FILE PHOTO: Abune Mathias, Patriarch of Ethiopian Orthodox Church attends the Meskel Festival to commemorate the discovery of the true cross on which Jesus Christ was crucified on, at the Meskel Square in Ethiopia s capital Addis Ababa, September 26, 2016. Picture taken September 26, 2016. REUTERS/Tiksa Negeri
NAIROBI (Reuters) - The head of Ethiopia s Orthodox Church has said that atrocities amounting to genocide are being committed in Tigray, in his first comments on the conflict in the region that broke out in November and has killed thousands.
Abune Mathias, who has been head of the church since 2013, did not say who was responsible for this. He spoke in a video message that was posted on Twitter on Friday by an American religious charity worker.
Daily Times
May 9, 2021
The head of Ethiopia’s Orthodox Church has accused the government of wanting to “destroy” the country’s northern Tigray region, in his first public comments about the war there.
The statement from Abune Mathias, a Tigray native, appeared in a video recording ferried out of Ethiopia by a friend, and the patriarch claimed his earlier attempts to speak out had been “stifled and censored.”
It represents rare public criticism from a high-profile Ethiopian figure of the six-month-old war pitting Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s military against forces loyal to Tigray’s once dominant ruling party, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF). “They are working day and night to destroy Tigray. They have no rest when it comes to destroying Tigrayans,” Abune Mathias, speaking in the Amharic language, said in the 14-minute video.
Orthodox priest releases video statement on suppression of Tigray district
Abuna Mathias (centre) during a religious festival in Addis Ababa in January. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty
Abuna Mathias (centre) during a religious festival in Addis Ababa in January. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty
Observerstaff
Sat 8 May 2021 14.22 EDT
First published on Sat 8 May 2021 12.45 EDT
Ethiopian government forces and their allies are committing genocide in the country’s war-torn northern province of Tigray, the head of Ethiopia’s Orthodox Church has claimed in a videoed statement demanding urgent international intervention.
The appeal by Abuna [Patriarch] Mathias follows fresh allegations of ethnic cleansing, gang rapes, extrajudicial killings and other atrocities by soldiers loyal to Ethiopia’s prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, who ordered an invasion of Tigray last November.
The head of Ethiopia’s Orthodox Church has accused government forces of carrying out “genocide” in the country’s Tigray region, where a six-month conflict between federal and allied troops and forces loyal to the former ruling party is believed to have killed thousands of people.
In a video shot last month on a mobile phone and taken out of Ethiopia, the elderly Patriarch Abune Mathias addresses the church’s millions of followers and the international community, saying his previous attempts to speak out were blocked.
“I am not clear why they want to declare genocide on the people of Tigray,” the patriarch, an ethnic Tigrayan, says, speaking in Amharic.