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Category: Amhara Militia

‘Leave no Tigrayan’: In Ethiopia, an ethnicity is erased

Posted on by Tech Support

The atrocities have been seared into the skin and the minds of Tigrayans, who take shelter by the thousands within sight of the homeland they fled in northern Ethiopia.

They arrive in heat that soars above 38 C (100 F), carrying the pain of gunshot wounds, injured vaginas, welts on beaten backs. Less visible are the horrors that jolt them awake at night: Memories of dozens of bodies strewn on riverbanks. Fighters raping a woman one by one for speaking her own language. A child, weakened by hunger, left behind.

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‘Their bodies were torn into pieces’: Ethiopian and Eritrean troops accused of massacre in Tigray

Posted on by Tech Support

In an exclusive investigation, witnesses tell of 182 civilians killed in cold blood as reports of human rights abuses in the region escalate

Mr Abiy sided with forces from Eritrea and ethnic militias from Tigray’s neighbouring Amhara region to crush forces loyal to the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) in a three-pronged attack. 

Now a deluge of credible reports pointing towards a systematic campaign of ethnic cleansing, rape and man-made starvation are emerging. 

This is one of the largest massacres to have been reported so far. In February, AP and Amnesty published accounts of several hundred people being killed by Eritrean soldiers in Tigray’s holy city of Axum. 

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Ethiopia: Tigray, Sudan, Amhara… The multiple crises of Abiy Ahmed

Posted on by Tech Support

The dire humanitarian situation continues to escalate in Tigray, putting 4.5m people on the brink of starvation. In order to tackle the enormous humanitarian needs, the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken demanded a cessation of hostilities and the immediate withdrawal of both Eritrean Defence Forces (EDF) and Amhara regional forces from Tigray.

Increasing the pressure on Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, President Biden subsequently dispatched Senator Coons to Ethiopia to express deepening concern about ethnic cleansing and human rights violations in Tigray.

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Ethiopia is fighting ‘difficult and tiresome’ guerrilla war in Tigray, says PM

Posted on by Tech Support

Ethiopian military forces are now fighting a “difficult and tiresome” guerrilla war in the northern Tigray region, prime minister Abiy Ahmed has admitted.

His comments mark a sharp break with previous insistence that military operations launched in November had been a rapid and decisive success.

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Eritrea Has No Plans to Exit Tigray After Ethiopia Pact: TPLF

Posted on by Tech Support

A week after reaching an agreement with the Ethiopian prime minister to withdraw from the country’s Tigray region, the Eritrean forces haven’t showed signs of leaving.

The forces haven’t vacated the area or shown any intention to leave, according to Getachew Reda, spokesperson for the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, whose forces have been fighting against a coalition of Ethiopian federal forces, Amhara regional and Eritrean forces in Tigray for the past five months.

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Sky News: Ethiopia’s Tigray conflict: A human tide of refugees – with little to keep them alive

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A human tide of 300,000 Tigrayans are now camping in this beleaguered city at six schools, a local college and any number of half constructed buildings which dot the city.

A senior UN official told Sky News that 50,000-60,000 arrivals have turned up in the past few weeks alone.

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BBC: Ethiopia’s Tigray crisis: A rare view inside the conflict zone

Posted on by Tech Support

Shire has seen a huge influx of people over the past four months, and it was ill prepared.

Its schools and a university campus have become theatres of suffering.

Aid agencies estimate some 200,000 people are currently living in the city’s makeshift camps. Many of them are women and children.

The first arrivals came back in November when fighting broke out. They mostly came from the southern and south-western lowlands of Tigray that were hotbeds of the fighting in the early days.

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Just Security: Ethiopia, Take a Lesson from Sudan and Stop the War in Tigray

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In the intervening years, President Omar al-Bashir’s decision to prosecute that war cost the country and its people dearly. Six U.S. special envoys to Sudan, an engaged U.S. Congress, and a robust activist community all helped to put in place one of the most biting and comprehensive sanctions regimes in the world whose effects sadly reverberated beyond Khartoum’s Presidential Palace to the markets, schools, and hospitals serving average Sudanese citizens across every corner of the country.

At the time, the largest ever United Nations peacekeeping force was also deployed, robbing many Sudanese of a sense of sovereignty, a feeling that lingers today. Choked off from the international financial system and denied basic access to the global community, Sudan became an international pariah whose growth was stunted and whose population’s prospects were put on hold.

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The New York Times: Fear and Hostility Simmer as Ethiopia’s Military Keeps Hold on Tigray

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Of the hospital that begins its days with an influx of bodies bearing gunshot or knife wounds — people killed, relatives and Red Cross workers say, for breaching the nightly curfew.

Of the young man who made the mistake of getting into a heated argument with a government soldier in a bar. Hours later, friends said, four soldiers followed him home and beat him to death with beer bottles.

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LA Times: In an out-of-sight war, a massacre comes to light

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What followed was an hours-long killing rampage, according to accounts from 10 survivors, including Tesfay, as well as from victims’ relatives and friends and activist groups. Soldiers went house to house in Bora, a town in northern Ethiopia’s Tigray region, and executed more than 160 people.

Done killing, the soldiers stopped families from taking their dead. Only on Sunday — two days after the slaughter — were gravediggers allowed to set about their grim task; one of them buried 26 corpses in the graveyard of the Abune Aregawi Church, survivors said.

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