TPLF rebels in Ethiopia's Tigray region accused of shooting civilians, shelling villages

Rebels from Ethiopia's war-hit Tigray opened fire on civilians while looting and shelling villages and towns in the neighbouring Amhara region earlier this month, killing and wounding dozens of people and possibly many more, witnesses told AFP on Wednesday.

The Amhara regional government described the violence in and around the town of Kobo as a "massacre", although the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) rebel group has previously denied claims it has targeted civilians in northern Ethiopia's 10-month-old war.

Witnesses said the violence erupted on 9 September in the village of Gedemeyu, seven kilometres (four miles) south of Kobo, after TPLF fighters began searching homes for firearms and other weapons.

Residents fought back and drove the TPLF out of the town, but the rebels began attacking civilians as they fled north, then returned the following day to carry out more attacks, the witnesses said.

The area around Kobo is predominantly lowland sorghum and onion farms.

A communications blackout there made it difficult to verify accounts from the witnesses, who have fled more than 150 kilometres south to displacement camps in the town of Dessie.

"They massacred farmers... and seasonal agricultural workers who came to the area from neighbouring highlands," one witness from Kobo town told AFP.

"I have seen the dead bodies of seven people in one compound. Four of them were from the same family," he said, adding he had passed "many" other bodies while walking south to Dessie.

Another man in Dessie told AFP he had returned north to survey damage in Zobel, a village near Kobo, and had seen dead bodies and destroyed buildings.

"In a mass shooting spree the TPLF inflicted heavy damage on civilians... It fired heavy artillery on civilians and civilian property," he said, adding that a health facility was hit and other government buildings were looted and vandalised.

Eritrean refugees fear more bloodshed after fleeing Tigray https://t.co/Dr7wEP7iQh

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Amhara government spokesman Gizachew Muluneh tweeted on Tuesday that hundreds of people may have died, but he provided no evidence for this claim.

"We are informed that many hundred civilian Amharas have been massacred by the terrorist TPLF. We will make public the exact number of people massacred once we investigate the crime," he said.

The TPLF said such claims were "totally wrong" and called for an independent investigation.