“For the LORD loves justice and will not forsake His saints. They are preserved forever, but the offspring of the wicked will be cut off.”
Amnesty International on Thursday criticized the November 2 peace accord signed in South Africa by the government of Ethiopia and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) over war crimes in Tigray and elsewhere.
The human rights organization said that the agreement “fails to offer a clear roadmap on how to ensure accountability for war crimes and crimes against humanity, and overlooks rampant impunity in the country, which could lead to violations being repeated.”
It called on the African Union to “put pressure” on the government of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed Ali to fully cooperate with local and international human rights experts.
“The African Union must urgently pressure the Ethiopian government to fully cooperate with both regional and international investigative mechanisms on human rights to ensure justice for victims and survivors of violations — especially sexual violence,” said Flavia Mwangovya, Amnesty International’s Deputy Regional Director for East Africa, the Horn of Africa, and the Great Lakes Region.
“The Ethiopian authorities must urgently allow unfettered access to the International Commission of Human Rights Experts on Ethiopia (ICHREE) and the African Commission on Human and Peoples Rights to enable investigations to take place, and ultimately to ensure those responsible for atrocities in Ethiopia’s two-year conflict face justice,” added Mwangovya.
Amnesty International’s assessment of the peace deal came on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women on November 25, and the beginning of 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence. It reiterated its call to mediators in the ongoing peace process on Ethiopia to prioritize justice for survivors, including survivors of sexual violence in the two-year conflict.
Amnesty International noted that all parties to the armed conflict in Ethiopia, which pits forces aligned with Ethiopia’s federal government, including the Eritrean army, against those affiliated with Tigray’s regional government led by the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), “have committed serious human rights violations and abuses, including extrajudicial executions, summary killings and sexual violence against women and girls. Abuses documented by Amnesty International in the conflict include war crimes and crimes against humanity.”
On November 2, 2022, Amnesty International launched a campaign which highlights the atrocities committed by all sides to the conflict, and called on the international community to stand in solidarity with survivors and victims of sexual violence during the conflict. And on November 25, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, Amnesty International said that it will hold an exhibition in Nairobi at the Baraza Media Lab, in which a documentary film will highlight the demands for justice by survivors of sexual violence during the conflict in Ethiopia.
Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on October 27, 2022
💭 My Note: ‘Moral Equivalence’ to deny Genocide? Now formal ‘peace talks’ between the warring sides are taking place, the timing of this report is very fishy. They are all their agents — and they want to save the genociders. In Rwanda, the ‘double genocide’ thesis suggested the Hutu were themselves victims of genocide, perpetrated by the Tutsi dominated RPF. After the genocide against the Tutsi, this theory was used to suggest moral equivalence. It was claimed all sides were equally guilty of heinous war crimes.
The fascist Oromo regime of Ethiopia has ignored Amnesty International’s requests to access Tigray – and to assess the extent of the damage, the scale of the devastation, the genocide, abuses and human rights violations. Why are AI quite on this matter? Why don’t they keep insisting on the need to get permission to enter Tigray?
👉 Anyways, The Ukraine war shows us:
😈 United by their Illuminist-Luciferian-Masonic-Satanist agendas The following Edomite-Ishmaelite entities and bodies are helping the genocidal fascist Oromo regime of evil Abiy Ahmed Ali:
☆ The United Nations
☆ The European Union
☆ The African Union
☆ The United States, Canada & Cuba
☆ Russia
☆ Ukraine
☆ China
☆ Israel
☆ Arab States
☆ Southern Ethiopians
☆ Amharas
☆ Eritrea
☆ Djibouti
☆ Kenya
☆ Sudan
☆ Somalia
☆ Egypt
☆ Iran
☆ Pakistan
☆ India
☆ Azerbaijan
☆ Amnesty International
☆ Human Rights Watch
☆ World Food Program (2020 Nobel Peace Laureate)
☆ The Nobel Prize Committee
☆ The World Bank & International Monetary Fund
☆ The Atheists and Animists
☆ The Muslims
☆ The Protestants
☆ The Sodomites
☆ TPLF
💭 Even those nations that are one another enemies, like: ‘Israel vs Iran’, ‘Russia + China vs Ukraine + The West’, ‘Egypt + Sudan vs Iran + Turkey’, ‘India vs Pakistan’ have now become friends – as they are all united in the anti-Christian, anti-Zionist-Ethiopia-Conspiracy. This has never ever happened before it is a very curios phenomenon – a strange unique appearance in world history.
