“We thank the United Arab Emirates and the International Humanitarian City for their immense and ongoing support to WHO’s humanitarian operations. Our strong collaboration continues to enhance WHO’s response to health emergencies of all types including those arising from natural disasters, conflict, and outbreaks of infectious disease. The delivery of health supplies is vital to alleviate the suffering of people around the world.” said Robert Blanchard, WHO Emergency Operations Manager in Dubai.
Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on July 7, 2021
💭 Allan Rock is President Emeritus of the University of Ottawa, and a Professor in its Faculty of Law, where he teaches International Humanitarian Law and Armed Conflict in International Law.
He practised in civil, administrative and commercial litigation for 20 years (1973-93) with a national law firm in Toronto, appearing as counsel in a wide variety of cases before courts at all levels, including the Supreme Court of Canada. He was inducted in 1988 as a Fellow of the American College of Trial Lawyers. He is a former Treasurer (President) of the Law Society of Ontario.
Allan Rock was elected to the Canadian Parliament in 1993, and re-elected in 1997 and 2000. He served for that decade as a senior minister in the government of Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, in both social and economic portfolios. He was Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada (1993-97), Minister of Health (1997-2002) and Minister of Industry and Infrastructure (2002-03).
He was appointed in 2003 as Canadian Ambassador to the United Nations in New York during a period that involved responding to several complex regional conflicts, including those in Sri Lanka, Democratic Republic of Congo and Darfur. He led the successful Canadian effort in New York to secure, at the 2005 World Summit, the unanimous adoption by UN member states of The Responsibility to Protect populations from genocide, ethnic cleansing and other mass atrocities. He participated in the negotiation (in Abuja, Nigeria) of the Darfur Peace Agreement in May, 2006. He later served as a Special Envoy for the United Nations investigating the unlawful use of child soldiers in Sri Lanka during its civil war.
In 2008, Allan Rock became the 29th President and Vice Chancellor of the University of Ottawa, a comprehensive university of 50,000 students, faculty and staff. uOttawa is ranked among the Top Ten in Canada for research intensity, and is the largest bilingual university (French-English) in the world. He completed two terms as uOttawa President in 2016.
Allan Rock was subsequently a Visiting Scholar at Harvard Law School, associated with the Program on International Law and Armed Conflict.
In 2018, after a two-year conflict, two historically warring nations — Ethiopia and Eritrea — at last signed a peace agreement. The following year, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, who brokered the peace, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
In the two years since, Abiy joins the ranks of controversial Peace Prize recipients and nominees, as his record now includes overseeing what may amount to war crimes. Myanmar’s leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, for example, was awarded the prize in 1991 “for her non-violent struggle for democracy and human rights;” shortly thereafter, her government was accused of genocide against the Rohingya minority. Joseph Stalin, head of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, was twice nominated for the prize.
When Abiy received his Nobel Prize, he faced two clear paths: the path of democracy that could reconcile deep-rooted internal ethnic divisions and bring lasting peace to Ethiopia, or that of authoritarianism and renewed ethnic grievances.
Sadly, he has failed to heal a persistent national rift. Ethiopia is in crisis, as an escalating armed conflict between Abiy’s federal Ethiopian National Defense Force (ENDF) and forces of the previously dominant political party, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), has ballooned into a humanitarian catastrophe. This power struggle came to a boiling point last year during a constitutional dispute when the Tigray region held its own elections, refusing to recognize Abiy’s administration.
Following an alleged attack by the TPLF on an Ethiopian military camp, Abiy then deployed troops into the Tigray region and, as some international observers believe, joined forces with Eritrean troops, who slaughtered Ethiopian citizens. This act of betrayal fueled the Tigrayans’ long-simmering sense that Abiy had abandoned them. After months of denying the presence of Eritrean troops in Ethiopia, Abiy finally admitted to their involvement in perpetrating abuses against the Tigrayans, but couched their involvement in the conflict by stating that Eritrea had acted in self-defense of its border.
Gruesome accounts of decapitated bodies, the use of rape and starvation tactics as weapons of war, and mass extrajudicial executions have surfaced since November. More than 500 cases of rape — including rape by armed forces, gang rape, and forced rape of family members — have been reported in Tigray.
