Eritrea president says rights violations by Eritrean troops in Ethiopia ‘a fantasy’

Eritrea’s President Isaias Afwerki said on Thursday that reports of Eritrean troops committing human rights violations during the conflict in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region were “a fantasy” and “misinformation.”

Eritrean troops fought alongside the Ethiopian military and allied militias in the bloody two-year conflict that pitted the Ethiopian government against rebellious forces in the northern region of Tigray.

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In November, the Ethiopia government and the Tigray forces signed an agreement to end the hostilities. That agreement mandated the withdrawal of all foreign forces from Tigray, but Eritrea was not party to the truce.

During the war, Eritrean troops were accused by residents and human rights groups of various abuses, including the killing of hundreds of civilians in Axum during a 24-hour period in November 2020. Eritrea rejects the accusations.

At a news conference in Nairobi Afwerki called the allegations of human rights abuses by Eritrean troops “a fantasy of those who went to derail the peace process… a factory of fabricating misinformation.”

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