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Despite mounting pressure from the international community, the Ethiopian government is blocking independent investigations into allegations of atrocities and human rights abuses committed by federal troops and their allies in the war-torn Tigray region. Instead, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s office confirmed this week that the government will conduct its own probes.
The statement from Abiy’s office acknowledged that the allegations are “credible,” a reversal from the government’s earlier efforts to downplay the mounting reports documenting massacres of Tigrayan civilians. In one of the deadlier examples, soldiers from neighboring Eritrea who were fighting alongside federal forces allegedly slaughtered as many as 800 unarmed civilians in the northern city of Axum in November, according to Amnesty International.