Human Rights Watch admits massacre in Amhara after a prolonged silence

 

ADDIS ABABA, DECEMBER 11, 2021 – "When I lived in Addis I would photograph at churches on the sacred days on the EOTC calendar. The deeply spiritual occasions would draw hundreds if not thousands even to countryside churches. That is why the timing of the Chena massacre during Kidasse is incomprehensible", said Jemal Countess, a Contract Photographer at Getty Images, as he took the above picture at Chena, Amhara region.

Human Rights Watch has admitted in a recent report that the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) terrorist fighters have committed summary executions in Chenna and Kobo towns of Amhara region.

The report said TPLF fighters summarily executed dozens of civilians in two towns they controlled in Ethiopia’s northern Amhara region between August 31 and September 9, 2021.

Human Rights Watch called on the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) to establish an international investigative mechanism into abuses by all warring parties in the expanded Tigray conflict but did not refer to the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission (EHRC), "A" rated national human rights institution, which recently conducted a joint investigation with UNHRC into atrocities carried out in Tigray.

However, many Ethiopians believe that the Human Rights Watch was too late to announce such findings because the Chenna town mass killing, for instance, was reported on September where the TPLF fighters massacred 119 civilians. The Human Rights Watch was reserved to report this despite the Ethiopian government’s call for international rights group to investigate on the spot.

In fact, Laetitia Bader, East Africa Director of Human Rights Watch, had released an article about war crimes happening in Ethiopia but failed to mention the atrocities in Chena and Galicoma, Amhara and Afar regions respectively.

The Ethiopian government, however, in a press briefing held today lauded the Human Rights Watch’s understanding of the scenario on the ground albeit lately.

During the presser, the government called on all international rights groups including Human Rights Watch to come to Ethiopia and conduct investigations instead of doing it from afar.

Moreover, the TPLF terrorists have conducted numerous atrocities in Amhara and Afar. And so many horrific stories depicting their fighter’s cruelty are emerging as the towns they occupied earlier are getting liberated.

The Ethiopian government recently announced the discovery of mass graves in Antsokia and Gashena towns of Amhara regions. So many depressing stories of rape and sexual violence committed by the TPLF terrorists are becoming apparent yet come with little condemnation from the governments of the West, their humanitarian organizations and their human rights institutions.