There is “credible” evidence that Ethiopian forces committed genocide during the two-year war in northern Tigray region, a new report has concluded. Ethiopia’s National Defense Force and its alliesâthe paramilitary Amhara Special Forces and the Eritrean Defense Forcesâare accused of committing “at least four acts” constituting genocide against Tigrayans, including: killing, causing serious bodily or mental harm, deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about their destruction, and imposing measures intended to prevent childbirth. The report by the New Lines Institute, a US-based foreign policy think-tank, called for Ethiopia to be referred to the UN’s top court, the International Court of Justice.
Meanwhile, an inter-agency evaluation of the aid response to the conflictâin which as many as 600,000 people may have diedâlabelled it a “system failure.” A member of the evaluation team was more forthright. In an opinion piece for The New Humanitarian, he called out the government’s obstruction of aid, and the lack of unity among UN agencies. Ed Schenkenberg van Mierop of the Geneva-based Humanitarian Exchange & Research Centre (HERE) urged reforms of the UN humanitarian response.ââ
From The New Humanitairan, June 7.
