NAIROBI: The United States on Monday imposed new sanctions over Ethiopia’s deadly Tigray conflict as hundreds of thousands of people face famine conditions under a government blockade the US has called a siege and fighting spreads into other parts of the country.

The Treasury Department in a statement said the chief of staff of the defence forces of neighboring Eritrea, Filipos Woldeyohannes, was sanctioned under the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act for leading an entity accused of despicable acts including massacres, widespread sexual assault and the executions of boys. The statement again calls on Eritrea to remove its soldiers from Ethiopia’s Tigray region permanently.

The nine-month war has killed thousands of people and left observers shocked as Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, teamed up with former enemy Eritrea to wage war on the Tigray forces, with civilians not spared.

Scores of witnesses have described abuses such as gang-rapes, the destruction of health centers, the burning of crops and forced expulsions. Eritreans were often accused of some of the worst abuses.

The (Eritrean Defence Forces) have purposely shot civilians in the street and carried out systematic house-to-house searches, executing men and boys, and have forcibly evicted Tigrayan families from their residences and taken over their houses and property, the new US statement said.

Published in Dawn, August 24th, 2021