Alarming genocide risk in Western Tigray

The mass killings, violence, detention, sexual abuse, and displacement of victims in Ethiopia’s northern region of Tigray set off alarm bells of a humanitarian disaster in the country.   

Since the eruption of war in November 2020 between Ethiopian federal forces and their allies, including troops from Eritrea and the neighboring Ethiopian region of Amhara, which gained control of Western Tigaray, and forces linked to the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), several hundred thousand Tigrayans have been brutally uprooted and killed in a planned ethnic cleansing campaign, according to Foreign Policy.  

In 2021, Alice Wairimu Nderitu, United Nations Special Adviser on the Prevention of Genocide, expressed her concern about the ongoing deterioration of the situation in Ethiopia, declaring that many reports of serious human rights violations, including  rapes, ethnic-based killings, child abuse, unlawful arrests, and mass displacement, have been received, according to a statement by the United Nations. 

Not much is known about the situation in Western Tigray, because after the fallout between Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed's government and Tigray's dominant political party, journalists, investigators, humanitarian aid, and communications have been restricted throughout the region, hiding many violations from view, according to BBC News. 

It is worth mentioning that Western Tigray borders Sudan and Eritrea and its government was previously led by the TPLF in the early 1990s. Amharas believed that the territory should have become part of the Amhara regional state and sought to gain greater recognition after the outbreak of the war in 2020. Officials from Amhara were able to establish administrative control over Western Tigray, and war crimes and massacres, including gang rape and targeted killings, have been underway since then, Foreign Policy reported. 

Earlier, the UN Special Adviser condemned the hate speech and dehumanizing language used by top political officials and leaders, like “cancer”, “devil” and “weed” to describe the Tigray conflict, fueling the ethnic tensions across the country, inciting violence, and pulling communities apart, according to a statement by the UN.

Hate speech has been reflected in many stories told to investigators of Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch by survivors from the horrible violations committed by the Amhara forces. A young Tigrayan trader said that he was beaten and left for dead by Amhara Special Forces’ patrol who kept on shouting that the land is theirs and no Tigrayan will live on it, according to BBC News.

A 27-year-old woman told how some Amhara militiamen came into her hair salon one morning and raped her in front of her children while saying that Tigrayans should disappear, BBC News stated. 

In a single day in January 2021, Amhara Special Forces massacred about 60 Tigrayan men on the banks of the Tekeze River, which splits the western zone of Tigray from the rest of the region. In late 2021, Amhara forces committed another wave of forced killings in Western Tigray and the remaining Tigrayans were forcibly arrested, Foreign Policy reported. 

According to the United Nations, 29,000 people were forcibly transferred to other parts of Tigray in November 2021, and Western Tigray is still not getting the help it needs.

The UN Special Adviser stressed last year that those found responsible for human rights violations must be held accountable, calling on regional actors and the international community, especially the African Union, to take the necessary action to prevent ethnic violence, according to a UN statement.