✞ With the Zionist Tigray-Ethiopians are:
❖ The Almighty Egziabher God & His Saints
❖ St. Mary of Zion
❖ The Ark of The Covenant
💭 Due to the leftist and atheistic nature of the TPLF, because of its tiresome, imported and Satan-influenced ideological games of: „Unitarianism vs Multiculturalism“, the Supernatural Force that always stood/stands with the Northern Ethiopian Christians is blocked – and These Celestial Powers are not yet being ‘activated’. Even the the above Edomite and Ishmaelite entities and bodies who in the beginning tried to help them have gradually abandoned them.
“Do not be afraid of what you are about to suffer. I tell you, the devil will put some of you in prison to test you, and you will suffer persecution for ten days. Be faithful, even to the point of death, and I will give you life as your victor’s crown.”
💭 Rights group Amnesty International has called for a probe into abuses in the Ethiopia-tigray conflict saying every party involved in the war in northern Tigray has committed crimes against humanity.
An Amnesty International specialist on Ethiopia and Eritrea told a press conference in Nairobi on Wednesday.
“Since the start of the conflict we have seen serious human rights violations that might amount to crimes against humanity and war crimes. Some of the human rights violations which we have documented include rape, and sexual violence which is brutal and shocking.” Fisseha Tekle, Amnesty International researcher for Ethiopia and Eritrea said.
“The rape and sexual violence which we have documented as Amnesty International was committed by all the parties to the conflict. There’s no innocent party which has not committed human rights violations in this conflict. All of them.” he added.
The first formal peace talks between the warring sides in the brutal two-year conflict in Ethiopia’s Tigray region entered day two in South Africa on Wednesday.
👉 Amnesty International said on Friday (May 6, 2022) there was compelling evidence that Russian troops had committed war crimes, including extrajudicial executions of civilians, when they occupied an area outside Ukraine’s capital in February and March.
👉 Exactly a month ago, April 6, 2022
“We Will Erase You from This Land” Crimes Against Humanity and Ethnic Cleansing in Ethiopia’s Western Tigray Zone.
The report states that both Tigrayan and Amhara communities in Western Tigray were forcibly displaced, that the Tigrayan population was significantly affected, and that the forced displacements in Tigray ‘MAY AMOUNT’ to war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Wow this has been going on since 2020 and this is the first time we hear about it Now back to the Ukraine war
🛑 A 2-month NATO vs. Russia war in Ukraine.
“There was COMPELLING EVIDENCE that Russian troops had committed war crimes.„
🛑 An 18-month genocidal war against Axum, Tigray by the fascist Oromo regime of Ethiopia:
“ALLEGATIONS!„ …” ‘MAY’ amount to war crimes
and crimes against humanity…blabla…
💭 Selected comments from CBC:
➡“Wow this has been going on since 2020 and this is the first time we hear about it Now back to the Ukraine war„
➡“No one is talking about sending care packages to Ethiopia. Lol.. but you can find donate to Ukraine links urrrwhere„
➡“Why Canada don’t bring displaced people from Ethiopia too like Ukraine ? if they stand for humanity as they said„
💭 War Crimes in Ethiopia | So Cruel That One’s Words Are Missing
There is war in the Tigray region of northern Ethiopia. Women are brutally raped and men massacred, reports Amnesty International. Countries such as Germany must exert pressure on the government, the human rights organization demands.
The struggle between the central government and the Tigray region in the north has been escalating in Ethiopia for some time. Amnesty International has documented how much the lives of women have been and are being systematically destroyed.
Both the extent of the violence and the manner are so frightening and cruel that there are hardly any words to describe what is happening to the people there, says Franziska Ulm-Düsterhöft of Amnesty International. The actors “lost all proportionality.”
Victims would not only be attacked, but also tried to dehumanize and humiliate them. “Men are beaten up, harassed, lined up and massacred. Women are raped in the worst way. ” There have been many group rapes in which children should have watched.
The medical infrastructure, water and food supply are almost completely destroyed. However, the fighting would continue unabated and families and communities would be destroyed.
