Reports of the mass killing of civilians in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region “would amount to war crimes” if confirmed, the UN human rights chief has warned. Michelle Bachelet called for an inquiry into reports that scores and maybe hundreds of people had been stabbed and hacked to death in one town. Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has accused forces loyal to Tigray’s leaders of the massacre. Its officials have denied involvement. Tigray leader Debretsion Gebremichael told AFP news agency that the accusations were “baseless.”

Mr Abiy said that fighters backing Tigray’s ruling party, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), went on the rampage after federal troops had “liberated” the western part of Tigray, “brutally” killing innocent civilians in Mai-Kadra, a town in the South West Zone of Tigray.(BBC)…[+]