👉 Ethiopia: Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières MSF staff attacked after witnessing killings by soldiers in Tigray
👉 At least four men were dragged off public buses and executed
We are horrified by the continued violence in Tigray, Ethiopia. This includes the extrajudicial killings of at least four men who were dragged off public buses and executed by soldiers, while our staff members were present, on Tuesday, March 23.
The latest incident took place on the road from Mekelle to Adigrat, where three MSF staff members were traveling in a clearly marked MSF vehicle. Along the journey they encountered what appeared to be the aftermath of an ambush of an Ethiopian military convoy by another armed group, in which soldiers were injured and killed. Military vehicles were still on fire.
Ethiopian soldiers at the scene stopped the MSF car and two public transport mini-buses driving behind it. The soldiers then forced the passengers to leave the mini-buses. The men were separated from the women, who were allowed to walk away. Shortly afterward, the men were shot.
The M S F team was allowed to leave the scene but saw the bodies of those killed on the side of the road. A short distance farther away, the MSF vehicle was stopped again by soldiers. They pulled the MSF driver out of the vehicle, beat him with the back of a gun and threatened to kill him. Eventually the driver was allowed to get back into the vehicle and the team could return to Mekelle.
This horrific event further underscores the need for the protection of civilians during this ongoing conflict, and for armed groups to respect the delivery of humanitarian assistance, including medical aid. Our teams are still reeling from witnessing the senseless loss of lives from this latest attack.
More details are emerging the day after a 21-year-old identified as the alleged suspect killed 10 people, including a police officer, during a mass shooting at a Boulder, Colorado, grocery store this week.
The suspect allegedly bought the firearm used in the attack six days earlier, and was known by former classmates to be short-tempered and paranoid, according to reports and an arrest affidavit released Tuesday.
The document did not disclose where Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa, from the Denver suburb of Arvada, bought the Ruger AR-556 but stated he did so on March 16. Just six days later, he allegedly shot multiple people outside the King Soopers on Table Mesa before entering the store and continuing the killing spree inside.
“In December 1997, Silk Air Flight 185 crashed in Indonesia, killing 104 people on board. Indonesian authorities weren’t sure exactly what had happened, though US investigators suggested the captain may have switched off the flight recorders and caused the plane to dive — possibly after his co-pilot had left the cockpit. At the time of the crash, investigators noted, the pilot had been experiencing significant financial difficulties and had work-related problems.“
“The Investigation determined that the crash was caused deliberately by the co-pilot, Andreas Lubitz, who had previously been treated for suicidal tendencies and declared “unfit to work” by his doctor.”
Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on March 24, 2021
The conflict there started last November, with ethnic and political tensions exploding between the Ethiopian federal government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front.
It’s all a world away from 2019, when Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed won the Nobel Peace Prize for ending one of Africa’s longest-running conflicts between Eritrea and Ethiopia. Now Ahmed’s troops have been accused of working with the Eritrean army, systematically killing hundreds of unarmed civilians in Tigray. The massacre around Axum last November is well documented. But witnesses have reported violence and executions in other places like Adrigrat.
We managed to get to Tigray and spoke to some of the people who were able to escape the atrocities. We should warn you: this report does contain highly distressing testimony.
Ethiopia’s Tigray Conflict: The ‘Twisted Joke’ of Denial in The Violence is Finally Laid Bare
For the past five months the head of the Ethiopian government has adamantly denied the existence of Eritrean troops, together with their military hardware, in the northern region of Tigray.
Today, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed dropped the pretence, admitting in the country’s House of People’s Representatives there were Eritrean soldiers, “guarding the border against the TPLF (Tigray People’s Liberation Front).”
The statement constitutes official acceptance of the blatantly obvious.
The near-ubiquitous presence of Eritrean soldiers within northern Ethiopia has become something of a twisted joke among locals in Tigrayan cities like Shire.