Due to the seriousness and systematics of violence, Amnesty International suspects a strategic approach that the Ethiopian Government tolerates. The human rights organization calls for an immediate end to this drastic violence and for the perpetrators to be punished.
The UN and experts in the African Union would also have to gain access to the war zone in order to conduct independent investigations. And pressure is needed from the international community, i.e. countries like Germany, which have close relations with Ethiopia, says Franziska Ulm-Düsterhöft.
➡ The infrastructure is almost completely destroyed
According to Ulm-Düsterhöft, the situation in the region is still dramatic because it is cut off from the outside world. All communication channels such as Internet and telephone would not work. Also journalist: inside, human rights observer: inside and humanitarian organizations should not enter the region. This complicates the research, so it is difficult to get a concrete picture of the situation on site.
In order to gain information, Amnesty would verify and evaluate videos, photos and satellite recordings. For example, mass graves can be identified. In addition, the human rights organization conducts interviews with medical personnel, those affected and stuff: inside refugee camps in the region.
💭 Kriegsverbrechen in Äthiopien | so Grausam, Dass Einem Die Worte Fehlen
In der Region Tigray im Norden Äthiopiens herrscht Krieg. Frauen würden brutal vergewaltigt und Männer massakriert, berichtet Amnesty International. Länder wie Deutschland müssten Druck auf die Regierung ausüben, fordert die Menschenrechtsorganisation.
Schon länger eskaliert in Äthiopien der Kampf zwischen Zentralregierung und der Region Tigray im Norden. Wie sehr dabei die Leben von Frauen systematisch zerstört wurden und werden hat Amnesty International dokumentiert.
Sowohl das Ausmaß der Gewalt als auch die Art und Weise seien so erschreckend und grausam, dass sich dafür kaum Worte finden lassen würden, um zu beschreiben, was den Menschen dort passiere, sagt Franziska Ulm-Düsterhöft von Amnesty International. Bei den Akteuren sei „jede Verhältnismäßigkeit verloren gegangen“.
Opfer würden nicht nur angegriffen, sondern es werde auch versucht, sie zu entmenschlichen und zu demütigen. „Männer werden zusammengeschlagen, drangsaliert, aufgereiht und massakriert. Frauen werden vergewaltigt, und das in schlimmster Art und Weise.“ Es habe viele Gruppenvergewaltigungen gegeben, bei denen auch Kinder hätten zusehen müssen.
Die medizinische Infrastruktur, die Wasser- und Nahrungsmittelversorgung seien fast komplett zerstört. Die Kampfhandlungen würden aber unvermindert weitergehen und Familien und Gemeinden würden zerstört.
➡ Amnesty vermutet strategisches Vorgehen der Äthiopischen Regierung
Aufgrund der Schwere und der Systematik der Gewalt vermutet Amnesty International ein strategisches Vorgehen, das von der äthiopischen Regierung geduldet werde. Die Menschenrechtsorganisation fordert ein sofortiges Ende dieser drastischen Gewalt und dass die Täter bestraft werden.
Dafür müssten auch die UN und Expert:innen der Afrikanischen Union Zugang in das Kriegsgebiet erhalten, um unabhängige Untersuchungen durchführen zu können. Und es sei Druck von der Internationalen Gemeinschaft, also Ländern wie Deutschland nötig, die eine enge Beziehungen zu Äthiopien haben, sagt Franziska Ulm-Düsterhöft.
➡ Die Infrastruktur ist fast komplett zerstört
Nach wie vor sei die Lage in der Region dramatisch, weil sie von der Außenwelt abgeschnitten sei, so Ulm-Düsterhöft. Alle Kommunikationskanäle wie Internet und Telefon würden nicht funktionieren. Auch Journalist:innen, Menschenrechtsbeobachter:innen und humanitäre Organisationen dürften nicht in die Region. Dies erschwere die Recherchen, entsprechend schwierig sei es, sich ein konkretes Bild von der Lage vor Ort zu machen.
Um dennoch an Informationen zu gelangen, würde Amnesty Videos, Fotos und Satellitenaufnahmen verifizieren und auswerten. So könne man beispielsweise Massengräber ermitteln. Außerdem führe die Menschenrechtsorganisation Interviews mit medizinischem Personal, Betroffenen und Zeug:innen in Flüchtlingslagern in der Region.
Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on June 27, 2021
A few scattered human bones lay on the rocky ground, along with a broken skull and several half-burned identification cards.
That is all the villagers could find, six months after Ethiopian troops rounded up their loved ones and shot them at point-blank range, throwing the bodies off a rocky hillside deep in the mountains of central Tigray in Ethiopia.
An April 2021 CNN investigation, in collaboration with Amnesty International, examined video clips of the January massacre and used geolocation techniques to verify the video was filmed on a ridge near Mahibere Dego in January 2021. The investigation revealed at the time that at least 11 unarmed men were executed, and 39 others were unaccounted for.
CNN was sent the gruesome footage in March this year by a pro-Tigray media organization, the Tigrai Media House (TMH). TMH told CNN at the time that the video was filmed on a mobile phone by an Ethiopian army soldier turned whistleblower involved in the mass killing.
An additional longer video clip of the massacre has now been shared with CNN by TMH, revealing new details about the atrocity and the soldiers behind it.
CNN used geolocation techniques to determine the extended footage was also filmed at the ridge near Mahibere Dego. A voice at the end of the new clip identifies the Ethiopian soldier filming the video as “Fafi.” He also reveals his military brigade and division.
In the extended video seen by CNN, Fafi swaps the phone with another soldier, takes the gun and shoots. The phone is then swapped back as others clamor to be filmed executing the captives, brazenly documenting their crimes.
This extended footage has all the hallmarks of a trophy video and yet — despite the evidence — the Ethiopian Prime Minister’s Office dismissed the findings of CNN’s original investigation saying, “social media posts and claims cannot be taken as evidence.”
Six months after the attack, two people in Mahibere Dego told CNN they had collected the national identification cards of 36 people who were killed, but another 37 people remain missing, indicating the toll of the massacre could have been more than double what was initially reported.
CNN reached out to the Ethiopian government but it did not respond.
Ethiopia is under growing international pressure over a number of reported atrocities in its war-torn northern Tigray region that could amount to war crimes.
Thousands of civilians are believed to have been killed since early November, when Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed launched a major military operation against the ruling Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), sending in national troops and militia fighters from Ethiopia’s Amhara region.
CNN has previously compiled extensive eyewitness testimony that Ethiopian soldiers and soldiers from neighboring Eritrea were perpetrating massacres, extrajudicial killings, sexual violence and other abuses in the region.
Since January, families of the victims in Mahibere Dego say they have been unable to access the ridge due to the continued presence of Ethiopian troops in the area — leaving them without a way to bury their loved ones.
They thought they’d be safe at a church
But last Friday, the soldiers departed for nearby Axum, giving locals a long-awaited opportunity to search for any remains, according to nine people CNN interviewed who had visited the massacre site.
Over a period of days, family members of the victims filmed the church burials, documented evidence of bullet casings at the massacre site and took photographs of skeletal remains which they sent to CNN. We are not naming the family members who fear for their safety.
One family member told CNN that even while villagers were gathering up the remains of their loved ones, the area came under attack. Violence in Tigray has once again intensified in recent weeks after Tigrayan forces launched a renewed offensive last week.
Even after Ethiopian soldiers withdrew, the massacre site remained under attack.
“The soldiers from Axum started to bomb the area with artillery [fire] around 9-10 p.m. Everyone scattered and ran back home,” the family member said.
But the villagers refused to stay away, he said, waiting a few days to come back at night to finish what they had started.
In images too graphic to publish, it’s clear the remains were too decomposed to allow for identification of the victims — for some there were only metal belt buckles. Families said they instead relied on items of clothing and ID cards to identify their relatives.
Villagers told CNN the continued presence of soldiers in the area was an attempt to hide evidence of the killings.
Images of bullet casings found by villagers as they scoured the area for their relatives’ remains, were shared with CNN. An arms expert told CNN these would normally be used in light machine guns and assault rifles like those seen in the massacre video.
“The village couldn’t wait any longer, [they were] saying ‘we can’t get peace unless we bury them'”
CNN used geolocation to verify that the video of the bullet casings was from the same massacre site.
CNN also obtained images taken on June 21 that show bones, charred remains, clothes and ID cards at site of the attack. Some of the clothes were also seen in the original video clips investigated by CNN.
