Ethiopia: Tigrayan forces went on killing, raping and looting spree in Amhara towns - new evidence

Numerous eyewitness accounts of civilian killings, gang-rapes and looting of medical facilities and schools in Kobo and Chenna

14-year-old girl and her mother both raped, with ‘revenge’ for rapes in Tigray cited by soldiers carrying out atrocities

‘Evidence is mounting of a pattern of Tigrayan forces committing war crimes and possible crimes against humanity’ - Sarah Jackson

Amnesty International has published harrowing new evidence of fighters affiliated with the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front carrying out dozens of civilian killings, gang-raping women and girls – some as young as 14 – and looting property in two areas of northern Ethiopia’s Amhara region.

In a new 26-page report – Ethiopia: Summary killings, rape and looting by Tigrayan forces in Amhara – Amnesty shows how Tigrayan forces carried out a string of atrocities in and around Chenna and Kobo in late August and early September last year, after these forces had taken control of the areas in July.

On top of their brutality, Tigrayan forces also made numerous death threats and used ethnic slurs. In Kobo, Tigrayan forces were apparently lashing out at the civilian population in retaliation for increased resistance from local militias and armed residents.

In Kobo, a town in the north-east of the Amhara region, Tigrayan fighters deliberately killed unarmed civilians, seemingly in revenge for losses among their ranks at the hands of Amhara militias and armed farmers.

Amnesty interviewed 27 witnesses and survivors, including some who helped collect and bury the bodies of those killed. Ten Kobo residents told Amnesty that in the afternoon of 9 September, Tigrayan fighters summarily killed their relatives and neighbours outside their homes. A survivor told Amnesty:

Twelve other Kobo residents said they found the bodies of local residents and labourers who had been killed execution-style – shot in the head, chest or back, some with their hands tied behind their backs. One male resident said:

Satellite imagery analysis by Amnesty’s Crisis Evidence Lab shows evidence of new burial sites on the grounds of St George’s Church and St Michael’s Church, where residents said they had buried those killed on 9 September. Deliberate killings of civilians - or of captured, surrendered or wounded fighters - constitute war crimes and possibly crimes against humanity.

From July 2021 onwards, in and around Chenna, a village north of Bahir Dar, the capital of the Amhara region, Tigrayan forces raped dozens of women and girls as young as 14, often in the victims’ own homes after having forced them to provide food and cook for them.

The sexual violence was accompanied by sustained brutality, including beatings, death threats and ethnic slurs. Fourteen of the 30 survivors interviewed by Amnesty said that they were gang-raped by multiple Tigrayan fighters, and some were raped in front of their children. Seven of the survivors were girls under the age of 18.

Lucy, a 14-year-old, and her mother were both raped by Tigrayan fighters in their home in Did-Bahr. She told Amnesty:

“I was at home with my mother and my grandmother when two young men with rifles came to our home in the morning at about 11. One of them wore military clothes and the other wore civilian clothes. They spoke a mix of Tigrinya and some Amharic. They said, ‘Our families were raped and now it is our turn to rape you.’ One of them raped me in the courtyard and the other raped my mother inside the house. My mother is very sick now, she is very depressed and desperate. We don’t speak about what happened; it is impossible.”

Salam, a 29-year-old woman, also told Amnesty how four Tigrayan fighters locked her elderly parents in a separate room and then gang-raped her over a 15-hour period.

Many of the survivors suffered severe and long-term physical and psychological damage, including ten who were hospitalised for months after they were raped. Doctors who provided medical care to rape survivors told Amnesty that two people had to be treated for lacerations likely to have been caused by having rifle bayonets thrust into their genitals.

Amnesty has previously documented similar patterns of Tigrayan fighters raping Amhara women and girls in Nifas Mewcha and has received credible reports of rape from other areas of the Amhara region. Such atrocities constitute war crimes and, potentially, crimes against humanity.

In both Kobo and the Chenna area, residents told Amnesty that Tigrayan fighters stole possessions from their homes and shops, and looted and vandalised public property, including medical clinics and schools. Looting to medical facilities made it impossible for rape survivors and other residents to obtain treatment in the area, forcing them to wait until they could reach hospitals in Debark, Gondar and Bahir Dar weeks later. For rape survivors, this was far too late to receive crucial post-rape care, some of which needs to be administered within 72 hours.

Sarah Jackson, Amnesty International’s Deputy Director for East Africa, the Horn and the Great Lakes, said:

Conflict in Tigray broke out in November 2020, spreading to other regions of northern Ethiopia from July 2021. Amnesty has documented a range of violations by all parties to the conflict, including massacres, extrajudicial executions and other unlawful killings, sexual and other gender-based violence, and arbitrary detentions by Ethiopian government forces and allied militias, and by Eritrean forces acting alongside them.