Reports and images of Tigray’s executions are ‘deeply disturbing’, said the US senator after a CNN investigation

Reports and images of Tigray’s executions are ‘deeply disturbing’, said the US senator after a CNN investigation

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“New reports and images emerging from Tigray of extrajudicial killings, murders of civilians, sexual and gender violence and forced displacement are deeply disturbing,” tweeted Coons, a Democrat from Delaware, on Saturday.

His comments came after a CNN investigation found that men wearing Ethiopian army uniforms executed unarmed men in Tigray. A BBC-led investigation also published on Thursday corroborated the same massacre near Mahibere Dego, a mountainous area in central Tigray.

Coons said it is “critical” that the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission (EHRC) and the United Nations Human Rights Office “have the access and support necessary to conduct a full, independent and transparent investigation of war crimes and abuses committed. by all the actors. ”

Sen. Chris Coons

A US State Department spokesman told CNN on Friday that officials “are gravely concerned about reports of human rights violations, abuses and atrocities” in the region and have noted an increasing urgency “to establish independent international investigations. “.

The Ethiopian Human Rights Commission is a body appointed by the State of Ethiopia, part of a joint mechanism supported by the United States, charged with carrying out investigations into alleged atrocities in Tigray.

The head of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the United States House of Representatives, Congressman Gregory Meeks, asked the international community to take the lead in any proposed investigation. In comments on CNN’s findings, Meeks called for the investigations to be “conducted internationally”.

Massacre in the mountains
The Ethiopian government said on Friday that “social media posts and reports cannot be taken as evidence” after a CNN investigation found that Ethiopian soldiers executed unarmed men in the war-torn Tigray region.

Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s office told CNN in a statement: “The Ethiopian government has indicated its open willingness for independent investigations to be carried out in the Tigray region.”

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