The ENDF, regional forces, and Eritrean soldiers have destroyed food supplies and targeted civilian areas with fire — bringing upon the Horn of Africa probable famine and incalculable death.
More than 2.2 million Ethiopians have been displaced by the ongoing conflict and violence. In one week alone last December, at least 315,553 Ethiopians were displaced. International pleas for a ceasefire by aid agencies, the African Union, and the United States have been rejected. This crisis could destabilize not only Africa’s second-most populous country, but the entire Horn of Africa.
After assuming power, Abiy made steps toward democratic reform, but in the face of renewed conflict, these have given way to increasingly repressive rule. In an effort to stifle dissent, for example, Abiy shut down phone and internet communication, and detained journalists and dissidents on politically motivated charges. His government also began a state-sponsored propaganda campaign to conceal abuses in the Tigray region.
Allowing Abiy to continue this repressive course sends a signal to other countries that authoritarian regimes can operate with impunity, perpetuating mass killings, rape, famine, and displacement — all of which we have a collective interest to end. But what can the international community do to avert further authoritarian ascendance and deescalate the humanitarian crisis in Ethiopia?
👉 First, democratic leaders should refuse to engage formally with Abiy, and bar him from participating in global events such as the World Economic Forum while mass killings in Ethiopia continue. Democratic governments should boycott events — like World Press Freedom Day and the African Union Summit — hosted or sponsored by Ethiopia’s regime. Doing so will let authoritarian rulers like Abiy know that the international community will not tolerate their abuses. Notably, the US State Department imposed travel restrictions on Ethiopian officials on Sunday.
👉 Second, business leaders and institutions can refuse to trade with or provide financial bailouts to Abiy’s government, which would only grant Abiy undeserved legitimacy in global markets. As Africa’s second-most populous nation, Ethiopia is an important trade and investment partner. Refraining from further trade would represent a blow to Abiy’s propaganda campaign and increase pressure on him to end rights abuses in his own country.
Many business leaders consistently cite their commitment to human rights standards, while doing the bare minimum to enforce these standards. They need to ensure tangible actions by governments to address abuses before moving forward with partnerships with the likes of Abiy. They should follow the example of a number of companies that have called out China’s oppressive regime and refused to support the exploitation of Uyghurs in the Xinjiang region, whose forced labor supplies dozens of international brands.
👉 Third, international journalists must continue to report on the humanitarian disaster Abiy’s agenda has wrought, as Abiy attempts to portray an image of democratic reform abroad. Abiy helped create an information blackout in Ethiopia by jailing domestic journalists and restricting foreign reporting. The global media has a responsibility to expose human rights abuses and hold authoritarian rulers accountable.
Abiy has, of course, capitalized on the authority that the Nobel Peace Prize confers, to enhance his standing in the global community. Petitions asking the Nobel Committee to rescind the prize have garnered tens of thousands of signatures. But the Nobel Committee says the Prize, which is awarded for past accomplishments, cannot be revoked. It is essential, however, that anyone who prizes peace push to stop the displacement and killing of Ethiopian civilians immediately.
Ethiopian soldiers armed with machine guns, sniper rifles and grenades raided a hospital in Ethiopia’s war-torn northern Tigray region earlier this week in retribution, doctors say, for a CNN investigation that revealed Ethiopian and Eritrean troops were blocking humanitarian aid to patients there.
Medical staff at the University Teaching and Referral Hospital in the besieged city of Axum, in Tigray’s central zone, said that the soldiers stormed the hospital in the early hours of Sunday morning, raiding the student dormitory, doctors and patient wards, contaminating the operating room and stopping all surgical operations.
The troops returned again on Monday, after some medical staff and patients fled, searching for people they accused of “tarnishing the country’s image” in news reports, doctors speaking on condition of anonymity told CNN. The soldiers demanded a “list of the names of doctors who will not cooperate with the military’s investigation into the hospital.”
The international medical humanitarian organization Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) confirmed the incident to CNN, saying that several soldiers went “ward by ward looking for patients, intimidating caretakers and threatening health staff.”
In spite of the threats, medical staff said they don’t regret speaking out. “I feel like I’m living on an isolated planet, with no law or order. The world must open its eyes that people in Tigray are living in anarchy,” staff at Axum University Teaching and Referral Hospital said in a statement.
