some have had to beg to survive.
It is essential that violations are effectively investigated.
Since the outbreak of armed conflict in the Tigray region in November 2020, Amnesty International has documented crimes under international law and other human rights abuses by all parties to the conflict, including Eritrean forces.
Eritrea and Ethiopia have an obligation to effectively investigate crimes under international law, including alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity and, where there is sufficient evidence to do so, initiate legal proceedings in line with international standards on the right to a fair trial and without recourse to the death penalty.
Amnesty International calls for the renewal of the mandate of the International Commission of Human Rights Experts on Ethiopia during the next 54th session of the UN Human Rights Council, which will begin on September 11, 2023.
Amnesty International also calls on the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights to rescind its decision to terminate the mandate of the Commission of Inquiry on the Situation in the Tigray Region of the Federal Republic of Ethiopia, created in May 2021. In June 2023, the mandate ended without the Commission of Inquiry having produced its final report.
“Given the persistence of serious violations and abuses against human rights and dire prospects for accountability at the national level, Amnesty International calls for the renewal of the mandate of the International Commission of Experts on Human Rights on Ethiopia and for it to be given comprehensive support. The African Commission must also reinstate the mandate of the Commission of Inquiry and ensure that it concludes with a report on its findings and recommendations,” said Tigere Chagutah.
Additional information
Amnesty International carried out 49 remote interviews, by telephone, between May 17 and June 10, 2023, in the Mariam Shewito and Kokob Tsibah districts. Testimonies provided by survivors and witnesses were corroborated with satellite imagery and additional information provided by social workers, medical professionals who treated victims and survivors, local officials, and civil society organizations.
Kokob Tsibah is located in Genta Afeshum Woreda, in eastern Tigrah, near the Ethiopia-Eritrea border. The violations at Kokob Tsibah began one day before the ACH was signed. The acts of sexual violence perpetrated by the FDE against the women continued for almost three months, until January 19, 2023.
Mariam Shewito is a district located in the central area of Tigré, near the historic city of Adua. The documented violations in Mariam Shewito took place between October 25 and November 1, 2022, while negotiations between the Ethiopian government and the PFLT were ongoing.
Amnesty International communicated the preliminary results of the investigation to the federal government of Ethiopia and the government of Eritrea on 17 August 2023. As of this writing, the organization has not received a response.
*Names have been changed to protect the identity of the people interviewed.
#Eritrean #soldiers #committed #war #crimes #signing #Cessation #Hostilities #Agreement