BY HAILE DEMEKE
Amidst international silence and condoning, the terrorist TPLF group is doubling down its atrocities against innocent communities in Amhara and Afar states putting the national security of country in grave danger. In fact, it has been said time and time again that the ongoing law enforcement operation is against anti-peace elements who are trying to undermine peace and stability of the nation.
The terrorist TPLF’s offensive intensified following the unilateral ceasefire declared by the federal government. The rogue group refused to adhere to a government initiated ceasefire and, advanced into neighboring regions of Afar and Amhara, massacring civilians, raping women. Moreover, the group has been destroying property and crops and even worse killing livestock. Mass graves have been discovered in a number of locations in the Amhara region, where local people narrate harrowing accounts of TPLF’s brutality.
Despite those all evil deed of the terrorist group committed, the international community continues to remain silent and stood behind the horrendous attacks turning a blind eye. The terrorist TPLF has already perpetrated massacres in Maikadra, Agamsa and Chena in Amhara region, Galikoma in Afar region and others. According to testimonies, the unlawful group has claimed the lives of thousands of civilians.
Similarly, the TPLF terrorist group has massacred about 30 civilians using artilleries in its latest attacks launched on Wuchalie town of south Wollo Zone, Amharan and Chifra woreda of Afra regional states.
Residents of Chena Teklehaimanot Kebele of Dabat Woreda in the Amhara region said the terrorist TPLF has killed more than 100 civilians innocent civilians including a six-month infant and a report later indicated that the number of people massacred by the group has increased to over 200.
Amhara Regional State Communication Affairs Office Director General, Gizachew Muluneh said the brutal terrorist TPLF group massacred thousands of civilians in the state. The intensified atrocities has intensified as the group has been receiving humiliating defeats in battlefields and continued its vengeance on civilians. The terrorist TPLF has also carried out massacre against priests in church, killing elderly people, children, and women, he noted.
Despite turning a blind eye to the atrocities, international media outlets also could not hide the dreadful killings. Aljazeera reported that the terrorist TPLF claimed the lives of 240 civilians in Galicoma, Afar state including 107 children. Millions of people have also been displaced due to the heinous acts of the terrorist group.
Amidst the increased attacks, there have calls on the international community to put more pressure on the terrorist group that is destabilizing the security and stability of the country.
The terrorist TPLF group has been committing large-scale atrocities in Amhara and Afar regional states following the withdrawal of the Ethiopian National Defense Forces from Mekele as result of the unilateral humanitarian ceasefire declared by the government. The attacks mainly launched in the stated areas by using human wave using children and elders as canon fodders.
Recently, the U.S. Congresswoman Karen Bass warned the terrorist TPLF to stop recruiting child soldiers, and also to withdraw its forces from the neighboring regions of Amhara and Afar.
Recently the Associated Press (AP) reported that more than a dozen witnesses offered the most widespread descriptions yet of TPLF striking communities and a religious site with artillery, killing civilians, looting health centers and schools and displacing hundreds of thousands of people from their villages.
In the town of Nefas Mewucha in the Amhara region, a hospital’s medical equipment was smashed. The fighters looted medicines and other supplies, leaving more than a dozen patients to die, AP revealed.
What is worse is that the TPLF soldiers already having consumed the stockpiled food of farmers in occupied areas have destroyed the rest. The terrorist group did not even spare food-aid warehouses and forcibly taking distributed assistance from recipients in these areas. The livelihood of farmers in Ethiopia is highly dependent on livestock for food, farming, and biofuel. Sadly, these also have not been spared from the destructive actions of the TPLF.
Chair of Tigray Democratic Party (TDP), Aregawi Berhe (PhD), urged that need of concerted efforts in order to stop soon destructions and inhumane acts of TPLF terrorist group.
The summary execution, kidnaping and looting of property have become the day to day practices of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), both in Tigray and in the areas of other regions it has occupied.
He added that the TPLF from its inception has been a gang of bandits notorious for disrupting the peaceful life of the Tigrayan People. TPLF’s notoriety has now become obvious by its destructions and killings it incessantly carries out in the occupied areas of neighboring regions of Amhara and Afar regions
Apart from killing and displacing civilians, the terrorist group is recruiting children for military services which is tantamount of war crime. Despite the harrowing atrocities of the terrorist group, the international community largely condoned the group’s acts. Paradoxically, the US and the EU have been threatening to impose sanctions indirectly emboldening the group to double down its atrocities.
Speaking on the issue, spokesperson of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ethiopia Ambassador Dina Mufti said that the EU and the international community need to openly acknowledge the commitment of the federal government for unfettered access of the humanitarian aid delivery to the needy people despite the challenge posed by the terrorist TPLF clique. The international community should hold the terrorist TPLF group accountable for obstructing humanitarian assistance in Tigray regions and committing war crimes, he added.
“The silence of the EU and international community in the face of massive belligerence, murder, and destruction of civilians in Afar and Amhara states by the terrorist group is unfair. International community needs to clearly condemn the act of the TPLF,” he said.
The government is committed to unfettered access for humanitarian assistance in Tigray with measures, such as reduced checkpoints and continued humanitarian flights to the state. As to him, Ethiopia would conduct an all-inclusive national dialogue based on a roadmap that has been prepared by the new government.
So far, over 4.5 civilians have been affected by belligerence and atrocities being committed by the TPLF terrorist group over the past two months alone.
Though the numbers causalities could have increased, close to a million people in Amhara and Afar Regional states have fled their homes due to the attacks committed by the criminal enterprise. Humanitarian support to the IDPs in Amhara and Afar regions is mainly delivered by the government calling the partners to play their share in addressing the challenges.
TPLF brutally massacred more than 200 civilians in Afar region including children, women and elders, killed innocents in several parts of Amhara region and vandalized public and private properties including health care institutions and livestock in the two regions.
The Ethiopian Herald October 30/2021
