Recounting the Genocide Stories of Tigray: My experience in the concentration camps in Ethiopia – Part 2

In this second article of my series, I once again chronicle what it meant to be a Tigrayan or be associated with Tigray in anyway while detained in detention centers at the height of the Tigray Genocide. Tigrinya was banned from being spoken in prison, we were extorted, denied medical treatment, and treated like slaves.

As a reminder, I was being detained in Bishoftu for six months. The prison housed multilingual Ethiopians, including speakers of Oromo, Tigrinya, Guragegna, and Amharic. However, we Tigrayans were forbidden from speaking Tigrinya. Interestingly, Tigrinya-speaking Eritreans who were arrested mistakenly as Tigrayans were allowed to speak Tigrinya to each other.

We were not only forbidden to speak our language, but also to think and organize in Tigrinya. One day, a policeman named Getachew issued a special order, forbidding us from speaking, sitting together, or organizing in Tigrinya.

The policeman said, “Are you not ashamed? Do you want to be happy here? You have exploited Ethiopia for 27 years, made the Ethiopian people fight each other, and planted the cancer of ethnicity. You are dirty! From today, anyone who speaks Tigrinya will face punitive action. You must only speak Amharic. We want one language, one people, one Ethiopia. You are not allowed to speak or think in Tigrinya.”

Alas, we were forbidden to think or speak in Tigrinya.

The troubling reality was that the police’s directives were supported by the other prisoners from different ethnic groups. If a government decision, regardless of its moral or legal standing, exacerbated the suffering of Tigrayans, the Ethiopian populace would instantly embrace and enforce it.

At that time, it seemed as though an Ethiopian’s patriotism could be measured by the intensity of their hatred for Tigrayans and the number of Tigrayans they turned over to the authorities.  

All the non-Tigrayan prisoners fervently agreed with the policemen, insisting that we cease speaking Tigrinya.

There were about ten of us Tigrayans in the district 2 prison cell. I was reading “Sophie’s Choice, a poignant tale about Sophie, a Polish-Catholic survivor of the Nazi concentration camps, and I was drawing parallels between the plight of Tigrayans and the Jewish experience.

Refraining from speaking and thinking in Tigrinya was immensely difficult. Despite the restrictions, the Tigrayans imprisoned with me, especially Tewodros and his friends, continued to speak in Tigrinya quietly. Remember Tewodros from my previous article that detailed his arrival at the prison? Tragically, the police guards took Tewodros outside, tied him to a tree, and beat him severely for speaking Tigrinya. Similarly, Yohans, a fellow detained Tigrayan, was chained to a large iron bar and beaten in front of the other prisoners for the same reason.

While erasing our identity, they equally made us partake in forced labor. Some commanders forced prisoners to the outskirts of Bishoftu to collect scrap iron from abandoned train railways. Some of the iron was piled by the railway, while other pieces had to be cut with grinders and loaded onto donkey carts.They treated us Tigrayans as slaves, not prisoners!

Seeing us as less than human, policemen and non-Tigrayan prisoners attempted to take everything from us, threatening us as they tried to extort us. In July, August, and September 2021,  the policemen and non-Tigrayan prisoners repeatedly demanded that we hand over our money in banks and any other assets we might have had. Some policemen were blunt in their extortion. 

“Tigray’s secession from Ethiopia is inevitable, and your fate in jail is precarious and dangerous. There are two scenarios: either the government seizes your property and money and leaves you empty-handed in Tigray, or the government kills you and takes your assets. In either case, the government will confiscate your assets. Why don’t you transfer your money and property to us before the government seizes them? As ordinary citizens, we could make better use of your assets than the government ever would. We’re giving you this advice because we are aware of the severe actions the Ethiopian government intends to take against Tigrayans if the Tigray Defense Forces advances toward Addis Ababa. In such a scenario, the government will undoubtedly confiscate all your belongings, leaving you with nothing.

It is in your best interest to let us have your property rather than losing it to the state. This way, at least, your assets would not go to waste, and you might even find some small favor with us in return.”

The mistreatment did not end with the extortion, they threatened our survival by denying us prisoners of our identity any medical treatment.

The withholding of any medical care from us was part and parcel of the Ethiopian government’s broader strategies as part of the Tigray Genocide. The Ethiopian government intended for Tigrayans to perish due to a lack of food and medicine. Under siege and lockdown, the people of Tigray suffered, with hundreds of thousands dying from hunger and untreated illnesses. 

I recall the vulgar words of a commander named Mustapha when I was gravely ill with typhoid and typhus while in prison.

A friend of mine sought help from the policemen as my health was deteriorating. He said, “Dear Commander, a friend of ours is seriously ill and on the verge of death. Could we please get permission to take him to the hospital?” A commander, Mustapha, abrasively retorted, Who is he? Oh, the Tigrayan junta? If he died right in front of me, I would be overjoyed. We want you damn Tigrayans to die, so let him die. We prefer to see you starve and suffer from disease rather than waste ammunition on you. Debretsion’s soldiers are busy killing innocent Ethiopians, so it’s no surprise you are dying here from lack of treatment. Asking for treatment is a crime in itself.”