The Ethiopian Human Rights Commission (ECtHR) on Sunday accused the Ethiopian military of being responsible for the death of a man burned alive in the northwest of the country, whose ordeal was the subject of a video circulated on social media.
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Ethiopian authorities on Saturday announced they were investigating footage of a helpless man being set on fire by a group of men, some wearing Ethiopian army uniforms, who insult him in Amharic, Ethiopia’s official language.
The ECtHR, an independent body under the Ethiopian government, said on Sunday that the victim was a Tigrayan who was “burned alive (…) with the participation of state security forces and others.”
The case unfolded on March 3 in northwestern Ethiopia, in the Benishangul-Gumuz region, which borders Sudan and South Sudan.
According to the commission, about twenty people died in the attack the day before in the area. Security forces then arrested and shot dead eight Tigrayans suspected of carrying out the attack. “The bodies of the dead were taken to the nearest forest for burning,” the ECHR said in a statement, citing eyewitnesses.
“It was then that a man of Tigrayan origin, suspected of being in contact with the alleged attackers, was arrested and thrown (into the fire) along with the dead,” the Commission adds.
“The soldiers of the Ethiopian army present at that time, the police forces from the Amhara region and the police forces from the southern region,” the ECtHR clarifies, calling for the opening of a criminal case.
The AFP agency was unable to authenticate the video and independently verify it, and there is no specific indication that it is related to the conflict that has affected northern Ethiopia since December 2020 between Tigray rebels and Ethiopian federal forces.
This conflict in northern Ethiopia has claimed thousands of victims, and both sides have been repeatedly accused of various human rights violations and a long list of atrocities.
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According to the UN, more than two million people have lost their homes as a result of the conflict and more than nine million people are in need of urgent humanitarian assistance.