Bordering Eritrea, it is home to most of the country's estimated 7 million ethnic Tigrayans.
There are people that are leaders of political parties that can assist the end of the violence. They need to do that or be held responsible for the slaughter.
By Katherine Houreld and Meg Kelly
...The survivors (click here) are only now willing to talk: As long as Eritrean troops remained close by, villagers were cowed into silence. Once the soldiers finally pulled back in late January from much of Tigray, witnesses and relatives began to give accounts like the following: A toddler killed with his 7-year-old brother and their mother. Elderly priests shot in their homes. A nursing mother shot dead in front of her young sons. Family members beaten back as they clung to fathers and sons being taken to their deaths.
...The survivors (click here) are only now willing to talk: As long as Eritrean troops remained close by, villagers were cowed into silence. Once the soldiers finally pulled back in late January from much of Tigray, witnesses and relatives began to give accounts like the following: A toddler killed with his 7-year-old brother and their mother. Elderly priests shot in their homes. A nursing mother shot dead in front of her young sons. Family members beaten back as they clung to fathers and sons being taken to their deaths.
Killing civilians is a war crime.
Residents of the village of Mariam Shewito who had fled the violence said they returned from the bush to find the doors of their homes swinging open, the floors inside black with blood and the air heavy with the stench of death. Others searched for brothers and husbands among half-eaten corpses on a mountain where scores were executed and left to wild animals.
Satellite images first provided by Planet Labs and reviewed by The Washington Post show that at least 67 structures in the area, mostly in household compounds, were severely damaged during the time that witnesses said the killings happened. Additional imagery provided to The Post by Maxar Technologies shows military vehicles matching witness descriptions of Eritrean vehicles, less than three miles from where the massacres took place....
Residents of the village of Mariam Shewito who had fled the violence said they returned from the bush to find the doors of their homes swinging open, the floors inside black with blood and the air heavy with the stench of death. Others searched for brothers and husbands among half-eaten corpses on a mountain where scores were executed and left to wild animals.
Satellite images first provided by Planet Labs and reviewed by The Washington Post show that at least 67 structures in the area, mostly in household compounds, were severely damaged during the time that witnesses said the killings happened. Additional imagery provided to The Post by Maxar Technologies shows military vehicles matching witness descriptions of Eritrean vehicles, less than three miles from where the massacres took place....
November 13, 2020
By Eyder Peralta
..."Hidden hands of the TPLF ( Tigray People's Liberation Front ) (click here) were there in the killings of civilians in many different parts of the country," the document read.
It cited intelligence, but didn't provide evidence. The TPLF has in the past denied similar accusations.
Regardless, that violence has displaced more than 3 million people over the past two years, according to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre.
But things worsened dramatically once COVID-19 hit Ethiopia, the African continent's second-largest country by population. Abiy was supposed to guide the country through its first truly democratic elections this summer. But citing the pandemic, he postponed them.
The TPLF argued that amounted to an unconstitutional extension of the federal government's term. So they defied Abiy's orders, created their own electoral commission and held their own regional elections. The federal government declared the Tigray elections unconstitutional and both sides began trading accusations of illegitimacy....
