“Dying by blood or by hunger”: The war in Ethiopia’s Tigray region, explained

Residents and officialsThe bodies of the two brothers were left for more than a day. Their families knew they were there, but the soldiers wouldn’t let them collect the bodies. The soldiers left behind witnesses, though: two boys, barely teens, tied to a tree nearby, after the soldiers forced them to spend the night on the ground, between the bodies of the murdered men.

“According to information we got from people who are displaced, we estimate that up to 200 people might have There have been massacres and mass executions. Jan Nyssen, a geography professor at the University of Ghent, and a team of researchers have compiled a list of 1,900 Tigrayans killed in approximately 150 mass killings since the fighting began.

csmonitor: Two million displaced in Ethiopia: Three questions on Tigray

Almost six months in, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed’s war in Tigray has turned into a protracted disaster. As reports of atrocities keep coming, are there levers for peace and accountability?

The conflict turned violent in November. Tigrayan forces attacked an Ethiopian army base in the region, and the government retaliated with a major military offensive. Neighboring Eritrea, with whom Mr. Abiy had recently reconciled, joined on the side of the Ethiopian army. Militias from Ethiopia’s Amhara region have also joined in against Tigray. Six months later, massacres, rapes, and massive displacements of civilians have become weapons of war, with both sides accused of atrocities.

Progress Online: There is a genocide in Ethiopia but the world is standing by

The world is standing by, allowing a genocide to unfold in Tigray, Ethiopia. After all the promises of “never again”, there’s a deafening silence over the outrages taking place in one of the west’s “go-to” partners in Africa.

At a recent 24-hour global lobby on the crisis, one of the young Tigrayan presenters broke down on air. The cause was social media footage of yet another massacre. Young Tigrayan men, already gunned down by forces from their own country’s government, were being finished off and having their bodies thrown over cliffs by federal soldiers shouting racial abuse.

CNN: Blinken: Acts of ‘ethnic cleansing’ committed in Western Tigray

“The challenge in Ethiopia is very significant. And it’s one that we’re very, very focused on, particularly the situation in Tigray where we are seeing very credible reports of human rights abuses and atrocities that are ongoing,”

msn: Blinken condemns ‘ethnic cleansing’ in Ethiopia’s Tigray

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Wednesday described violence in Ethiopia’s Tigray region as “ethnic cleansing” as he pressed for a prompt investigation, aid and the exit of Eritrean troops.