The US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned General Filipos Woldeyohannes, the Chief of Staff of the Eritrean Defense Forces (EDF), over serious human rights abuses in Ethiopias war-scarred Tigray region. “The EDF are responsible for massacres, looting, and sexual assaults,” OFAC revealed in a statement published on its website. “The EDF troops have raped, tortured, and executed civilians; they have also destroyed property and ransacked businesses,” the statement read. It added that they “have purposely shot civilians in the street and carried out systematic house-to-house searches, executing men and boys, and have forcibly evicted Tigrayan families from their residences and taken over their houses and property." It further announced that all property and interests in property of Woldeyohannes in the US are blocked, prohibiting Americans from dealing with him. “The Treasury Department will continue to take action against those involved in serious human rights abuse around the world, including in the Tigray region of Ethiopia, where such acts further exacerbate the ongoing conflict and humanitarian crisis,” said Director of the Office of Foreign Assets Control Andrea M. Gacki. “We urge Eritrea to immediately and permanently withdraw its forces from Ethiopia and urge the parties to the conflict to begin ceasefire negotiations and end human rights abuses,” she stated. According to OFAC, “the ongoing conflict in Tigray has exacerbated a humanitarian crisis that threatens hundreds of thousands of lives. Despite the Ethiopian government’s June 28 unilateral ceasefire declaration, parties on all sides continue to escalate the conflict.” It added that “these escalatory actions risk furthering a severe humanitarian crisis.”