CNN has reached out to the Ethiopian Prime Minister’s Office for comment.
In April, a CNN team reporting from Tigray with the permission of Ethiopian authorities witnessed Eritrean soldiers — some disguising themselves in old Ethiopian military uniforms — blocking aid to desperate populations more than a month after Ethiopia’s Nobel Peace Prize winning leader Abiy Ahmed pledged to the international community that they would leave.
On April 21, after being thwarted repeatedly by Ethiopian and Eritrean troops, the team traveled from the regional capital Mekelle to the historic city of Axum, two weeks after it had been sealed off by the military. An aid convoy also made the seven-hour journey.
Inside the Axum University Teaching and Referral Hospital, CNN interviewed medical workers who detailed the disastrous effects of the blockade — essential supplies were so perilously low that some staff had begun donating blood. They asked not to be named for fear of reprisals, but requested that CNN identify the hospital so that people in the region knew they were still operating.
At the time, CNN also witnessed gun-toting troops roaming the corridors of the hospital, dropping off wounded soldiers and threatening medical staff, who were trying to treat a grim array of trauma from shrapnel, bullets, stabbings and rapes.
On Tuesday, after 48 hours of raids by Ethiopian soldiers, only a few patients — those who were unable to move — remained in their beds.
One doctor, who is still at the hospital, told CNN over text message they are living in fear of what will happen when the soldiers next return.
“Everyone in the hospital is now helpless, with either detention or death looming at any point in the future from now.”
The United Nations on Thursday confirmed that “blockades by military forces” had severely impeded the ability for assistance to reach rural areas of Tigray where the humanitarian crisis is worst. The report has also triggered condemnation in recent days from US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and ratcheted up a bi-partisan push for the Biden administration to enact sanctions.
In a rare public statement on their activities in Tigray, Mari Carmen Viñoles, head of the emergency unit of MSF, told CNN the organization was “very concerned about the frequent violations of the neutrality of the medical mission by armed groups.”
👉 Selected Comments from CNN channel:
💭 Rebecca Mæd
“Even the stones cry out for their painful sorrows. Why must humans create such horrors? 😞 “
💭 Kristi Stevens
“May the ancestors and Gods help these people. Our hearts are with them.”
💭 Stanley Glover
„Thank you for bringing Ethiopia’s callous blood letting to our screens . My heart aches for these poor, defenseless , old and children being deliberately murdered by the evil regimes in Addis Ababa and Massawa😩😭”
💭 M Anderson
“This type of horrible crimes towards innocent people make you wonder just how awful human beings can be to one another. And why???“
💭 Redacted
„This is madness, one can only imagine the suffering off camera. Miss Elbagir and her team demonstrated bravery and empathy in the face of death; Exemplary journalists of the past would be proud.“
💭 Kristi Stevens
“Is there any way to help that girl? I would proudly foster her or any of the kids. How can we help????”
💭 SA Doherty
“You are one extraordinarily brave lady Nima, as well as your team–totally courageous, all of you. Massive props to all of you!!
And my God, the inhumanity is just brutal, devastating and absolutely heartbreaking. I pray for the Ethiopian people and victims of this cruel and murderous force. May they get what they deserve!!”
💭 Bb Sen
“Thank you for reporting this heartbreaking story for the whole world.”
💭 Daniel Hostetler
“The cruelty of man is limitless…truly heartbreaking! The World must respond!”
💭 Sylvia Carmichael
“Sorry for your losses my heart is with these people, I don’t understand how humans could do this to others, they are the ones who don’t deserve to exist.”
💭 Simon
“This piece deserves an Emmy!”
💭 Brook Tu
“The reporter, Nima Elbagir, is an incredibly brave woman. So calm, and polite, in the face of danger.
That’s one tough lady. And the story she presents is, both, enlightening and heart-breaking. She should get an award, even if it’s only ‘Employee of the Month’.”
💭 Gods Vibes
“God Please Send Heavenly Support to These People 💟, Your Children Heavenly Father. Remove the Anger from my Heart towards these Evil Men. I Send the Parents and Children My Unconditional Love.
Mankind will never learn what Love is until we love all people on the planet.”
Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on May 13, 2021
Congressional leaders have called for sanctions to be put in place to pressure Ethiopian and Eritrean forces to withdraw from Tigray.
US congressmen specifically hammered Ethiopia and Eritrea for failing to live up to their March agreement to remove Eritrean forces from Tigray.
The US Congress is pressuring the Biden administration to place sanctions on human rights abusers in Ethiopia’s Tigray region, pointing to the continued failure of Ethiopian and Eritrean forces to withdraw from the region.
“We understand that the Biden administration is reviewing all options, but nothing has been announced or finalised, which is why we are pushing them on this,” a congressional aide told The National on Wednesday. “It has been over six months since the conflict started.”
The Democratic chairman and top Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee – Gregory Meeks of New York and Mike McCaul of Texas – are leading the bipartisan push to convince the Biden administration to use its authorities under the Global Magnitsky Act to levy sanctions on those violating human rights in the Tigray conflict.
“The administration has ample authority from Congress to impose sanctions and other means of financial pressure – they just need to do it,” said the congressional staffer.
Mr Meeks and Mr McCaul doubled down on the issue earlier this week with a joint statement urging the Biden administration to “use all available tools, including sanctions and other restrictive measures, to hold all perpetrators accountable and bring an end to this conflict”.
They specifically hammered Ethiopia and Eritrea for failing to live up to their March agreement to remove Eritrean forces from Tigray.
“We are deeply concerned by the failure of the government of Ethiopia and the government of the state of Eritrea to honour their public commitments to withdraw Eritrean forces from Ethiopia,” they said in the statement. “The continued presence of Eritrean forces, who have been credibly implicated in gross violations of human rights in Tigray, is a major impediment to resolving this conflict.”
The congressmen referred to “mounting reports of atrocities against civilians, including sexual and gender-based violence, at the hands of Ethiopian and Eritrean forces and other armed groups”.
Jeffrey Feltman, the US envoy for the Horn of Africa, is in the region this week to mediate the Tigray crisis as well as Ethiopia’s dispute with Sudan and Egypt over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who has said that “ethnic cleansing” is taking place in Tigray, personally called on Ethiopian and Eritrean forces to withdraw from the region during a phone call with Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed earlier this month.
The State Department did not reply to The National’s repeated requests for comment on its Tigray sanctions review.
Mr Meeks and Mr McCaul first raised the prospect of sanctions over the Tigrayconflict in a letter to Mr Blinken in March.
“We urge the administration to utilise all available tools, including Global Magnitsky authorities and other targeted sanctions, to hold parties accountable for their actions to bring an end to this crisis,” the congressmen wrote at the time.
Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on May 12, 2021
🔥 Cruelty at its peak! 😈 Abiy Ahmed Ali & Isaias Afewerki 😈 are the most evil monsters of the planet. It’s mind-blowing and disappointing that The U.S. Department of State is sending the special envoy to these two war criminals! Are they working for them?
Eritrean troops are operating with total impunity in Ethiopia’s war-torn northern Tigray region, killing, raping and blocking humanitarian aid to starving populations more than a month after the country’s Nobel Peace Prize winning leader pledged to the international community that they would leave.
A CNN team traveling through Tigray’s central zone witnessed Eritrean soldiers, some disguising themselves in old Ethiopian military uniforms, manning checkpoints, obstructing and occupying critical aid routes, roaming the halls of one of the region’s few operating hospitals and threatening medical staff.
Despite pressure from the Biden administration, there is no sign that Eritrean forces plan to exit the border region anytime soon.
On April 21, a CNN team reporting in Tigray with the permission of Ethiopian authorities traveled from the regional capital Mekelle to the besieged city of Axum, two weeks after it had been sealed off by Ethiopian and Eritrean soldiers. An aid convoy also made the seven-hour journey.
Ethiopia’s government has severely restricted access to the media until recently, and a state-enforced communications blackout concealed events in the region, making it challenging to gauge the extent of the crisis or verify survivors’ accounts.
But CNN’s interviews with humanitarian workers, doctors, soldiers and displaced people in Axum and across central Tigray — where up to 800,000 displaced people are sheltering — indicate the situation is even worse than was feared. Eritrean troops aren’t just working hand in glove with the Ethiopian government, assisting in a merciless campaign against the Tigrayan people, in some pockets they’re fully in control and waging a reign of terror.