Families brought the remains they could find to Mariam Megdelawit church, a few kilometers from the massacre site, for an emotional ceremony where they prayed for justice, and to heal their loss on June 21.
Video sent to CNN by family members of the victims show the bones of victims being carried into the service in large jute bags and placed together while crowds gathered in a circle around them to mourn and weep.
“The village couldn’t wait any longer, [they were] saying ‘we can’t get peace unless we bury them,'” he said.
CNN geolocated the footage of the ceremony by matching it to satellite imagery of the area that showed the same church structure, vegetation layout, soil color and topography.
Sunlight in the footage indicates that the burials took place at approximately 9 a.m. This corresponded to the timings stored in metadata, which some of the footage retained.
Many of those targeted in the extrajudicial executions were young men of so-called “fighting age.”
One of the young men executed in the massacre was 23-year-old Alula. His brother told CNN he discovered Alula’s ID card amid the remains.
CNN first reported on Alula in April when his brothers discovered his fate while watching a TV report about the massacre. At the time, another one of Alula’s brothers told CNN it was hard to accept.
Though the family says they have been unable to find his remains, Alula’s ID card is enough, they say, to give them some closure.
Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on April 2, 2021
On April 1, 2021, the B.B.C. published a video showing Ethiopian military forces carrying out a massacre in Ethiopia’s Tigray region. The video is one of the many confirmations that Ethiopian troops are committing mass atrocities against civilians in Tigray. The shocking video showing Ethiopian military personnel executing civilians and throwing their bodies off a cliff has been republished by CNN and other news outlets worldwide. The shocking video comes as no surprise for reports of mass killings and other human rights abuses being committed by Ethiopian and Eritrean military forces against civilians in Tigray have been widely reported.
While the United States Senate has taken action by putting forward Senate Resolution 97, the Biden Administration has taken no concrete action to protect civilians in Tigray or hold the Ethiopian and Eritrean governments accountable for the crimes committed by their armed forces and militia. Senate Resolution 97 condemns the atrocities taking place in Tigray, calls for independent investigations into the killings, and demands that the perpetrators of these crimes be held accountable.
The Tigray Center for Information and Communication (T.C.I.C) calls on President Biden to follow the Senate’s lead and take action to stop the crimes being committed in Tigray. The T.C.I.C calls on the Biden Administration to push for Global Magnitsky Act sanctions against senior members of the Ethiopian and Eritrean governments. The T.C.I.C also calls upon President Biden to work with Congress to institute a safe zone in Tigray for civilians seeking safety and for the U.S. to work with the United Nations to stop the flow of weapons and drones being used to kill civilians in Tigray.
Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on April 2, 2021
CNN + Amnesty International | Shedding Light on a Clifftop Massacre in Ethiopia | የአክሱም ማኅበረ ደጎ ገደል ጫፍ እልቂት ሲገለጥ
My Note: The war criminal unEthiopian government which is thriving on hate and genocide wants to hide the truth by silencing some of us who are trying to share openly available informations about the ongoing genocide in Tigray. The goevenment just contactd Google with content removal requests on some of our YouTube channels. So, they seek to continue the genocide in Tigray.
Dawit was watching television at a relative’s one-room apartment in Axum, a historic city in Ethiopia’s war-torn, northern Tigray region, in early March when a news bulletin flashed up on the screen.
Graphic, unverified footage had surfaced of a mass killing near Dawit’s hometown of Mahibere Dego, in a mountainous area of central Tigray. In the shaky video Ethiopian soldiers appeared to round up a group of young, unarmed men on a wind-swept, dusty ledge before shooting them at point-blank range — picking them up by an arm or a leg and flinging or kicking their bodies off a rocky hillside like ragdolls.
The soldiers can be heard in the footage urging one another not to waste bullets, to use the minimum amount needed to kill and to make sure none of the group were left alive. They also appear to cheer each other on, praising the killings as heroic and hurling insults at the men in their captivity.
Dawit said he believes one of the men in the video, broadcast on a diaspora television station Tigrai Media House (TMH), was his younger brother, Alula. CNN has changed the names of both brothers for Dawit’s safety.
