US hosts Ethiopian Orthodox Church head after Tigray warning

The United States ambassador to Ethiopia has hosted the patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church after he warned of “genocide” in the Tigray region in his first public comments on the war

NAIROBI, Kenya -- The United States ambassador to Ethiopia on Monday hosted the patriarch of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church after he warned of “genocide” in the Tigray region in his first public comments on the war. In a Facebook post, the U.S. Embassy said Ambassador Geeta Pasi discussed the humanitarian situation in Tigray with the patriarch, Abune Mathias, as well as his video message released last week and first reported by The Associated Press. In the message, filmed by an American friend on a mobile phone and taken out of Ethiopia, the church leader said that “they want to destroy the people of Tigray” and said his previous attempts to speak out on the six-month conflict had been blocked. The patriarch, an ethnic Tigrayan, also said that “many barbarisms have been conducted” these days all over Ethiopia, but “what is happening in Tigray is of the highest brutality and cruelty.” Thousands of people have been killed in the fighting between Ethiopian and allied forces and Tigray ones, the result of a political struggle that turned deadly in November.