Bachelet Says Tigray Conflict Risks Engulfing Whole Horn of Africa 

GENEVA - U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michele Bachelet warns the increasingly brutal conflict in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region threatens to spill over to the whole Horn of Africa.

Preliminary findings of a joint investigation by the U.N. Human Rights Office and the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission into alleged violations in Tigray have been submitted to the U.N. Human Rights Council.    Since her last update in June, fighting has continued unabated in Tigray and has expanded into neighboring Afar and Amhara regions. U.N. rights chief Bachelet said mass detentions, killings, systematic looting, and sexual violence have displaced nearly two million people in this region and created an atmosphere of fear. She said civilian suffering is widespread and impunity is pervasive.    Bachelet said investigators have documented multiple allegations of human rights violations, including extrajudicial killings, torture, and enforced disappearances.  She says sexual and gender-based violence, including gang rapes, have been characterized by a pattern of extreme brutality and ethnically targeted.