Category: Resource

Analysis of Tigray massacre video raises questions for Ethiopian Army

The mass killing near Mahibere Dego is one of several to have been reported over the course of Ethiopia’s five-month-old conflict during which thousands of civilians are believed to have been killed, raped and abused. But with independent access to journalists severely restricted until recently and telephone and internet services often blocked, it has been challenging to verify accounts of atrocities in Tigray. Amid the effective communications blackout, few videos have emerged from the fighting and those that have are difficult to authenticate.

Through a forensic frame-by-frame investigation of the video footage — corroborated by analysis from Amnesty International’s digital verification and modeling experts — as well as interviews with 10 family members and local residents, CNN has established that men wearing Ethiopian army uniforms executed a group of at least 11 unarmed men before disposing of their bodies near Mahibere Dego.

Horrific video footage has emerged appearing to show members of the Ethiopian military carrying out a massacre in which at least 15 unarmed men were rounded up and shot in the back of the head in the war-torn region of Tigray. 

Their dead bodies can be seen strewn across the mountainous terrain while the perpetrators shoot at them again to make sure there are no survivors.

The victims are then picked up and flung off the side of a ridge near the town of Mahibere Dego, northern Tigray region, it is claimed. 

An investigation by BBC Africa Eye has uncovered evidence that a massacre in northern Ethiopia was carried out by members of the Ethiopian military. It also reveals the precise location of the atrocity, in which at least 15 men were killed.

In early March, a series of five video clips surfaced on social media showing armed, uniformed men leading a group of unarmed men to the edge of a cliff, shooting some at point blank range, and pushing dead bodies over the cliff.