Bodies with gunshot wounds lay in the streets for days in Ethiopia’s holiest city. At night, residents listened in horror as hyenas fed on the corpses of people they knew. But they were forbidden from burying their dead by the invading Eritrean soldiers.
Those memories haunt a deacon at the country’s most sacred Ethiopian Orthodox church in Axum, where local faithful believe the ancient Ark of the Covenant is housed. As Ethiopia’s Tigray region slowly resumes telephone service after three months of conflict, the deacon and other witnesses gave The Associated Press a detailed account of what might be its deadliest massacre.
Tag: Tigray Crisis
ABC News: ‘Emaciated’ survivors hint at worse in Ethiopia’s Tigray
“Many, many severe cases of malnutrition” are being reported in Ethiopia’s embattled Tigray region, Red Cross officials said Wednesday, as 80% of Tigray’s 6 million people are unreachable in the fourth month of fighting and “emaciated” women and children fill displacement camps.
Reports of people already starving to death might just be a handful, but “after a month it will be in the thousands,” warned Ethiopian Red Cross president Ato Abera Tola. After two months, he said, it will be tens of thousands.
Fighting continues between Ethiopian and allied forces and those of the now-fugitive Tigray government that had dominated the country’s leadership for nearly 30 years.
Europe External Program with Africa: Situation Report # 81
- Unconfirmed report received that a payment of 500mln US dollars was made by Ethiopia to President Esayas of Eritrea and that Eritrea was provided with weapons for its participation in the war in Tigray.
- Unconfirmed report that when the National Security director of Eritrea visited Addis, he requested that the Ethiopian government would make the second additional payment of 500 mln USD so that Eritrean
troops could do the ‘final offensive’ in Tigray. - The understanding is that reportedly PM Abiy promised 1 billion USD to President Esayas from Eritrea, to be paid in two parts.
- In exchange, President Esayas from Eritrea offered his Indefinite National Service recruits to serve in the war in Tigray.
- National service troops of Eritrea have also been serving as mercenaries in the war in Yemen, despite the UN sanctions that were in place to curb Eritrea participation in regional destabilization, until 2018.
- It is reported that the clashes between Ethiopia and Eritrea troops in Tigray a few weeks ago were caused by differences in the division of weapons between the two parties in the alliance. Reportedly
many soldiers were killed on both sides. - Ethiopia has closed two camps which previously sheltered internationally recognized Eritrean refugees in Tigray, Shemelba and Hitsats. Satellite footage shows the camps were completely destroyed. 20.000 refugees from the camps have disappeared and 10.000 are alleged to have been abducted to Eritrea.
- One year ago, President Esayas from Eritrea pressurised Ethiopia to close the four camps in Tigray. Many of the Eritrean refugees sheltered in the camps have fled the indefinite national service in
Eritrea. It is a cruel practice which, according to the UN, constitutes a Crime against Humanity.
Encyclopedia: Food As A Weapon Of War
Many countries have adopted a “scorched earth” policy (destroying anything that might be of use to an invading enemy) to prevent an invading army from living off the land. Both attackers and defenders in conventional wars and guerrilla struggles have used this strategy.
Since, as Napoleon is quoted as saying, “An army marches on its stomach,” procuring enough food to support an army in the field is a paramount concern for all commanders. Although weapons, clothing, and shelter are of the greatest immediate importance to soldiers, logistical support to provide food and material is often the decisive element in winning wars. Soldiers often had to truly “live off the land” even when in permanent garrisons or semipermanent encampments during lengthy sieges.
Aljazeera: Starvation crisis looms as aid groups seek urgent Tigray access
“People are dying of starvation. In Adwa, people are dying while they are sleeping. [It’s] also the same in other zones in the region,”
“If the government is to be taken at its word that its campaign is aimed only at ousting the TPLF and not at harming the Tigrayan people, they should swiftly accede to the demands of humanitarian agencies for access to Tigray and even to areas TPLF forces may still control to avoid a humanitarian catastrophe of the sort that would make it harder to find a path out of this devastating conflict.”
The Economist: After two months of war, Tigray faces starvation
Several other senior tplf figures have been killed by the army. Among them was Seyoum Mesfin, Ethiopia’s longest-serving foreign minister. The killings and arrests appear to have left the tplf in disarray. Its leaders, including the ousted president of the Tigray region, Debretsion Gebremichael, have been in hiding for over a month. Although the tplf still controls sizeable swathes of rural Tigray, it holds no towns or cities. Allies of Abiy, who has already declared victory, believe it is only a matter of time before the rest of what he calls the “junta” are captured or killed.
REUTERS: ‘Choose – I kill you or rape you’: abuse accusations surge in Ethiopia’s war
“The soldier … forced a gun on her and raped her,” Limeuh, who was volunteering with the Sudanese Red Crescent, said the woman told him. “She asked him if he had a condom and he said ‘why would I need a condom?’”
Among a “high number” of allegations, particularly disturbing reports have emerged of people being forced to rape relatives or have sex in exchange for basic supplies, the U.N. Office of the Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict said in a statement on Thursday.
Martin Plaut: Situation Report EEPA HORN No. 63
“Ethiopia’s government appears to be wielding hunger as a weapon” as the Tigray region is ”being starved into submission”, citing reports of “horrifying accounts of ethnic killings, mass rapes—and starvation.”
“For more than two months there has been essentially no access to Tigray. (..) There are 450 tonnes of supplies we’ve been trying to get in that are stuck.”
“I am greatly concerned by serious allegations of sexual violence in the Tigray region of Ethiopia, including a high number of alleged rapes in the capital, Mekelle”.
AP: UN warns of ‘serious’ rape charges in Ethiopia’s Tigray
The U.N. special representative on sexual violence in conflict says “serious allegations of sexual violence” have emerged in Ethiopia’s embattled Tigray region, while women and girls face shortages of rape kits and HIV drugs amid restrictions on humanitarian access.
New arrivals in camps for refugees and internally displaced people are reporting sexual violence, and “there are increasing reports of sexual violence against women and girls” inside the camps, Patten’s statement said.
UN: Urges all parties to prohibit the use of sexual violence and cease hostilities in the Tigray
United Nations Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict, Ms. Pramila Patten: “I am greatly concerned by serious allegations of sexual violence in the Tigray region of Ethiopia, including a high number of alleged rapes in the capital, Mekelle. There are also disturbing reports of individuals allegedly forced to rape members of their own family, under threats of imminent violence. Some women have also reportedly been forced by military elements to have sex in exchange for basic commodities, while medical centres have indicated an increase in the demand for emergency contraception and testing for sexually transmitted infections (STIs) which is often an indicator of sexual violence in conflict. In addition, there are increasing reports of sexual violence against women and girls in a number of refugee camps.”
