UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet has said that the situation in northern Ethiopia has deteriorated since November and her office has received reports of widespread violations including rapes and lethal airstrikes.
Bachelet told the Geneva-based Human Rights Council that her staff had recorded 304 deaths and injuries to 373 people in air attacks “apparently carried out by the Ethiopian Air Force” in Tigray and Afar regions.
“Ethiopia abides by its national and international human rights obligations,” Mahlet said.
Ethiopia’s military spokesman, Colonel Getnet Adane, and government spokesman Legesse Tulu did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
In the same speech, Bachelet said her office had received reports of 306 rapes by Tigrayan forces in the Amhara region in Nov-Dec. 2021.
Reuters has interviewed women in the Amhara region who have described gang-rapes by Tigrayan forces.
TPLF spokesman Getachew Reda said he could not comment on what he called blanket allegations.
“Whatever the merits of such allegations though, we are open for an independent investigation into these and other similar allegations,” he added.
Aid workers say civilians have been killed in several airstrikes, including a bombing on the night when Ethiopian Orthodox Christians celebrate Christmas Eve in the town of Dedebit, in northwest Tigray near the border with Eritrea in January.
