Local authorities and Amhara forces in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region have continued to forcibly expel Tigrayans as part of an ethnic cleansing campaign in Western Tigray Zone since the November 2, 2022, truce agreement, Human Rights Watch said today. The Ethiopian government should suspend, investigate, and appropriately prosecute commanders and officials implicated in serious rights abuses in Western Tigray.

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. Recent Human Rights Watch research found that two officials, Col. Demeke Zewdu and Belay Ayalew, who were previously implicated in abuses, continue to be involved in arbitrary detention, torture, and forced deportations of Tigrayans.

“The November truce in northern Ethiopia has not brought about an end to the ethnic cleansing of Tigrayans in Western Tigray Zone,” said Laetitia Bader, deputy African director at Human Rights Watch. “If the Ethiopian government is really serious about ensuring justice for abuses, then it should stop opposing independent investigations into the atrocities in Western Tigray and hold abusive officials and commanders to account.”

From September 2022 to April 2023, Human Rights Watch interviewed 35 people by phone, including witnesses and victims of abuses, and aid agency staff. Most are Tigrayan and had been arbitrarily detained in the town of Humera. Interviewees said that local authorities and Amhara forces held over a thousand Tigrayans in detention in the Western Tigray towns of Humera, Rawyan, and Adebai on the basis of their identity before forcibly expelling Tigrayans in November 2022 or January 2023. In May, Human Rights Watch provided a summary of its preliminary findings to the Ethiopian government but received no response.

Amhara regional special forces and Fano militia in Humera and Rawyan held Tigrayans in both official and unofficial detention sites in dire conditions. “There was no medical treatment,” said a 28-year-old who was detained in Bet Hintset prison in Humera. “If people got sick, they remained there until they die.” Many died due to lack of food and medication.

On the evening of November 9, Amhara forces and authorities in Western Tigray carried out the coordinated expulsion of detainees from sites around Humera and nearby towns to central Tigray. A report prepared by aid agencies found that Fano militia transported more than 2,800 men, women, and children from 5 detention sites in Western Tigray on November 10, according to Reuters.

Several former detainees told Human Rights Watch that again in early January 2023, at least 70 people, including residents and detainees, were forcibly expelled from Western Tigray.

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