Eight survivors of the devastating conflict in Ethiopia's northern Tigray region have accused 12 high-ranking Ethiopian and Eritrean civilian and military officials of war crimes and crimes against humanity, the legal rights group representing them told AFP on Monday.
The Tigray region, bordering Eritrea, endured a war between 2020 and 2022 which claimed up to 600,000 lives, according to some estimates.
The conflict pitted rebels of the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) against federal Ethiopian forces, supported by local militias and the Eritrean army.
Both sides were accused of committing atrocities, with the government sealing off Tigray for most of the war and restricting humanitarian aid to the region.
Eight survivors "have filed a groundbreaking criminal complaint with the German Federal Public Prosecutor, alleging that 12 senior Ethiopian and Eritrean government officials and military officers committed war crimes and crimes against humanity during the conflict," non-profit Legal Action Worldwide (LAW) said in a statement.
The Swiss-based organisation did not disclose the identities of those accused in the filing, submitted in 2024 but announced last week.
A LAW spokesperson told AFP on Monday they could not "confirm or deny" whether Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed or Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki were mentioned.
The case is being filed in Germany under the principle of universal jurisdiction, which allows the prosecution of crimes regardless of where they were committed, as they violate international law.
Addis Ababa and Asmara did not respond to requests for comment from AFP.
"We are asking the German authorities to open a criminal investigation, and to issue arrest warrants for 12 suspects," Nick Leddy, head of LAW's strategic litigation department and a former prosecutor at the International Criminal Court, told AFP.
He said they would not be naming the suspects as it could "jeopardise the chances of their arrest".
The identities of the plaintiffs have not been made public either.
"I've lost two of the most important people in my life in this war: my younger brother and my mom," LAW quoted one of them as saying.
"The suffering and agony continues."
"Tigrayans are still dying every day," they added, saying justice must be brought to those "who orchestrated and engineered these unimaginable crimes".
- 'Dramatic crimes' -
The two-year conflict was marked by allegations of massacres, mass rapes and other atrocities by all sides.
In 2022, a United Nations commission said it had "reasonable grounds to believe that, in several instances, these violations amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity".
Anna Oehmichen, a lawyer involved in the case, said the "gravity of the crimes in Tigray are dramatic".
It requires investigation and prosecution, she said, "in order to put an end to the ongoing violations of international law and to prevent other heads of state from committing similarly devastating crimes".
Although a peace agreement was signed in November 2022, around one million of the region's pre-war population of six million remain displaced.
In recent weeks, a rift within the TPLF has reignited fears of renewed conflict.