The testimonies, shared at great personal risk, present a horrifying picture of the situation in Tigray, where a clash between Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed and the region’s ruling party, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), in November has deteriorated into a protracted conflict that, by many accounts, bears the hallmarks of genocide and has the potential to destabilize the wider Horn of Africa region.
Sign at Axum Referral Hospital. ???Blood Campaign, for mothers, for children, for all those that need it.???
Ethiopian security officials working with Tigray’s interim administration told CNN that the Ethiopian government has no control over Eritrean soldiers operating in Ethiopia, and that Eritrean forces had blocked roads into central Tigray for over two weeks and in the northwestern part of the region for nearly one month.
As the war and its impact on civilians deepens, world leaders have voiced their concern about the role of Eritrean forces in exacerbating what US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, according to spokesperson Ned Price, has described as a “growing humanitarian disaster.” In a phone call with Abiy on April 26, Blinken pressed Ethiopia and Eritrea to make good on commitments to withdraw Eritrean troops “in full, and in a verifiable manner.”
CNN’s efforts to reach Axum were thwarted by both Ethiopian and Eritrean soldiers multiple times over several days.
On one of the first attempts, the CNN team encountered what it later learned was the aftermath of a grenade attack, where a group of local residents were flagging down cars, warning passersby not to go any further. But before we reached the scene, a large army truck drove up and parked sideways, blocking the road. Our cameraman got out of the car and started filming only to be confronted by Ethiopian soldiers, who threatened the team with detention, demanding that we hand over the camera and delete the footage. But we refused and were able to conceal the footage until we were eventually released.
On another occasion, CNN was turned back by an Ethiopian National Defence Force (ENDF) Command operating out of a former USAID distribution center in the outskirts of the city of Adigrat, where several trucks laden with sacks of desperately needed food sat languishing in the hot sun. The aid, bound for communities in Tigray’s starved central zone, had been stopped from going any further despite daily phone calls from humanitarian workers pleading for access.
Even after being granted entry to Axum by the Ethiopian military, CNN’s path was obstructed by Eritrean troops controlling a checkpoint on a desolate mountain top overlooking Adigrat. The forces were wearing a mixture of their official light-colored Eritrean Defence Forces (EDF) fatigues and a woodland camouflage with a green beret, which military experts verified as tallying with old Ethiopian army uniforms.
Hannibal ??? Shot in the leg as he was sitting on his mother???s lap. Shown here at Axum referral hospital where he is receiving treatment.
It is one of the first visual confirmations of reports — relayed in recent weeks by the UN’s top humanitarian official Mark Lowcock and US ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield — that Eritrean soldiers are disguising their identities by re-uniforming as Ethiopian military, in what Thomas-Greenfield described as a move to “remain in Tigray indefinitely.”
CNN was informed by aid agencies that they had also been turned back by Eritrean soldiers manning the same checkpoint. Ethiopian military sources in the region confirmed to CNN that Eritrean soldiers were in control of key checkpoints along the route to Axum. The military sources said they had requested multiple times for the Eritreans to allow cars and convoys through, but had been refused.
CNN has reached out to the Ethiopian and Eritrean governments for comment.
After repeated phone calls to Ethiopian central government and senior military officials, CNN was finally allowed into Axum on its fourth try. On the same day, international medical humanitarian organization Medecins Sans Frontieres demanded that the 12-day blockade of the road into Axum be lifted.
Many aid agencies are still being barred from the besieged city, where one of the few hospitals operating for miles is running out of essential supplies, including oxygen and blood, humanitarian workers working in the region told CNN.
On arrival at the Axum University Teaching and Referral Hospital, patients are greeted by a sign asking for blood.
7 yearold Latebrahan Fessahaatsion, from Chilla, 100 Kms from Axum near border of Eritrea where famine has arrived.
The medical staff we spoke to asked not to be named for fear of reprisals, but requested that CNN identify their hospital — they say that they want people to know that they are still here.
Inside one of the under-resourced examination rooms, a malnourished 7-year-old was lying on a gurney, wrapped in a blanket to cushion her fragile skin. Latebrahan’s emaciated legs could no longer hold her weight and she lay wide-eyed, staring up at the crowd of doctors gathered around her bed.
