HRW Seeks Independent Monitoring After Renewed Tigray Fighting

Human Rights Watch has called for independent monitoring and improved humanitarian access in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region, where renewed fighting has reportedly killed and injured civilians and forced health facilities to close.

Laetitia Bader, Human Rights Watch’s deputy Africa director, said the organisation had received reports of airstrikes and shelling before Ethiopian government forces took control of key towns. The specific locations of the reported attacks and the towns involved were not identified.

“Civilians have been killed and injured and this really underscores and heightened the need for independent monitoring,” Bader said during a Zoom interview from Rome.

Calls for access and services

Bader urged authorities and warring parties to allow international journalists and investigators to enter the region. She also called for communications and essential services to be restored, and for all sides to guarantee safe access for humanitarian operations.

The reports of attacks, civilian harm and other abuses have not been independently verified in the available information. Human Rights Watch said it continued to receive reports of sexual violence against women and girls, as well as the abduction of young men, in areas where Eritrean forces remained.

Bader said Eritrean forces had stayed in parts of Tigray after the 2020–2022 war. The renewed fighting has undermined the 2022 Pretoria peace agreement between Ethiopia’s government and Tigrayan forces, according to the source.

Legacy of the previous war

The earlier conflict caused an estimated 500,000 civilian deaths through violence, famine and the collapse of health services, researchers at Ghent University in Belgium estimated.

Eritrean troops fought alongside Ethiopian forces during that war, while Eritrea was not a party to the 2022 peace agreement. Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki has previously dismissed allegations of abuses by Eritrean forces.

Rising tensions between Ethiopia and Eritrea have raised fears of a wider conflict. The available information does not specify the number of people killed or injured in the renewed fighting, the health facilities that closed, or the current status of communications and essential services.