When atrocities return: The cost of failed accountability in Tigray

What the report says

Amnesty International is warning that a lack of accountability for atrocities committed during Ethiopia’s earlier war in Tigray has left civilians exposed as fighting returns to the region. In a report highlighted by Al Jazeera, the rights group says the failure to pursue credible investigations and prosecutions after the conflict helped create conditions in which abuses could recur.

According to Al Jazeera’s report, hostilities resumed in early August between Tigrayan forces and the Ethiopian National Defence Force, less than four years after the November 2022 Cessation of Hostilities Agreement was signed. That accord had raised hopes that the devastating northern Ethiopia war, which lasted from November 2020 to November 2022, was ending and that justice would follow for alleged wartime crimes.

Amnesty says those expectations were not met. The group points to the expiration of international investigative mandates, the collapse of Ethiopia’s proposed transitional justice process, and the lack of meaningful action over allegations including killings, sexual violence, displacement and obstruction of aid. It also says conditions in Tigray had worsened in recent months, with tighter movement limits, pressure on independent media and forced recruitment concerns.

The organization is calling on Ethiopian authorities to protect civilians, follow international law and allow access for monitors, humanitarian groups and independent journalists. The broader significance, as Al Jazeera frames it, is that impunity in Tigray is not only a past failure but a present risk as Ethiopia faces overlapping security and human rights crises in other regions as well.