HRW calls on Ethiopia to investigate Tigray school bombing as ‘possible war crime’

The NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Thursday called on the Ethiopian government to investigate the deadly bombing in January of a school housing displaced people in the war-torn Tigray region, and to punish those responsible for what ” amounts to a war crime”.

On January 7, “what appears to be an armed drone dropped three bombs” on a school “housing thousands of displaced Tigrayans” in the locality of Dedebit, “killing at least 57 civilians and injuring more than 42”, recalls HRW in a statement.

More than 400,000 people, according to the UN, have been displaced in Tigray by the conflict which began in early November 2020, when Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed sent the federal army to dislodge the authorities of the region, then governed by the Front. of Tigray People’s Liberation (TPLF) who had been challenging his authority for months.

Quickly defeated, the rebel troops of the TPLF then, during 2021, militarily recaptured Tigray and the conflict has since spread to neighboring regions.

“The Ethiopian government should conduct a prompt, full and impartial investigation into this apparent war crime and prosecute those responsible,” said HRW, which denounced the “widespread violations” of human rights “on the part of all belligerents in the north of the country. ‘Ethiopia”.

“The Ethiopian drone struck Dedebit school three times, killing and maiming displaced Tigrayans, mainly old people, women and children, sleeping in tents made of plastic sheeting or in the school building,” explains Laetitia Bader, East Africa director of HRW in this press release.

Human Rights Watch says it “found no indication of military targets at the Dedebit IDP site.”

Based on debris recovered by survivors and aid workers, the extent of the damage and the types of injuries, the NGO claims to have identified the bombs dropped as “MAM-L smart micro-munitions”, manufactured by the Turkish company Roketsan.

“The use of guided bombs with no indication of a military target suggests that this is a suspected war crime,” according to Laetitia Bader.

The conflict has claimed thousands of victims and both sides have already been repeatedly accused of various human rights violations and a long list of atrocities.

In March, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet recorded 304 people killed and 373 injured between the end of November and the end of February last in aerial bombardments, “apparently carried out by Ethiopian military aviation”.


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