Amnesty International has stressed the need for an urgent African Union emergency meeting amid escalating conflict in Ethiopia.

In a statement on Thursday, the human rights organisation said the current outbreak of conflict in Tigray and the neighbouring Afar and Amhara regions came on the backdrop of six years of persistent armed conflict across the country.

The call for an AU emergency session came as the latest armed conflict, which broke out in Tigray and parts of the Afar and Amhara regions on 21 September, deteriorated.

“Since the outbreak of fresh fighting, the organisation has continued to receive credible reports of destruction of civilian objects through shelling and air strikes, intensified forced conscription, and other acts that may constitute violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law,” Amnesty said.

Tigere Chagutah, Amnesty International’s Regional Director for East and Southern Africa, noted that the African Union’s Peace and Security Council could not wait for mass atrocities to unfold or for a surge in civilian casualties before placing Ethiopia, its host country, on the agenda.

“The AU, which was one of the guarantors of the ceasefire agreement that has now effectively collapsed, must learn from past mistakes and urgently activate its response mechanisms and mobilize its member states before it is too late,” Mr Chagutah said.

He explained that the starting point was for the Peace and Security Council to urgently convene an emergency session on the situation in Ethiopia, noting that fears of regionalisation of the conflict were on the rise.

According to the organisation, the fighting between Tigrayan forces and their allies on one side, including Amhara Fano forces, and the Ethiopian National Defence Force (ENDF) and its allies, on the other, had significantly intensified across southern Tigray and the Northern Amhara and Western Afar regions since it began a week ago.

Amnesty added that, in addition to the extensive use of heavy weaponry, the renewed hostilities had involved intensified aerial attacks across Tigray, including in the town of Axum and the regional capital, Mekelle.

It explained, “Amnesty International is particularly alarmed by reports that civilian infrastructure, including several schools, has been damaged or targeted during aerial attacks.

“Fighting involving heavy weapons in and around the towns of Maychew and Alamata has reportedly resulted in civilian casualties and further endangered critical civilian infrastructure.”

Amnesty also lamented the disruption of communication services across Tigray and parts of the Afar and Amhara regions, combined with increasing restrictions on civic space by the Ethiopian government, saying it raised serious concerns that grave human rights violations could occur under the cover of darkness, hidden from independent monitoring.

“Disrupting communications in conflict-affected areas is a well-documented pattern in Ethiopia’s armed conflicts. Such restrictions have frequently concealed atrocities and isolated civilians from the outside world,” it stated.

The organisation called on all relevant authorities to immediately restore access to communications services and ensure civilians were not cut off from life-saving information and assistance at this critical time.

“Regional and international actors, including the AU, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD), and the UN, must address the deeply entrenched accountability crisis in Ethiopia. They must take urgent measures to protect civilians from harm, renew efforts to restore independent investigations into serious violations committed by all parties to Ethiopia’s conflicts, and ensure unhindered access for journalists, humanitarian organizations, and human rights monitors,” Mr Chagutah added.