The mass killing near Mahibere Dego is one of several to have been reported over the course of Ethiopia’s five-month-old conflict during which thousands of civilians are believed to have been killed, raped and abused. But with independent access to journalists severely restricted until recently and telephone and internet services often blocked, it has been challenging to verify accounts of atrocities in Tigray. Amid the effective communications blackout, few videos have emerged from the fighting and those that have are difficult to authenticate.
Through a forensic frame-by-frame investigation of the video footage — corroborated by analysis from Amnesty International’s digital verification and modeling experts — as well as interviews with 10 family members and local residents, CNN has established that men wearing Ethiopian army uniforms executed a group of at least 11 unarmed men before disposing of their bodies near Mahibere Dego.
Footage obtained by CNN shows soldiers rounding up dozens of young men on a clifftop and checking if they’re armed. Credit: Tigrai Media House
Dawit said he last saw his 23-year-old brother — in the same clothes he is seen wearing in the video — at their mother’s house in Mahibere Dego on January 15. The video is not timestamped and CNN does not have the original, raw footage to examine the file’s metadata but it is likely the video was filmed that same day.
Dawit was out in the fields looking after his cattle when he said Ethiopian soldiers arrived in the town and went door-to-door dragging young men, including his brother, from their homes.
The troops shot at him, Dawit said, and he ran into the bush to escape, breaking his leg as he scrambled down a rocky path. Later, he said he could hear gunfire in the distance, and then silence.
Until he watched the video, he said he had no idea what had happened to his brother. But even after watching the footage countless times, Dawit said he is still holding out hope Alula is alive.
CNN is not able to independently verify that Alula is pictured in the footage, and the man that Dawit identifies as his brother is not identifiable among the dead.
“Since we didn’t see his body with our own eyes and bury our brother ourselves, it’s hard for us to believe he’s dead. It feels like he’s still alive, we can’t accept his death,” Dawit said.
“We will always remember him.”
After the attack, Dawit fled Mahibere Dego with two of his teenage siblings, limping 12 miles to their eldest brother’s home in Axum; hundreds of other residents displaced from the town and surrounding area are now sleeping rough in the city’s streets.
Dawit said the only people left in the town are those too elderly to make the trek — including his own mother. She doesn’t have internet access or satellite TV, so she hasn’t seen the gruesome video. Dawit has spoken to her over the phone — telephone networks in Mahibere Dego have been intermittent — but he hasn’t mentioned the footage. For now, he said, it is easier that way.
Ethiopia is facing a raft of intense scrutiny over human rights violations that may amount to war crimes in its Tigray region. Thousands of civilians are believed to have been killed since November, when Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed launched a major military operation against Tigray’s ruling party, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), sending in national troops and militia fighters from Ethiopia’s Amhara region.
CNN has previously compiled extensive eyewitness testimony that soldiers from neighboring Eritrea had crossed into Tigray and were perpetrating massacres, extrajudicial killings, sexual violence and other abuses.
The state-appointed Ethiopian Human Rights Commission last week said its investigations found preliminary evidence that more than 100 people in Axum were killed by Eritrean soldiers in November, confirming earlier reports by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.
In late March, Medecins Sans Frontieres said its staffers had witnessed Ethiopian soldiers drag several men off public buses and execute them near the Tigray capital, Mekelle.
Abiy said last week his government would hold accountable any soldier found responsible for committing atrocities in Tigray — acknowledging for the first time that Eritrean troops were fighting alongside Ethiopian forces and that they would withdraw from border areas. It is not clear whether Eritrean forces have pulled out of Tigray.
The Eritrean embassy of the UK and Ireland responded to CNN’s repeated requests for comment on March 22, denying allegations of wrongdoing by Eritrean soldiers and denying that Eritrean troops were in Ethiopia.
For months, both countries denied that Eritrean troops were in the war-torn region, and insisted no civilians have been killed in the conflict, contradicting accounts from residents, refugees, aid agencies, diplomats and Ethiopian civilian officials.
If the soldiers in the Mahibere Dego video are indeed Ethiopian National Defense Forces then it may be the first visual evidence of Ethiopia’s involvement in war crimes.
The Ethiopian government and its interim administration in Tigray did not immediately respond to CNN’s request for comment on the video and accusations that its forces abducted scores of men from the Mahibere Dego area.
