Reports, images of Tigray executions are ‘very disturbing’, US senator says after CNN investigation

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

His comments came after a CNN investigation found that men in Ethiopian army uniforms were executing unarmed men in Tigray. A BBC-led investigation also published Thursday confirmed the same massacre at Mahibere Dego, a mountainous area in central Tigray.

Coons said it is “crucial” that the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission (EHRC) and the United Nations Human Rights Office “have the necessary access and support necessary to conduct a thorough, independent and transparent investigation into war crimes and abuse. all actors. ”

Senator Chris Coons

A spokesperson for the US State Department told CNN on Friday that officials are “deeply concerned about the reported human rights violations, abuses and atrocities” in the region and noted that there is an increasing urgency “to open independent, international investigations” .

The Ethiopian Human Rights Commission is a body designated by the Ethiopian state, part of a US-backed joint mechanism tasked with investigating alleged atrocities in Tigray.

The head of the US House of Representatives’ Foreign Affairs Committee, Congressman Gregory Meeks, has called on the international community to take the lead in any proposed investigation. Commenting on CNN’s findings, Meeks called for the investigation to be “internationally led”.

Massacre in the mountains
The Ethiopian government said Friday that “posts and claims on social media cannot be taken as evidence,” after a CNN investigation found 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 publicly expressed its desire for independent investigations to be conducted in the Tigray region.”

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