Eritrea Rejects Amnesty’s Tigray War Crimes Allegations

Eritrea’s government has denied Amnesty International’s allegations that its soldiers committed war crimes and crimes against humanity in northern Ethiopia’s Tigray region despite a peace deal signed last November.

Eritrean soldiers had backed federal forces in the two-year civil war.

Eritrea’s Ministry of Information on 5 September said that Amnesty International’s allegations against the Eritrean Defence Forces (EDF) “have no substance or merit”.

The ministry added that the report “suffered from its flawed methodology” and was “filled with disgusting lies and distortions that are a futile attempt to disparage the Eritrean people”.

“Amnesty conducted no research. Rather, it chose to use its platform to regurgitate unsubstantiated allegations against Eritrea’s military personnel, taken from third-party sources, faceless, nameless, in continuation of its libellous decade-long campaign against the State of Eritrea,” the statement said.

The ministry also accused the rights group of trying to promote hate and incite a wedge between Eritrea and Ethiopia.

Eritrean troops backed Ethiopia’s army in its fight against the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) between November 2020 and last year.

BBC/Jide Johnson