Report: Eritrean Troops Abducting Tigrayans Months After Cease-Fire

ADF STAFF

Sixteen months after the Ethiopian government defeated rebels in its northern Tigray region with the help of Eritrea, remaining Eritrean Defence Forces troops have been abducting farmers and stealing livestock, according to reports.

Eritrean forces came to the aid of the Ethiopian government in its fight against the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), which sought to overthrow the Ethiopian and the Eritrean governments.

Tigray residents have accused Eritrean forces of abuse and committing war crimes. In Adwa, Eritrean soldiers killed more than 300 people, including women, children and the elderly. They damaged or destroyed nearly 70 buildings days before the November 2022 cease-fire took effect.

The cease-fire briefly partitioned Tigray among the Ethiopian government, the TPLF, Amhara and Eritrean forces. It also called for Eritrea to withdraw from Tigray. However, Eritrea was not a party to the cease-fire. Witnesses reported that some, but not all, of those forces left the region in late 2022.

Months later, Tigray residents said Eritrean troops still were in the region abusing Ethiopian citizens and committing war crimes, including executing men during house-to-house searches.

Now, 16 months after the cease-fire, Eritrean contingents remain in several Tigray districts along the Eritrean border. Those are the districts where witnesses have reported Eritrean troops kidnapping farmers and rustling livestock.

In one January incident, eight herders were abducted with their donkeys and camels. In another, six people were abducted along with 56 farm animals. In a third, Eritrean troops stole 100 animals.

Eritrean Information Minister Yemane Gebremeskel denied claims of abductions and livestock rustling. He told The Associated Press the reports were false.

The report provided by the Ethiopia Health Cluster noted that several parts of two border districts either are “fully occupied or patrolled” by Eritrean troops. Those patrols mean that displaced people can’t return home and farm their land.

The report says that Ethiopia’s military is absent and failing to protect its citizens.

Ethiopia and Eritrea fought a border war from 1998 to 2000 while the TPLF controlled the Ethiopian government. Some of the areas still under Eritrean control were disputed and strategic military areas Eritrea claimed during the 1998-2000 war, according to Ethiopia’s The Reporter.

The Eritrean regime has seen the TPLF as an enemy for a long time, according to Michela Wrong, a British journalist and author of a book on Eritrea. The TPLF and the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front, which fought for independence from Ethiopia, have had tense relations dating to the 1970s.

“Eritrea’s president views this conflict as a zero-sum game. His aim is to finish off the TPLF once and for all,” researcher Mohamed Kheir Omer wrote in Foreign Policy shortly after the cease-fire.