The Tigray Genocide – Real Time Nightmare

An endless nightmare. People caught in a gruesome seemingly never ending nightmare. A wave of violence as far as the eye can see. Villages under fire, desperate shouts for help from all directions. Soldiers wearing different uniforms flocking the main streets and the outskirts of towns showing nothing but rage and shooting at any passerby indiscriminately. Properties looted or destroyed. Fear stricken women and girls trying to escape from multiple abusers — some successful but many other falling victim to gang rape and physical abuse. Traumatized children crying near the dead bodies of their parents, utterly confused as to why these cruel invaders were destroying their modest but peaceful lives.

This has been the story of Tigray for more than one year. People have been brutalized for no other reason than their Tigrayan identity. Although most of Tigray was liberated by its brave children, significant parts of western and north-eastern Tigray are still under the control of brutal Amhara expansionists and Eritrean forces who are continuing their genocide machinery with impunity. 

Ethnically targeted attacks on Tigrayans have been prevalent since the rise of Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and the declaration of ethnically targeted measures by the genocidal alliance between Abiy, the Amhara regional government, and Eritrea’s dictator Isaias Afewerki.

The multifaceted attack on Tigray started shortly after Abiy and Isaias signed the pseudo “peace agreement” in July 2019 with the assistance of the governments of Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates. Most likely masterminded and sponsored by Isaias and the Arab leaders, the content of the so called “peace agreement,” only known to the signatories and their patrons, was in fact a declaration of will between the two leaders to subjugate the people of Tigray.

For more than three years, roads through the Amhara region linking Tigray to the rest of Ethiopia were closed as an Amhara regional state organized youth group called “Fano” started vandalizing and looting every truck carrying supplies destined to Tigray. The federal government turned a blind eye to such criminal activities, indirectly encouraging the isolation and weakening of Tigray. The only open and accessible road connecting Tigray to the supply chain was the road through the Afar region. The semi-siege and Ethiopian government officials’ multiple hate incitement speeches, including statements from Prime Minister himself and propagated by state owned media, were clear signs of a bigger plan that came to fruition following the Ethiopian government’s declaration of a genocidal war on Tigray.

The devastating war on Tigray was planned meticulously long before its start and executed with unthinkable brutality in a bid to weaken Tigrayan society and bring the people of Tigray to their knees by any means necessary. There is simply nothing that can justify the barbaric acts unleashed on Tigray by the genocidal alliance over the last 13 months. The people of Tigray, irrespective of age, gender and religious affiliation, have had the ill-fate of living through a gruesome nightmare simply because of their identity.

Tigrayans are suffering all over Tigray and across Ethiopia. Those living inside the liberated part of Tigray are subjected to man-made famine at the hands of the Ethiopian government, which is using famine as a tool of genocide. Moreover, airstrikes and drone attacks continue to cause human casualties and destruction of private and public property and infrastructure in Tigray. The fascist leader of a collapsing state is utilizing every tool of war it can get its hands on from the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Iran, and any other ally it can manufacture. The brutal Amhara expansionists, who still control vast areas of Western Tigray, continue to round up Tigrayans, taking them to undisclosed concentration camps where the are tortured and brutally executed.

Outside Tigray, people of all ages are being arrested, detained, and interned in various concentration camps without any due process, often crammed in overcrowded rooms with no chance to sleep or sit. Many of them, who are dependent on medication for chronic illness, are dying a slow death.

This level of human suffering is unfolding in front of a complaisant global community, and the perpetrators vow to do more irreperable harm as if they were given carte blanche to conduct genocide. Yet, the majority of Ethiopians have stayed quiet during the war on Tigray, most going as far as supporting Abiy’s ever changing narrative regarding the war on Tigray. Some have gone as far as signing the death warrants of their Tigrayan neighbors.

This nightmare has gotten progressively worse, but every nightmare has to end and we can only hope we awaken as soon as possible. When we awaken, we must take every measure necessary to never live through it again. Every Tigrayan deserves to live in a free society, able to decide his/her destiny, without fear of foreign occupation, bombardments, massacres, and discrimination.