Laetitia Bader, Human Rights Watch’s Horn of Africa Director, recently returned from a research mission in Sudan to interview refugees who fled the fighting that broke out in Ethiopia’s Tigray region in early November 2020. For several weeks, federal government forces, the Ethiopian National Defense Forces (ENDF), and their allies clashed with forces and militia allied to Tigray’s ruling party, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), in response to what Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed described as attacks by TPLF forces on federal military bases and forces in the region. The conflict has taken a heavy toll on the region’s civilian population. Here, Bader describes her impressions and some of Human Rights Watch’s initial findings.