On Friday, after CNN’s investigation published, Abiy’s office said in a statement that “social media posts and claims cannot be taken as evidence, regardless of whether Western media report it or not.” The statement added that the government “has indicated its open will for independent investigations to be undertaken in the Tigray region.”
“Since we didn’t see his body with our own eyes and bury our brother ourselves, it’s hard for us to believe he’s dead. It feels like he’s still alive, we can’t accept his death. We will always remember him.”
The footage was initially broadcast in early March by Tigrai Media House (TMH), a pro-Tigray subscription satellite TV and YouTube channel based in the United States, and has widely circulated on social media in the weeks since.
Stalin Gebreselassie, a TMH journalist and presenter based in Washington, DC, told CNN he was sent the gruesome footage via a source in Tigray. The source told him that the video was filmed on a mobile phone by an Ethiopian army soldier turned whistleblower involved in the mass killing.
TMH paid the whistleblower directly for the footage, Gebreselassie said, so that he could leave Ethiopia and go into hiding. As part of the agreement, TMH waited until they had received word that he was safely outside the country before broadcasting the video.
“I managed to talk to him only for three minutes. The words he uttered to me were: ‘I’m so sorry brother … I am really sorry for what I did in Tigray, the Tigrayan people don’t deserve this,'” Gebreselassie said, describing his call with the whistleblower. Gebreselassie said that the whistleblower appeared to regret his involvement in the killing, and told him that he was sharing the video with TMH “to heal” and “expose what the Ethiopian government was doing to its own people.”
CNN was unsuccessful in its attempts to reach the soldier directly, and does not know the extent of the soldier’s involvement in the atrocities.
Gebreselassie said the footage was sent to him on WhatsApp in five compressed video clips, due to persistent internet bandwidth issues in Tigray, but maintains it was all filmed by the soldier on one device.
Without the raw footage and associated metadata, CNN cannot confirm the original device the five videos were filmed on, who filmed them, the date they were filmed or whether they were selectively edited.
Still, CNN was able to geolocate the video to a rugged clifftop three miles south of Mahibere Dego, identifying the terrain, tree line, vegetation and shape of the mountains on Google Earth.
Separately, Amnesty International said it confirmed the location in all five video clips using 3D modeling software that overlaid the footage on top of satellite imagery of the location.
Posted by addisethiopia / አዲስ ኢትዮጵያ on February 27, 2021
Axum is a historical city – an ancient site of pilgrimage in the Ethiopian region of Tigray.
But a vicious conflict arrived in this community on the morning of 28 November, and it was signaled by the crack of gunfire from the surrounding hills.
These shots would mark the beginning of 24 hours of unspeakable violence and mass executions, according to Amnesty International.
The human rights group has compiled evidence and testimony from more than 40 witnesses and says the allegations contained within its report may constitute crimes against humanity.
💭 Selected comments from SKY:
What happened in Tigray is very sad! The world is watching as nothing happened so much for Human rights propaganda by the west!
Abiy and isayas are bloody handed they must see their crime on international crime court
It is not only by Eritrean soldiers the amhara and ethiopia soldiers were also involved in Tigray genocide 😥
Eritrea government kills its own ppl so no wonder about this I’m from Eritrea 🇪🇷 that’s why ppl leave their own country.
Jamal Osman is a multi-award winning journalist and filmmaker specialising sub-Saharan Africa. He has been working with ITN/Channel 4 News since 2008. Jamal has scooped interviews with Somali pirates, the al-Qaeda-linked Islamist group, Al-Shabab, exposed the illegal trade in UN food aid and told the struggles of Somali athletes training for the Olympics.
It wasn’t so long ago that the Prime Minister of Ethiopia was receiving the Nobel Peace Prize for ending a conflict with Eritrea.
Today Amnesty International released a report accusing both the Eritrean and Ethiopian governments of working alongside each other to commit atrocities.
Ethiopia and Eritrea brought their two-decade long conflict with each other to an end in 2019.
Now it seems they have a common enemy in Tigray, an Ethiopian province along the border with Eritrea.
Amnesty says Eritrean forces massacred hundreds of civilians in the sacred city of Axum last November.
We report from the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa, and a warning: his report has distressing images from the start.
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Addis Ethiopia Weblog 