The medical team were doing their best to keep her alive, but they had run out of a therapeutic feeding agent due to the blockade, the only way to help her gain weight without disturbing her delicate system.
Latebrahan’s father, Girmay, who asked to be identified only by his first name, told CNN the journey from their home in Chila, around 60 miles north of Axum, near the border with Eritrea, had been dangerous and costly.
“There is no help, no food, nothing. I didn’t have a choice though — look at her,” Girmay said.
Like many other rural border towns, Chila has been blocked off from receiving aid since the conflict began six months ago. Humanitarian workers say famine could have already arrived there and they would have no way of knowing.
“Based on guesswork there is a sense that in these areas that we are not able to access, out in the countryside for instance, places are falling into pockets of famine. But we’re not able to verify that and that’s part of the problem,” Thomas Thompson, the UN World Food Programme’s emergency coordinator, told CNN.
The fighting erupted during the autumn harvest season following the worst invasion of desert locusts in Ethiopia in decades. The conflict has plunged Tigray even further into severe food insecurity, and the deliberate blockade of food risks mass starvation, a recent report by the World Peace Foundation warned. The Ethiopian government itself estimates that at least 5.2 million people out of 5.7 million in the region are in need of emergency food assistance.
USAID handing out aid in the town of Hawzen. They hadn???t had much-needed aid here for 2 months.
Eritrean soldiers have been blocking and looting food relief in multiple parts of Tigray, including in Samre and Gijet, southwest of Mekele, according to a leaked document from the Emergency Coordination Centre of Tigray’s Abiy-appointed interim government obtained by CNN. In a PowerPoint presentation dated April 23, the center states that Eritrean soldiers have also started showing up at food distribution points in Tigray, looting supplies after “our beneficiaries became frightened and [ran] away.”
That report was corroborated by humanitarian workers in Tigray, who said they had “protection” issues around distributing aid in some areas as civilians were later robbed of the aid by Eritrean soldiers. Emily Dakin, who leads the USAID Disaster Assistance Response Team in Tigray, also told CNN that she had received reports of health centers being looted, which was “contributing to some of the dysfunctionality of the hospitals.”
Eritrea’s Minister of Information Yemane Meskel has rejected these claims.
Eritrea’s power in the region feels absolute even in the Axum Teaching Hospital, where Eritrean soldiers are among the gun-toting troops roaming the corridors, dropping off wounded soldiers and threatening medical staff. It is a terrifying scene for patients, many of whom say they were injured either directly or indirectly by soldiers.
One doctor, who asked not to be named, told CNN that the siege had prompted a surge in patients. In addition to cases of malnutrition like Latebrahan, doctors and nurses are treating a grim array of trauma from shrapnel, bullets, stabbings and rapes. In a desperate attempt to keep pace with demand, medical workers have also begun donating blood.
But despite this, there wasn’t enough blood on hand to save one young woman, who had been attacked by soldiers who tried to rape her.
The doctor treating the woman told CNN that the hospital had seen a spike in sexual assault cases over recent weeks, but that the rise was just “the tip of the iceberg,” as many were too scared to seek medical services.
An alarming number of women are being gang-raped, drugged and held hostage in the conflict, in which sexual violence is being used as a weapon of war and its use linked to genocide. According to one agency’s estimate, almost one-third of all attacks on civilians involve sexual violence, the majority committed by men in uniform.
An autopsy photo of the young woman seen by CNN showed her internal organs spilling out from a wound in her lower abdomen.
“She came to our emergency department and she had a sign of life initially. [But] if you find blood for a patient, it’s only one or two units and one or two units could not save this woman. She bled [out] and she died,” the doctor said haltingly, overcome with emotion.
He took a deep breath, then added, “I see this woman in my dreams.”
This reporting would not have been possible without the support of dozens of Tigrayans, who shared their stories at great personal risk. CNN is not naming them to protect their safety. It also builds on a series of investigations into massacres and sexual violence in Tigray by CNN’s Bethlehem Feleke, Gianluca Mezzofiore and Katie Polglase. Read CNN’s full Tigray coverage here.
Addis Ethiopia Weblog 