The Ethiopian government on Tuesday rejected a report by Human Rights Watch, HRW, that accused local authorities and regional forces of pursuing a campaign of “ethnic cleansing” in western Tigray despite last year’s peace deal.
HRW said in a report issued on June 1 that the November peace agreement to end the two-year conflict in Tigray had not stopped “ethnic cleansing” in the disputed western part of the
region.
HRW further said since the outbreak of armed conflict in Tigray in November 2020, Amhara security forces and interim authorities have carried out a campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Tigrayan population in Western Tigray, committing war crimes and crimes against humanity.
But the Ethiopian government said the US-based rights group had made the allegations “without conducting a thorough and credible investigation in all areas affected by the conflict.
The UN-backed Commission of Human Rights Experts on Ethiopia in September issued a report saying there was evidence of widespread human rights violations by all sides during the fighting that erupted in the northern Tigray region in November 2020.
