Amnesty International said Thursday that scores of civilians
were killed in a “massacre” in Ethiopia’s Tigray region which has
been verging on tension since September over the region’s pressing claim on
autonomy as a separate entity from the federal government.

Witnesses blamed the violence on forces backing the local
ruling party which is in conflict with the federal government, AFP reported.

“Amnesty International can today confirm… that
scores, and likely hundreds, of people were stabbed or hacked to death in
Mai-Kadra (May Cadera) town in the South West Zone of Ethiopia’s Tigray Region
on the night of 9 November,” the rights group said in a report, according
to AFP.

The federal government led by reformist leader Abiy Ahmed is
in conflict with the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), a faction which held
election in the region in September in defiance of the federal government,
after it postponed them in light of coronavirus pandemic.

On November 4, Abiy sent armed forces to the region saying
that the TPLF has been attacking federal troops posted there. Earlier he had stopped
funding for the region with an aim to starve the fractious elements there of
cash.

The TPLF has been accusing the federal government of
undermining the country’s federal structure—based on ethnic groups– and ceding
political ground to neighboring Eritrea – with which the country was at war for
almost two decades.

Tigray region is situated in the north of Ethiopia and
shares border with Eritrea.

The region dominated Ethiopia’s politics since the fall of Marxist
leader Colonel Mengistu Haile Mariam, whose regime was toppled with its support
in 1991.

Abiy who came to power in 2018 – without TPLF as part of his
coalition– is said to have led many structural reforms and his supposed crackdown
on corruption has antagonized the TPLF.  

Abiy won Nobel Prize for peace in 2019 for his peacemaking
initiatives with Eritrea.