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Amare said he has two options.
“Either leave home or be killed,” he told Al Jazeera in a UN refugee camp in Basinga village in the Kadarif state of Sudan, which borders Ethiopia.
The 20-year-old student is a member of the Ethiopian Qemant minority. He fled to the camp to escape what he said was an attack by Ethiopian soldiers on the town of Simfa in the Amhara region of Ethiopia, about 10 kilometers (6 miles) away from the Sudanese. The border, June 13th.
“They shot anyone who moved, including the elderly. I’m lucky to be alive,” he said in a telephone interview at the camp. “They want to purify the Amhara region of Qemant,” he added. “They are trying to destroy us.”
Amare is one of a growing number of Qemant members who have made such accusations against the Ethiopian army and allied militias belonging to the country’s Amhara regional government.
Government officials insist that civilians have not been the target of their offensive in Amhara, which they say is related to the 11-month war in the country that initially made loyalty to the TPLF (Tigray People’s Liberation Front)— The forces of the ruling party in the nearby Tigray area are in trouble. The national army against Ethiopia and neighboring Eritrea. The fighting in Tigray has caused thousands of deaths, displaced millions, and led to a humanitarian crisis, exposing hundreds of thousands of people to famine-like conditions. In June, Tigray’s army launched a counterattack, regaining most of the area and expanding the fighting to the neighboring Amhara and Afar areas.
But in the fog of war, military operations and mob violence in the disputed territories in the northwest of the Amhara region have also led to Displacement of thousands The ethnic Qemant civilians leave their home.
The Kermans live in the Amharic region and are no different from the Amharic in terms of body and language. The Amharic is the second largest ethnic group in Ethiopia, accounting for nearly a quarter of the 112 million people in Ethiopia.
Qemant has long complained about marginalization and even struggling to gain recognition. In 2007, they were completely ignored in the Ethiopian census. There is no confirmed Qemant population figure today. It is believed that their number is higher than in 1994. The number of people counted at one time is much more than 172,000. At the same time, the regional autonomy requirements of the Qemant rights group have caused them to diverge from the Amharic people who share the same area with them.
in a Press conference In April of this year, the former President of the Amhara region, Agegnehu Teshager, whose term of office ended this week, claimed that Qemant “extremists” had formed a militia group allied with the Tigray, although he did not provide Evidence to support his statement.
“We are fighting against Qemant extremists who are trained in Sudan and armed by TPLF,” he said. “They have opened fire on our troops.”
Refugees in Sudan told Al Jazeera that some Qemant youths took up arms in response to the continuous attacks on their communities. Al Jazeera cannot independently verify this, and there is little data on the formal establishment of the Qemant force or its capabilities.
Government of Ethiopia maintain Its troops searched for suspicious Qemant insurgents in the area and ensured that the country’s borders were protected from possible infiltrators from Sudan.
However, satellite image analysis, eyewitness statements, and photo evidence collected by Al Jazeera indicate that the Ethiopian army and allied militias were involved in the destruction of the Qemant community. Residents also accused the Ethiopian army of standing idly by, because Allied militias often carried out terrible killings of civilians.
“They dragged people out of their homes and slaughtered them on the street,” said a man who fled to Gondar after being raided in his hometown. Fearing for his safety, he requested anonymity. He accused a local Amharic militia named Fano of killing in this way during a brutal rampage that took place in the town of Eker between September 1 and 2. More than a dozen Qemant civilians.
“They kill, steal what they want and leave. This has been happening for a few months,” he said by phone.
Vigil Monitor, a non-profit research organization based in the United Kingdom, has been documenting atrocities in various parts of Ethiopia since the war broke out in November last year, working with Al Jazeera to study satellite images provided by the private satellite operator Planet Labs. At least 12 displaced persons believe that the area was severely affected by the military operation. The image shows that from May 2021 to the present, about 557 civilian buildings have been extensively damaged, which largely confirms the witness’s statement.
In its written assessment of the image, the organization stated: “More than 500 buildings in the four settlements in the Shinfa River area were deliberately destroyed.” “It was observed in the satellite imagery that the violent incidents in the damaged affected areas continued to deteriorate. “
Vigil Monitor added that the level and manner of violence experienced in different settlements was consistent with the time period and witness statements.
The organization stated: “It seems that the attacks in the Chilga and Shinfa areas started at least in April.” “Since then, we have noticed a major escalation of the situation, including the mobilization of Amhara regional forces and Ethiopian troops, and the use of artillery. And extensive burning of civilian areas.”
Al Jazeera contacted the Ethiopian Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Peace to request a response to these allegations, but did not receive a response as of press time.
Qemant activists and rights groups such as Amnesty International have long defendant Ethiopian security forces participated in attacks on civilians in Qemant prior to the current conflict.
“Institutional violence against Qemant is not a new phenomenon. We have recorded abuses dating back to 2015,” said Abeba Teferie, the head of the Qemant advocacy organization based in the United States, who accused Ethiopian authorities of carrying out an “ethnic cleansing” .
