ERITREA. Asmara: The United States has ordered all the soldiers from Eritrea to leave Ethiopia’s embattled Tigray region “immediately”. The US has accused Eritrean soldiers of various human rights violations including murder and sexual violence in the Tigray region. Earlier, the Trump administration had praised Eritrean soldiers for restraint.
However, The new US administration has said that it has directly “pressed senior levels” of Eritrea’s government to immediately withdraw its troops from neighboring Ethiopia, where witnesses have described them looting and hunting down civilians in the embattled Tigray region
“There is evidence of Eritrean soldiers forcibly returning Eritrean refugees from Tigray to Eritrean,” reads a statement from the US state department.
The US has also asked for a total end to the fighting in the Tigray region and has called for an independent and transparent investigation of the atrocities committed by the Eritrean soldiers.
Eritrea is joining the war in Ethiopia’s conflict with Tigray rebels as a way of restoring order.
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Since November 2020, the Ethiopian government has been fighting rebels of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, seeking independence of the Tigray region.
Humanitarian crisis
The United Nations reported that the Tigray region is facing a humanitarian crisis. Over 95,000 Ethiopian residents have been displaced by the Tigray conflict.
“There is a shortage of food and two-thirds of the region’s hospitals are not functioning and there are things we don’t know which could be disturbing,” said Henrietta Fore, the executive director of UNICEF.
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