Dressed in distinctive light camouflage, the Eritreans drive into the central business district to buy supplies, get their vehicles fixed or pick up new equipment.
A short drive outside the city brings you into contract with checkpoints manned by surly Eritrean soldiers.
When we tried to visit the remains of the Hitsats refugee camp – one of two camps thought to have been attacked by Eritrean troops in mid-November – we were stopped by a man in an officer’s cap.
“N’tsaeda seb sifkedn” or “no white people allowed” he barked.
Eritrean soldiers giving orders in Ethiopia: we did as we were told and turned the car around.
There was plenty of evidence of extensive co-operation between leaders of Ethiopia and Eritrea before prime minister Ahmed made his announcement today.
Locked in combat for years, the Ethiopian head and Isias Afwerki, the dictatorial leader of Eritrea, inked a peace deal back in 2018. It was a diplomatic breakthrough that bagged Ahmed the Nobel Peace Prize.
Now, Eritrea has partnered up with Abiy Ahmed in his attempt to eliminate the political party – and people – who ran Tigray for over two decades, the TPLF.
A mixture of Ethiopian and Eritrean troops control the main cities and highways in Tigray and we spotted Eritrean tanks, armoured vehicles and trucks crammed with troops populating an area stretching from Shire up to the Eritrean border.
We stopped at a village and began to chat to group of local women.
The attacks on Shimelba and Hitsats, which are believed to have occurred on or around 19 November, took place amid heavy fighting with the TPLF and may constitute the single worst atrocity in this vicious conflict.
I spoke to a man who said he had witnessed the attack.
“What happened to the people who were here?” I asked.
He said: “People were killed by bullets. Heavy weapons and the tanks were firing and the houses were burnt. This is when the people fled. If they caught them, they killed them. It was the Eritrean army doing this.”
Aid officials told us that Eritrean soldiers attacked Hitsats camp at approximately the same time as Shimelba.
We spoke to man who was living in Hitsats when the troops moved in and he told us he was absolutely terrified.
He said: “When we heard the gunshots, people were running all over, to the left and right. I was (living) in ‘Zone D’ and my friend in Zone A was killed.”
“Sammy” says he was interrogated by troops who accused him of working for anti-government parties and an opposition media organisation called ASENA.
He survived several rounds of questioning and was held with other camp residents for the next two months without food and clean water to drink.
“I cry when I think of it. We ate moringa leaves. We passed our time by eating moringa, crushing and eating the leaves. We were really starving,” he said.
“There was no food or water. I wish I’d never been a refugee.”
In late January, the residents of Shimelba were ordered to leave the camp and ordered to walk 100km to the Eritrean border.
Sammy, who had fled the country in 2019 to avoid mandatory, life-time service in the Eritrean military, realised he was going to be forcibly returned.
“I was limping, there was blisters on my feet. We were injured,” he said.
“We would have preferred to die. It was difficult.”
When he arrived in the border town of Sheraro, the refugee concocted a plan to escape.
He asked a soldier if he could approach a local household and beg for scraps of food as the Eritrean Army had not provided them with anything to eat on their three-day march.
The soldier acquiesced and Sammy used the opportunity to slip away.
The majority were less fortunate.
Aid officials told Sky News they believe thousands of camp residents from Shimelba and Hitsats were forced to return to Eritrea with some required to sign “confession documents” on the way.
The present status of these individuals in unknown.
Sky News understands there were approximately 35,000 residents in both camps but only 7,000 have re-registered as refugees in Ethiopia.
Of this group, the majority have relocated to two other camps in western Tigray (Adi Harush and Mai Aini).
We also know that several hundred Eritreans escaped to Sudan, a thousand or so may be living in Shire and a small number have travelled to cities like the capital Addis Ababa.
That leaves a large number of refugees from both camps unaccounted for – with aid officials here in Ethiopia hugely concerned for their safety.
They fear that many thousands have been killed or abducted back to Eritrea – the country the risked their lives to flee.
Addis Ethiopia Weblog 