Al Jazeera contacted the spokesperson of Ethiopian Prime Minister Abi Ahmed to request a response to these allegations, but did not receive a response as of press time.
“We are punished only because our people oppose deletion from the national census. Recognition and autonomy are constitutional rights.”
“Exhausted, poor health”
Approximately 2,000 Kermants Already escaped According to data from the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), since late July, they have been to the camp in Basinga, including 261 Four-day period Mid-September. Since then, another 500 people have embarked on the journey, which means that in September alone, nearly half of all recorded arrivals fled their homes.
“Many Qemant asylum seekers were exhausted and in poor health when they arrived in eastern Sudan. They traversed long, difficult and dangerous routes before reaching safety,” said Giulia Raffaelli, a senior foreign relations officer at UNHCR. . “Some people told us that they found themselves involved in some conflicts or experienced violence before escaping.”
Raffaelli said that counseling services are being provided to all arrivals.
Refugee camp coordinator Tariq Abdaselam (Tariq Abdaselam) said: “Many people are in shock and are still affected by their traumatic experience.” He added that one of the refugees he hosted had been shot. hurt.
The most recent known violent incident occurred on September 28, the day after an unidentified gunman attacked a minibus driving near the village of Qemant in Beleva.Local news media blame The attack on Qemant “terrorists”.
According to an eyewitness, Belehwa was subsequently set on fire in retaliation by members of the militia allied with the government and angry villagers. “Thugs beat people and set fire to houses,” witnesses told Al Jazeera.
Planet Labs images obtained by Vigil Monitor confirmed that as of September 28, the attack on Belehwa village was still ongoing. Satellite imagery captures the billowing smoke enveloping the air above the house trapped in hell.
Gizachew Muluneh, head of the Amhara Regional Communications Bureau, and Major General Mohammed Tessema, spokesperson for the Ethiopian military, did not respond to text messages sent to their phones for comments.
In another incident, Belayneh, a 35-year-old Kerman, received a call from an undisclosed location near the Sudanese border. He stated that he was in Gubay town when Ethiopian soldiers began shelling on September 4.
Belayneh told Al Jazeera: “Except for unarmed civilians living their daily lives, there is nothing to target.” “Soldiers dropped cannons on us from nearby Lyme Lyme Hill. Everyone panicked and started to run for their lives. The houses were destroyed and people were killed on the streets. Gubai is now completely deserted, and the residents are either in Sudan or in the wilderness.”
Another Mulugta who fled the violence in Gube said that he hid in a shed for several hours. When he managed to escape to the mountain, he described that he saw dozens of mutilated bodies while running. “The last thing I heard was that the corpses were decomposing in the open, because no one was burying them there.”
A few days later, on September 7, an Ethiopian military commander gave a different version of the incident. In an interview with official media, he said that his troops were fighting with members of the Amhara regional forces and Fano in places like Gube and repelled attacks by armed Qemant infiltrators from Sudan.
“More than 250 enemy fighters were killed, some of them were killed by local farmers while escaping,” Brigadier General Nasir Abadiga was quoted as saying.
Updated satellite images show that parts of Gubay appear to have been completely reduced to rubble. The main targets of the shelling appeared to be houses covered with sheet metal roofs, which are common in rural and urban environments in Ethiopia. Researchers at Vigil Monitor counted a total of 97 destroyed buildings in Gubay, and there are more than a dozen in its suburbs.
“The destruction in Gubay town is consistent with the destruction caused by the shelling,” the organization said in a written statement to Al Jazeera. “Given the fact that the Amhara regional forces do not tend to use artillery, this shows that the witness testimony corroborates the testimony accusing the Ethiopian army of involvement.”
In addition, Al Jazeera has obtained unconfirmed images from displaced refugees in Sudan, which show various projectiles shot in the area after the shelling. A used shell and the tail fin of an 81 or 82 mm (3.1 or 3.1 inch) mortar shell were found in the picture. Residents say that since May, it has become commonplace to use heavy artillery to level communities.
“The soldiers attacked the village of Bihorna by all means in late August,” Tadley, one of the thousands of displaced people, told Al Jazeera. “I saw them using RPG rockets, mortars and explosives to fire at homes,” he said, using a term commonly used in Ethiopia to refer to the DShk anti-aircraft machine gun made in Russia.
Brigadier General Abadiga continued to monitor the army’s operations in the area, and he told the official media on September 20—just a week before the village of Belehwa was burned down—that his troops were still committed to “destroying terrorists and ensuring border security” .
Residents complain that the Qemant village continues to be attacked with impunity, usually with the direct or at least implicit support of the security forces.
Displaced survivors who cannot travel to Sudan have few options. It is said that many people are hiding in relatives’ homes or in the wilderness, and many of them are hiding in areas without communication services.
“I have been hiding in the forest last month because it is not safe to go home,” said Tadley, who fled the Bihorna attack in August. “There may be thousands of us displaced and scattered throughout the region. Unlike Sudan, there are no NGOs here to serve us,” he added.
“We rely on ourselves.”
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