Thursday March 25, 2021
The medical charity Doctors Without Borders says it witnessed
Ethiopian soldiers executing at least four men in the country's Tigray
region. The troops reportedly killed the men after forcing them off
civilian buses.
Doctors Without Borders, usually referred to
by its French initials MSF, said in a statement that its staff had seen
Ethiopian soldiers kill four men in a summary execution.
The
testimony comes as Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed said atrocities have been
reported in Tigray province, his first public acknowledgment of possible
war crimes there.
What did MSF staff witness?
Three staff
members were traveling ahead of two public mini-buses that were stopped
by soldiers on the road from Mekele, the regional capital, to the city
of Adigrat.
"The soldiers then forced the passengers to leave the
mini-buses," Karline Kleijer, head of emergency programs for the
charity, said in the statement. "The men were separated from the women,
who were allowed to walk away. Shortly afterward, the men were shot."Before
the MSF team was allowed to leave the scene it saw the shooting
victims' bodies on the side of the road, the group said.
The MSF vehicle was again stopped by soldiers not long after and their driver was beaten with a gun and threatened.
"Eventually, the driver was allowed to get back into the vehicle and the team could return to Mekele," Kleijer said.
Ethiopia's army could not be immediately contacted for comment on the statement.
What is happening in the Tigray?
The
latest hostilities began after government troops entered the region in
November 2020. The offensive came after the Tigray People's Liberation
Front (TPLF), the ruling party in the semi-autonomous region, attacked
the army's Northern Command.
Since then, concerns have been growing
over the humanitarian situation in the region that is home to 6 million
of Ethiopia's more than 110 million people.
The United States has characterized some abuses in Tigray as "ethnic cleansing," charges dismissed by Ethiopian authorities.
Eritrean troops are in the Tigray
Prime
Minister Abiy on Tuesday admitted, after repeated denial by
authorities, that troops from neighboring Eritrea had gone into Tigray,
where their presence has inflicted "damage" on the region's residents.
"Battle
is destructive, it hurts many, there is no question about it. There
have been damages that happened in Tigray region..." he added.
Ethiopia's
rights body on Tuesday supported studies by international rights groups
that Eritrean soldiers carried out a bloody massacre in the historic
town of Axum in November.