Eritrean soldiers killed 19 civilians in a village at the foot of an internationally celebrated rock-hewn church in Tigray three weeks ago, witnesses, relatives and local residents have claimed, the latest alleged atrocity in the war-torn Ethiopian region.
Category: Eritrean Involvement
Eritrea’s Isaias meets Sudanese leaders amid Ethiopia tensions
Khartoum visit by Eritrean president comes amid strained relations between government of Ethiopia, a close ally, and Sudan.
Isaia’s visit also comes as he faces growing pressure from the international community to withdraw Eritrean troops from Tigray. Soldiers from Eritrea, long an enemy of Tigray’s now-fugitive leaders, have also been blamed for some of the worst human rights abuses in the Tigray conflict, including massacres of civilians and systematic rape.
In Ethiopia camp, displaced Tigrayans live with hunger, fear
Many came with almost nothing. And yet, “I don’t want to think of going back,” said 21-year-old Wegahta Weldie, a student from Mai Kadra, the scene of the six-month-old conflict’s first known massacre.
She recalled stepping on dead bodies there as her family hid in a maize field and then walked hundreds of kilometers (miles) to reach Mekele.
“Many people had been killed and it was very dark,” she said. “I could not tell whether they were my relatives or not.”
East Africa: ERIPS Statement on Addressing the Conflict and Refugee Situation in Ethiopia’s Tigray Region
While calls for the Government of Eritrea to pull out of the conflict in Ethiopia increases, the international community must also consider the repercussions of Eritrean intervention in the Tigray war if a lasting solution is to be developed.
“Refugees International is concerned about reports that Ethiopian government forces and Eritrean soldiers have forced Eritrean refugees to return to Eritrea or other locations where they may be in danger. For example, Eritrean refugees who fled to Addis Ababa to avoid the fighting in Tigray have been rounded up and returned to camps in Tigray. This is unacceptable, as camps in Tigray are in the middle of an active conflict zone and have little access to food or medical supplies.”
Refugee doctor chronicles Tigray’s pain as he treats it
Tewodros Tefera is one of more than 60,000 people who have fled ethnic violence in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region, crossing the border into a remote corner of Sudan. Horrified by what he saw when the fighting between Ethiopian and Tigray forces began six months ago, and by the tales of new arrivals, the 44-year-old chronicles the pain even as he treats it.
“”It is definitely genocide,” he says. “If someone is being attacked for their identity, if they’re threatened to be vanished because of their identity, there is no other explanation for this.”
Sexual violence used as ‘weapon of war’ in the ongoing conflict in Tigray, Ethiopia
Sexual violence is being used as a “weapon of war and humiliation” in Tigray, Ethiopia, according to a USAID-funded report. Many are saying this violence against women and children is rooted in ethnic cleansing. NBC News Foreign Correspondent Matt Bradley reports on the ongoing conflict. Warning: This report contains graphic accounts of sexual assault and may be disturbing.
Journalists struggle to work amid extended internet shutdowns in Myanmar, Ethiopia, Kashmir
Can the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia keep it together? Change has become increasingly bloody it The internet is routinely cut off in Ethiopia, CPJ has noted, including a nationwide shutdown in June 2020. The internet has been disrupted in Tigray since November 2020, when conflict broke out in the regional state, according to media reports. Officials have blamed the ousted Tigray leadership for the disconnection and Ethio Telecom, the state-owned telecommunications monopoly, said in December that it was making repairs. In an email to CPJ in mid-April 2021, Billene Seyoum Woldeyes, a spokesperson for the Ethiopian prime minister’s office, said that the authorities did not cause the disruption and did not respond to a follow up question about why it had not been fixed. Ethio Telecom did not respond to CPJ’s social media message requesting comment about the ongoing problems.
Which way for Ethiopia? Abiy cracks down on regional revolts ahead of elections
Can the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia keep it together? Change has become increasingly bloody it seems since the 2012 death of longtime leader Meles Zenawi, a Tigrean whose home region is now in open revolt against the central government. There, conventional fighting is morphing into guerrilla warfare with reprisals against civilians fuelling a vicious circle. Elsewhere, regional and ethnic tensions are also on the rise.
Rape and Ethnic Cleansing in Tigray
Victims have told investigators that when Ethiopian federal regular soldiers and militia inflict infertility on Tigrayan women with burning metal rods, after gang-raping them, they tell the women that this is to stop them having ‘Woyene’ children (the Amharans’ derogatory term for ‘Tigrayans’).
Tigray could face famine without increased access to region, US aid official says
“somewhere between 950,000 to 1.25 million people are inaccessible to humanitarians.”
“Right now, we’re tracking about 4.5 million people in the Tigray region who are in need of humanitarian assistance, and about 4 million of those people are in need of food assistance,”
“We are seeing increased numbers of people who are internally displaced. Right now about 1.1 million internally displaced people are in the Tigray region. And we’re also seeing a concerning situation when it comes to the health situation, about 15% of hospitals and health centers are fully functioning.”