“I cannot escape anywhere,” he said, noting the many checkpoints surrounding the western Tigray region. The latest alleged abuses appear to be linked to the Tigray forces’ recent momentum, which Ethiopia’s government asserts has been blunted after the prime minister, a Nobel Peace Prize winner and former soldier, went to the battlefront himself. He also urged the international community to investigate alleged widespread abuses by Tigray forces against civilians in the Amhara region. The United Nations has estimated that 20,000 people were recently evicted from western Tigray, most of them women, children and the elderly. “The global paralysis on Ethiopia’s armed conflict has emboldened human rights abusers to act with impunity and left communities at risk of feeling abandoned,” Human Rights Watch’s Laetitia Bader said.

Source: Ethiopian News December 16, 2021 12:34 UTC