New exchanges of accusations between the government of Eritrea and the organization Human Rights Watch, after the latter has confirmed the accusations made in the previous months regarding the massacres of civilians in the Tigray region, accusing Eritrea of direct responsibility, along with the Ethiopian federal forces.
Firm denial by the Eritrean Minister of Information, Yemane Meskel, according to whom especially the investigations conducted in the city of Axum would have been manipulated by the ability of the TPLF to provide its own list of witnesses, deemed unreliable.
At the same time, on September 17, US President Joe Biden issued an executive order – not yet operational – concerning the adoption of new sanctions against Ethiopia, Eritrea, the Amhara regional forces and also the Tigrinya forces of the TPLF. These sanctions, in the words of the U.S. president, will become fully effective over the next few days should the violence and human rights violations in the regions affected by the conflict will continue.
Also the organization Amnesty International intervened last September 17 with a statement calling on Eritrea to release politicians and journalists arrested twenty years ago after the disclosure of a letter signed by a group of members of the ruling party – which called itself the G15 – calling for the full restoration of the democratic prerogatives of the State.
The arrests, made between 18 and 23 September 2001, were accompanied, according to Amnesty International, by the adoption of inhuman measures of detention and by the absolute lack of information about the state of health of the arrested politicians and journalists.
On the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of the arrest, Amnesty International wished to reiterate its recurring request for the unconditional release of prisoners, along with the urgent communication of news about the state of health, on which the government of Asmara has kept the utmost secrecy over the past two decades.
