Ethiopia’s War Leads to Ethnic Cleansing in Tigray Region, U.S. Report Says

NAIROBI, Kenya — Ethiopian officials and allied militia fighters are leading a systematic campaign of ethnic cleansing in Tigray, the war-torn region in northern Ethiopia, according to a confidential United States government report obtained by The New York Times.

The report, written earlier this month, documents in stark terms a land of looted houses and deserted villages where tens of thousands of people are unaccounted for.

Fighters and officials from the neighboring Amhara region of Ethiopia, who entered Tigray in support of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, are “deliberately and efficiently rendering Western Tigray ethnically homogeneous through the organized use of force and intimidation,” the report says.

“Whole villages were severely damaged or completely erased,” the report said.

In a second report, published Friday, Amnesty International said that soldiers from Eritrea had systematically killed hundreds of Tigrayan civilians in the ancient city of Axum over a 10-day period in November, shooting some of them in the streets.

The worsening situation in Tigray — where Mr. Abiy, winner of the 2019 Nobel Peace Prize, launched a surprise military offensive in November — is shaping up to be the Biden’s administration first major test in Africa. Former President Donald J. Trump paid little attention to the continent and never visited it, but President Joseph R. Biden has promised a more engaged approach.

In a call with President Uhuru Kenyatta of Kenya on Thursday, Mr. Biden brought up the Tigray crisis. The two leaders discussed “the deteriorating humanitarian and human rights crises in Ethiopia’s Tigray region and the need to prevent further loss of life and ensure humanitarian access,” a White House statement said.

But thus far Mr. Biden and other American officials have been reluctant to openly criticize Mr. Abiy’s conduct of the war, while European leaders and United Nations officials, worried about reports of widespread atrocities, have been increasingly outspoken.

On Tuesday a European Union envoy, Finland’s foreign minister, Pekka Haavisto, told reporters the situation in Tigray was “very out of control,” after returning from a fact-finding trip to Ethiopia and Sudan. The bloc suspended $110 million in aid to Ethiopia at the start of the conflict, and last month the E.U.’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, warned of possible war crimes in Tigray and said that the crisis was “unsettling” the entire region.

Ethiopia routinely dismisses critics of its campaign in Tigray as stooges of its foes in Tigray. But on Friday afternoon, in response to the Amnesty International report, Mr. Abiy’s office said it was ready to collaborate in an international investigation into atrocities in Tigray. The government “reiterates its commitment to enabling a stable and peaceful region,” it said in a statement.

Mr. Abiy’s office also claimed that Ethiopia has given “unfettered” access to international aid groups in Tigray — in contrast with U.N. officials who estimate that just 20 percent of the region can be reached by aid groups because of government-imposed restrictions.

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