The president of Tigray (Ethiopia) condemns a visit by US officials to the south allegedly occupied by Amhara

June 23 (EUROPA PRESS) –

The president of the Ethiopian region of Tigray, Getachew Reda, has condemned a recent visit by US diplomats to the town of Alamata, in the south of the territory and that Reda understands as an area illegally occupied by forces from the neighboring state of Amhara.

“A delegation of diplomats from the United States Embassy has gone to Alamata to do God knows what,” Reda lamented on his Twitter account, in a message accompanied by images of the diplomats.

The alleged occupation of southern Tigray by Amhara forces is one of the sticking points that still persist after a relatively successful peace agreement signed in November last year in Pretoria, which ended two years of one of the armed conflicts. bloodiest in the recent history of the continent; the war between the Popular Front for the Liberation of Tigray (TPLF) and the Ethiopian Army together with the forces of Amhara and neighboring Eritrea.

Reda, a former spokesman for the TPLF, insists that the Amhara forces remain in his territory and that the visit of the US delegation only “legitimizes a manifestly illegal occupation of the territory of Tigray by extremists bent on sabotaging our peace proposals.” “.

“While the United States government has always held a principled position on the need for a peaceful resolution of the conflict, it is not entirely clear why seasoned diplomats would lend themselves to such a striking display of apparent complicity in this poorly written drama that have been orchestrated by illegal authorities in the occupied territories of Tigray,” added the president in his message.

The United States Embassy in Addis Ababa has not yet ruled on the matter.

The visit of the diplomats took place on Wednesday, a day after the Secretary of the United States Department of State, Antony Blinken, denounced the commission of war crimes in the conflict in northern Ethiopia and applauded the commitment of the parties involved. by assuming “its devastating consequences”.

“After a careful review of the law and the facts” that have taken place in the country, Blinken has concluded that “the Ethiopian National Defense Forces, the Eritrean Defense Forces, the TPLF forces and the Amhara forces have committed war crimes during the conflict in northern Ethiopia,” Blinken said Tuesday in a press release.

The same statement noted that these groups have also committed “crimes against humanity, including murder, rape and other forms of sexual violence, and persecution.”

“Men, women and children have been killed. Women and girls have been subjected to horrific forms of sexual violence. Thousands of people have been forcibly displaced. Entire communities have been targeted because of their ethnicity,” Blinken listed.