HRW calls for greater access to Tigray region to ensure civilian protection

Human Rights Watch says renewed fighting in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region has killed and injured civilians and forced health facilities to close, further straining a health system weakened by years of conflict.

Speaking in a Zoom interview from Rome on Tuesday, Laetitia Bader, the group’s deputy Africa director, said it had received reports of airstrikes and shelling ahead of government forces taking control of key towns.

“Civilians have been killed and injured and this really underscores and heightened the need for independent monitoring,” she said, calling for access for international journalists and investigators.

Bader said Eritrean forces had remained in parts of Tigray since the 2020-2022 war. Human Rights Watch continued to receive reports of abuses in those areas, including sexual violence against women and girls and abductions of young men, she said.

She urged the restoration of communications and essential services and called on all warring parties to ensure safe humanitarian access.

The renewed fighting has undermined the 2022 Pretoria peace agreement between Ethiopia’s government and Tigrayan forces. The previous war caused an estimated 500,000 civilian deaths from violence, famine and the collapse of health services, according to researchers at Ghent University in Belgium.

Eritrean troops fought alongside Ethiopian forces during that war, but Eritrea was not a party to the peace agreement. Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki has previously dismissed allegations of abuses by his forces. Rising tensions between Ethiopia and Eritrea have raised fears of a wider conflict