Ethiopia commission says Tigray youth group killed 600 civilians in November 9 attack(Reuters)

Ethiopia commission says Tigray youth group killed 600 civilians in November 9 attack

By Reuters Staff

NAIROBI (Reuters) - Ethiopia’s state-appointed human rights commission said on Tuesday that a Tigrayan youth group stabbed, strangled, and bludgeoned to death an estimated 600 civilians with the collusion of local security forces during a mass killing in the town of Mai Kadra.

FILE PHOTO: Ethiopians who fled the ongoing fighting in Tigray region, gather in Hamdayet village near the Sudan-Ethiopia border, eastern Kassala state, Sudan November 22, 2020. REUTERS/Mohamed Nureldin Abdallah

The Nov. 9 attack - first reported by rights group Amnesty International - was aimed at residents of non-Tigrayan origin, the commission said. It called the attack a “massacre,” saying accounts from survivors and witnesses suggested that the killings were part of a “widespread or systematic attack directed against a civilian population.”

Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed called in a tweet for “the international community to condemn these atrocious acts of crimes against humanity.”

Reuters was not immediately able to verify the accounts because internet and phone connections to the region are down and access tightly controlled since fighting erupted between government troops and forces of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) on Nov. 4.

Reuters was unable to reach local Tigray leaders for comment. The TPLF have previously denied any responsibility for the killings.

Amnesty declined to comment on the Ethiopian commission’s findings.