Tigrayan rebels killed at least 125 civilians in early September in a village in Amhara, a region in northern Ethiopia which has been gripped by conflict in neighboring Tigray in recent months, doctors said Wednesday (September 8th).
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"
There were 125 dead in the village of Chenna (...) I saw the mass grave myself
", told AFP Mulugeta Melesa, head of the hospital in the neighboring town of Dabat, located 25 kilometers from Chenna.
The inhabitants "
are still looking for corpses in the vicinity
" and "
the count is still in progress,
" he added.
Stalled Conflict
Northern Ethiopia has been the scene of heavy fighting since November, when Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed sent the army to Tigray to remove the dissident regional authorities from the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF).
According to him, this intervention was in response to attacks on federal military camps orchestrated by the TPLF.
The 2019 Nobel Peace Prize winner declared victory at the end of November after the Ethiopian soldiers took over the regional capital Mekele but the conflict then bogged down and at the end of June the pro-TPLF rebel forces regained control of the essential of Tigray.
They continued their offensive in the neighboring regions of Amhara and Afar in order to end what they describe as a humanitarian blockade of Tigray and to prevent pro-government forces from regrouping.
Summary executions and indiscriminate bombing
This spread of fighting, which has displaced hundreds of thousands of people, has been accompanied by accusations of summary executions and indiscriminate bombing by the rebels, denied by the TPLF.
TPLF officials could not be reached immediately on Wednesday.
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Residents of Chenna said that pro-TPLF forces controlled the village at the end of August before fighting with pro-government troops broke out in early September, Sewunet Wubalem, administrator of the Dabat district, told AFP on Wednesday.
The rebels shot dead civilians for several days in early September before retreating, he said.
Some of the injured were taken to the University Hospital in the city of Gondar.
"
Corpses don't arrive here, but there are injured civilians here,
" said Ashenafi Tazebew, deputy director of Gondar hospital. “
We received nearly 35 civilians, but I'm not sure they all came from the Chenna massacre. Most of them have gunshot wounds,
”he said. "
For some of them, their families have been killed and they are asking to go to the funeral
", even if they need treatment, he added.
