The US is sanctioning the Eritrean Defense Forces Chief of Staff Filipos Woldeyohannes for his connection with serious human right abuses committed during the ongoing Tigray conflict in Ethiopia.
AlTaghyeer: Agencies
Filipos, in his capacity as the Chief of Staff of the Eritrean Defense Forces, commands all the EDF forces that have, according to a statement by US State Secretary Anthony Blinken , “committed serious human rights abuses in Ethiopia throughout the conflict.”
Blinken’s statement accused the EDF troops of raping, torturing, and executing civilians in Ethiopia, and described Internally Displaced Persons’ descriptions of a “systematic effort by the EDF to inflict as much harm on the ethnic Tigrayan population as possible.”
The statement also describes efforts by the Eritrean troops to ransack businesses and displace civilians, with the IDPs describing a “scorched earth” policy enacted by the troops aimed at preventing civilians from returning home.
Reuters reported that the Eritrean Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement rejecting Washington’s “baseless” claims.
The Reuters report stated that Eritrea has called on the U.S. Administration to bring its case to an independent adjudication if it is intends to prove its “false allegations.”
Last May, Blinken called on the Eritrean government to immediately return its troops to internationally recognized Eritrean territory.
According to the United Nations, more than 400,000 people had “exceeded the threshold of famine” in Tigray, with 1.8 million people on the brink of going beyond the threshold.
Electricity and communications had been interrupted within the region, flights had been stopped, and two important bridges used to deliver aid to the Tigray region had been demolished.
