[ad_1]
This week, the AP news agency wrote about the Axum massacre in northern Ethiopia. Brutal abuses have been rumored for several weeks in the city, which in peacetime is one of the most popular tourist destinations in the country. Now the image of what happened is clarified, while communications are opened.
It was the end of November Thousands of believers went to Axum, where it is believed that one of the churches according to the local Orthodox tradition houses the ark with the commandments of God. The anniversary is celebrated annually for his supposed arrival in Ethiopia, but this year the celebration coincided with the war and the advance of the Ethiopian army with the support of Eritrean troops.
Thousands of Ethiopians fled across the border into Sudan in November when fighting broke out in northern Ethiopia’s Tigray province.
Photo: Ashraf Shazly / AFP
After initially leaving the civilian population alone, Eritrean troops returned to fight a local militia mobilized in the war between the federal government and the provincial government of the TPLF in Tigray. The troops stormed a church and forced the civilian population out into the streets.
– I fled with a priest and when we went out to the street they shot me everywhere, says a deacon with whom AP spoke.
Hundreds of people are said to have died the first day, but the abuse continued the next day, according to another witness.
– They started killing people just because these people were on the streets. There was a body on almost every street corner, says Getu Mak, who worked as a visiting professor at the university.
A total of 800 people are said to have died, according to the deacon who helped collect identification cards and bury the dead. Another eyewitness reported between 300 and 400 dead in one of the mass graves dug later.
This is just one of many troubling reports that 2019 Nobel Peace Prize winner Abiy Ahmed has tried to silence with a data blackout against Tigray province.
Graphics: DN
Now the pressure on the prime minister is increasing dramatically that in parallel with the Tigray war has to deal with ethnic concerns in other parts of the country, a growing border conflict with neighboring Sudan and a conflict with Egypt over the waters of the Nile. Paradoxically, only with the ancient mortal enemy Eritrea the government from Addis now has a decent relationship.
The Axum massacre is said to have been carried out mainly by Eritrean soldiers, but Ethiopian federal troops must have been present.
Abiy has shown no sign of giving in to pressure from the EU (which froze SEK 1 billion in aid), but when the US administration steps on the ground, demands for a ceasefire and negotiations escalate. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has demanded unlimited access for humanitarian organizations and may tighten the diplomatic screws in the future.
It’s Abiy, who has a Ph.D. in peace and security studies.Able to reach a peaceful solution to the conflict through talks with TPLF? His followers often point out that the other party is not the best child of God. For a quarter of a century, the TPLF dominated the federal government in Ethiopia and its representatives are known as brutal leaders who did not hesitate to force their will and thousands of people were imprisoned and tortured under TPLF rule.
After Abiy took office, they systematically tried to oppose his reforms, which culminated in the outbreak of war on the night of the US elections.
In other words, the conditions for talks between the parties are appalling. But they get even worse with each assault on the civilian population.
