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Ethiopians seeking refuge in neighboring Sudan have described the horror of heavy fighting in the Tigray region of northern Ethiopia, where deadly battles between federal government troops and rebel forces have sparked international alarm.
With a communications blackout and transport links broken across much of the restless state, reports of exhausted and terrified refugees crossing the remote border into Sudan provide some of the first eyewitness accounts of the 10-day conflict, which has allegedly killed hundreds of people. .
“The government wants to get rid of the town of Tigray, so we flee. People live in conflict there, ”Gowru Awara, an Ethiopian refugee in Sudan’s Gadarif state, told Al Jazeera.
“People have been slaughtered with knives. Pregnant women have their stomachs cut open. The government is bombing civilians and killing us all. “
Both parties have been accused of committing atrocities against civilians. The blackout of communications makes it difficult to verify the claims of both sides of the struggle.
“We are hungry and we fear that they will kill us,” an elderly woman told Reuters news agency in the Sudanese border town of Hamdayat, referring to government troops fighting against those loyal to the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), the party which controls the region.
She spoke moments after paying the owner of a small boat 30 Ethiopian biir (about 80 US cents) to take her to the other side of the river, while women and children were seen swimming. The refugees said that one person drowned while trying to cross the night before.
Ethiopians who fled the ongoing fighting in the Tigray region are seen in the Setit River on the Sudan-Ethiopia border. [Tayeb Siddig/Reuters]
Niqisti, 42, said his brother was shot dead by militants allied to the government outside his home in Humera, Tigray state, and his small restaurant was looted. It was not possible to verify your account.
“They bombed with artillery and the air force made a raid,” said Asmara Tefsay, a 31-year-old mother. “Then we saw the soldiers approaching and I fled with my two children, my mother and my father.”
Refugees cited by news agencies appeared traumatized by the sheer intensity of the shelling, which they say was carried out by the Ethiopian army. Many told stories of artillery attacks and gunfire in the streets, and the fighting spread to neighboring Amhara state.
“I saw women giving birth on the road, but then they continued walking because they were afraid Ethiopian soldiers would kill them,” said Roni Gezergil, a 25-year-old engineer.
Gabera Solasi, a 22-year-old math student at the university, took the only shelter she could find when the heavy bombardment approached.
“I hid in a well during the bombing and then fled during a hiatus,” Gabera told the AFP news agency. “Now I am in Sudan and I believe that the war will continue. I’m not sure I can go back to college. “
Ethiopians fleeing heavy fighting in their homeland of Tigray, gather in Sudanese border village 8, east of the town of Gadarif. [Ebrahim Hamid/AFP]
Sudanese officials were registering refugees but were unable to support the several thousand people who made the trip.
“People are hungry and the flow of refugees continues, but we have little to offer,” said Salah Ramadan, a Hamdayat official.
Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, winner of last year’s Nobel Peace Prize, ordered military operations in Tigray on November 4, saying they were sparked by a TPLF attack on a federal military camp, a statement that a senior TPLF official appeared to confirm on Saturday.
The outbreak of fighting last week instantly sparked fears that a protracted conflict could spill over into the Horn of Africa and draw outside forces.
“The military escalation in Ethiopia is putting the stability of the entire country and the region in general at risk,” European Union Commissioner for Crisis Management Janez Lenarcic said on Twitter. “If this persists, a full-blown humanitarian crisis is imminent. I am calling for unimpeded humanitarian access to Tigray. “
Abiy has said that government troops will attack TPLF targets, including warehouses of weapons and equipment, but several refugees said their areas had been bombarded by artillery from neighboring Eritrea to support the Ethiopian army. This could not be independently verified.
Tigray leader Debretsion Gebremichael said Tuesday that Eritrea had sent troops across the border in support of Ethiopian government forces, but did not provide evidence. Eritrea’s Foreign Minister Osman Saleh Mohammed denied this on Friday.
“We were bombarded by artillery shells from across the border with Eritrea,” said Naksiam Guru, a 22-year-old refugee living near the border. “I saw people dying in the streets.”
Burhani Abraham, 31, who arrived days ago with his wife and three-year-old son, also denounced bombings from Eritrea. “I’m very hungry,” he said, sitting in the crowded makeshift camp.
Authorities say at least 21,000 Ethiopians have crossed into eastern Sudan seeking help. [El Tayeb Siddig/Reuters]Rocket attacks
Separately, on Saturday, the Tigray regional government said it fired rockets at two airports in the neighboring Amhara region, adding that such attacks would continue “unless the attacks against us are stopped.”
Ethiopia’s central government in Addis Ababa said that Gondar and Bahir Dar airports were damaged in the attacks late on Friday, claiming that regional forces in Tigray were “repairing and using the latest weapons within their arsenals.”
Each side views the other as illegal, the result of a months-long fight amid dramatic shifts in power after Abiy took office in 2018.
The TPLF, which once dominated the country’s ruling coalition, broke up last year, and Addis Ababa says members of the region’s ruling “clique” must now be arrested and its well-stocked arsenal destroyed.
Amid growing fears of ethnic attacks, the TPLF in a statement denied allegations that dozens or even hundreds of civilians were “hacked to death” Monday in the city of Mai Kadra.
The massacre was confirmed by Amnesty International, which quoted a man who helped clean the bodies as saying that many of the dead were ethnic Amhara. Amnesty said Thursday that it had not yet been able to confirm who was responsible for the killings, but had spoken with witnesses who said forces loyal to the TPLF were responsible.
The TPLF statement stated that the accusations against its forces, repeated by Abiy, are “being proliferated with the intention of inciting hatred towards [ethnic] Tigrayans in Ethiopia ”.
The government-appointed but independent Ethiopian Human Rights Commission has sent investigators to Mai Kadra, Aaron Maasho, the group’s senior adviser and spokesman, told Al Jazeera.
“The team will carry out an investigation that will be made public,” he said.
In Sudan’s Gadarif state, Gidey Asafa said that the fighting had forced her and her family to flee Mai Kadra with nothing but the clothes they were wearing.
“We saw people being massacred. There was blood everywhere. We fled because we didn’t want to die, ”he told Al Jazeera. “Some women lost their husbands. We came with nothing but our lives. These clothes were given to me by the people here. “
Sudanese villagers offer all the help they can, but some fear that the thousands arriving from Ethiopia will drain their already very limited resources. [Ebrahim Hamid/AFP]
Alsir Khaled, regional head of the Sudanese refugee agency, said that as of Friday night, at least 21,000 Ethiopians had crossed into eastern Sudan seeking help.
“They keep coming,” he told AFP, adding that many came from Humera, where some of the toughest fighting has been reported.
Journalists who toured the area said there was little support for Ethiopians from the state or charities, with the help coming mainly from the villagers.
“During the two-day walk, I only drank water, there was nothing to eat,” said Tsefay Salomon, a 23-year-old student.
“Once we crossed the border, some Sudanese took us in a car to this village. The local community gave us food, but it is so little that we keep it especially for children ”.
Sudanese villagers offer all the help they can, but some fear that the thousands arriving from Ethiopia will drain their already very limited resources.
“Instead of being in camps, many have settled in our fields,” said local farmer Jamal Adam.
“They have cut down our trees to protect themselves from the sun, while others sleep under the stars in our fields. The moment of the sorghum harvest has arrived and I run the risk of losing everything ”.
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