HAMDAYAT, Sudan – Armed men who stopped Ashenafi Hailu on a dirt road rescued him from a bullet so he could save the bullets.
Mr. Ashenafi (૨ 24) was running on a motorcycle to help a childhood friend trapped in the Ethiopian government’s military operation in the northern region of Tigre, when he was confronted by a group of pedestrians. He said they identified themselves as military members of a rival ethnic group, and they took his cash and started laughing at him.
“Finish it!” Mr. Ashenafi remembered being called a man.
As they tightened their noses on his neck and began to pull him down the road, Mr. Ashenafi was sure he would die, and eventually he got out. But he said he woke up alone near the ile throat of the body, those children. His motorcycle was gone.
Mr. Ashenafi and dozens of other Tigrian refugees fled the violence and settled outside the remote and dusty city of Hamdayat, where I spoke to them. His first reports, distributed a month after Ethiopian Prime Minister Abi Ahmed declared war on the Tigris region, detailed the devastating conflict that has turned into a deadly atmosphere of looting, racial animosity and killings.
Many refugees have settled here in Sudan, rather than moving to more established refugee camps, rather than staying close to home, so they can get any news about their towns or missing people. But little information is coming out despite mobile networks and the internet being blocked for weeks by the Ethiopian government.
About 100,000 people have fled to Sudan, with the United Nations calling it the worst refugee migration Ethiopia has seen in more than two decades. And their accounts are the opposite of this Frequent claims by Mr. Abiya, Who won the Nobel Peace Prize last year for ending a border dispute with neighboring Eritrea, so as not to injure any civilians.
Tigray people describe being caught between a campaign of haphazard military shelling and killings, rapes and robberies by ethnic military groups affiliated with the government. Some told me they saw dozens of bodies on the road as they fled their shops, homes and farms and walked a long way to the Sudanese border due to the heat.
As the fight continues in Tigre, it is degenerating into a guerrilla war that could loosen both the national fabric of Ethiopia and the stability of the Horn of Africa as a whole. These include Eritrea, which has an alliance with Ethiopia against Tigre and has been shot down by rebel forces; And Sudan, which has deployed troops on its resistant border with Ethiopia, as it has allowed refugees to cross.
The Tigers cover about 6 percent of Ethiopia’s 110 million people, and have been arbitrators of power and money in the country since 1991, when they imprisoned Mr Abi in anti-government protests. .
Mr Abi called for an emphasis on national unity and diversity in multinational Ethiopia, as he officially began to exclude Tigrian individuals from public life and condemn their abuse. Now, the conflict is in stark contrast to the legacy he wanted and the stability of the country as a whole.
If Mr Abiyan’s aim was to unite the increasingly divided country, then “this conflict has become difficult to achieve, and therefore the possibility of serious political instability has increased,” said William Davis, a senior Ethiopian analyst at the International Crisis Group. He was recently expelled from the country.
Joining the deadly mix is the involvement of rival ethnic military groups. One of them is Fano, an army of the Amhara ethnic group. Along with our regional government security forces, Fino participated in the intervention in Tigre, Mr. Davis said.
While Fano is a term used to refer to young people in our armies or opponents, Mr. Davis added that the name “Youth Amhara is given to vigilante groups that become more active when they are considered insecure at the time. Powered by Blogger. “
Tigraye refugees in Sudan said Fano’s fighters attacked and maimed them, destroyed their property and tried to flee. Many Tigris, including Mr. Ashenafi, said they were afraid to go back and that the experience had left them drowsy and scarred.
Mr. Ashenafi woke up and after seeing the corpses around him, he went to the nearby forest and took him to the house of his friend Haftamu Burhanu, who took him inside. Photos taken by Mr. Haftamu and seen by The New York Times showed Mr. Ashenafi, the white skin on his back, was chiseled from his throat.
Until the following days, Mr. Ashenafi could not speak or swallow anything and could communicate by talking to his friend or writing things down.
“It was heartbreaking,” Mr Haftamu said of his days of caring for his friend.
“I did not expect in our lives that our government would kill us,” Mr Ashenafi said. “I am just scared. I don’t sleep at night. ”
Many refugees made in Sudan have returned to the Um Rakuba camp, about 43 miles from the border. But many are also living around the refugee transport point in Hamdayat, hoping to return home when they are safe or reunited with their families.
In this dusty outpost, refugees gather every morning The natural border between the Tikis River, Ethiopia and Sudan, to bathe, collect water and clean whatever clothes they bring with them. On a recent afternoon, children were immersed in the river and Ethiopian music flowing from a nearby phone, with the refugees presenting horror scenes as they watched.
Many told me that they came from Humera, an agricultural city of about 30,000 people near the border of both Sudanese and Eritrean. When the refugees said the direction of Eritrea was the direction the shooting started around midnight when thousands of people suddenly fled with everything they could take.
Some gathered earlier at a nearby church, but after hearing that other churches had been set up, they started for hours. Sudan hiking tour. They said militia fighters began to flow.
“Our military is beheading people,” said Meles, a Humera resident who wanted to be identified only by his first name for fear of retaliation.
Males, who owns a small cafe, said Fano’s reputation was before him and he was so scared, he found many corpses with him on the way to Sudan. While he was talking to me, a crowd gathered near him on the bank of the river, many people huddled up and verbally confirmed his account as he said.
According to Sad the Children, at least 1 in 139 children are among those who have not reached Sudan, many of whom are now at risk of abuse and discrimination.
With the Tigre region sandwich between the Amihara region and Eritrea, which is affiliated with the Ethiopian national government, Mel said he was happy that there was another outlet for refugees like him to escape.
He said, “Thank God Sudan is there to turn us there.”
“I had to speak my fluent Amharic to survive,” said 21-year-old Tigren Philemon Shisha, who said he confronted Fano and kept $ 5 with him. “They hate us,” he said.
Tigre and Amhara have long been enemies. When the Tigrian rebels seized power in 1991, Amahars claimed that the Tigris People’s Liberation Front, which ruled the region, had historically occupied the land they owned.
“There is widespread assumption that the TPLF wants to gain a border with Sudan and gain access to fertile ground for economic development,” said Honey Mandefero, an Ethiopian analyst and doctoral candidate in sociology and anthropology at Concordia University in Canada, in an email.
“Our security and military forces have been active in Tigre in recent weeks, and some have been placed there with our administrators,” said Mr Davis of the International Crisis Group. The area that claims to be connected to seems to be in our possession. ”
He said the move was likely to avenge the violent tigress, which may have already happened in the city of Mai Kadra, where human rights groups have said that forces loyal to the liberation front Killed about 600 people, Most of them are ours.
Many refugees in Hamdat accused politicians and especially Mr. Abi of pitting citizens against each other. “Amhara and Tigre are one,” said Neges Barhe Helu, a 25-year-old engineer.
Hadas Hagos, 67, fled his home in Humera – part of the large western Tigre area claimed by Amhar – and is worried that he will not be able to leave behind or leave family members behind. Other refugees who arrived later informed him that his house had been looted.
“We fought for freedom and democracy,” Ms. “We don’t deserve this kind of life,” Hadass said, shedding tears over how she and her family fought the Marxist regime in the 1980s, and how she lost her brother in the war.
