US warns it could sanction Ethiopia after CNN reveals airline ferried weapons during Tigray war

By Nima Elbagir, Gianluca Mezzofiore and Katie Polglase, CNN

The Biden administration has described a CNN report that Ethiopian Airlines shuttled weapons to Eritrea as “incredibly grave” and warned that it was prepared to impose sanctions on Ethiopia and any other parties who prolonged the conflict in Tigray.

On Wednesday CNN revealed that Ethiopia’s government used its state-owned commercial carrier to move weapons to and from neighboring Eritrea during the first weeks of the conflict. It is the first time this weapons trade between the former foes has been documented during the nearly year-long war in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region.

Reacting to the investigation, a senior US administration official said: “These allegations are incredibly grave; not only could they constitute a potential violation of the Chicago Convention [on international civil aviation]. The use of civilian aircraft to ferry military hardware upends norms and endangers passenger craft around the world.”

The official added that the US would not hold back from using all the tools at its disposal to put an end to a conflict that has triggered famine and left millions in desperate need of aid — including the sanctioning of officials responsible for drawing out the conflict.

“We have the ability to impose sanctions and are prepared to use them and other tools at our disposal against those prolonging the tragedy in Tigray,” the official said.

The comments from the White House official come three weeks after President Joe Biden threatened to impose broad new sanctions on Ethiopian officials and other parties to the conflict, unless they stopped fighting and opened up humanitarian access.

Ethiopian Airlines told CNN it “strictly complies with all National, regional and International aviation related regulations” and that “to the best of its knowledge and its records, it has not transported any war armament in any of its routes by any of its Aircraft.”

But CNN used cargo documents and manifests, as well as eyewitness accounts and photographic evidence, to establish that arms were transported between Addis Ababa’s international airport and airports in the Eritrean cities of Asmara and Massawa on board multiple Ethiopian Airlines planes in November 2020.

The governments of Ethiopia and Eritrea did not respond to CNN’s requests for comment.

In response to the latest CNN investigation, US Rep. Tom Malinowski, a Democrat from New Jersey, called for Ethiopia Airlines and its executives to be “held accountable,” adding he would be in favor of individual sanctions against Ethiopian Airlines executives.

“If true, it’s a very serious matter that goes well beyond our interest in ending the violence in Ethiopia,” he said in an interview with CNN on Wednesday.

Malinowski added that the international rules that prohibit civilian airlines from carrying military equipment “are extremely important because if violated they expose, they make it more likely, that civilian aircraft will be fired upon in times of war.”

“So this endangers everybody. It undermines the norm that protects everybody in the world who travels on international carriers,” he continued.

“I think that the airline and potentially its executives should be held accountable,” Malinowski said. “That may require fines to be imposed, it may require individual sanctions against Ethiopian Airlines executives. This is not a trivial matter and it needs to be dealt with by the Biden Administration swiftly and firmly.”

Malinowski is leading an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) pushing the administration to determine on whether genocide has occurred in Tigray. “I think even the passage of the legislation sends a strong signal to the Ethiopian and Eritrean governments that their grace period is coming to an end,” he said.

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CNN’s Gianluca Mezzofiore, Katie Polglase and Barbara Arvanitidis contributed to this report.