ADDIS ABABA: Ethiopia on Saturday rejected US accusations of ethnic cleansing in the conflict-hit Tigray region as "unfounded and spurious". US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in an appearance before Congress on Wednesday, said that "acts of ethnic cleansing" had been committed in western Tigray, calling for them to stop and for "full accountability". Blinken’s "allegations, in fact, outright accusations of ethnic cleansing of Tigrayans... is a completely unfounded and spurious verdict against the Ethiopian government", Ethiopia’s foreign ministry said in a statement. A spokesman for Ethiopia’s Amhara region already denied Thursday that its forces were engaged in ethnic cleansing. Blinken’s remarks Wednesday confirmed the substance of a New York Times report last month that said that an internal US government report determined there was "ethnic cleansing" in western Tigray.

Source: Ethiopian News March 13, 2021 13:07 UTC