The Daily Telegraph has today reported a fight to the finish Ethiopian assault on Mekele, the capital of Tigray.
This morning the Ethiopian Embassy in London sent their own version of events to Parliamentarains. This followed a meeting between the Foreign Seretary, Dominic Raab MP deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ethiopia, Mr Demeke Mekonnen.
The Deputy Prime Minister also told the Foreign Secretary that it was carrying out this military assault to “ensure the peace and security of the people of Ethiopia, and protect and defend the constitution of the land.”
He described the attack on Mekele – with a population of 300,000 as “law enforcement”. Given the likelihood of thousands of civilian deaths this is not law enforcement it is a war crime.
Both sides accuse one another of ethnic killings and human rights abuses but Ethiopia’s denial of access to journalists and humanitarians makes it impossible to assess its claims and counterclaims. The Telegraph has interviewed fleeing refugees and reports indiscriminate shelling and brutal murders by the militias accompanying the armed forces. Why hasn’t the UN Secretary General demanded access and flown there to establish for himself what is happening in Tigray?
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