Leave no Tigrayan : In Ethiopia, an ethnicity is erased
By CARA ANNAApril 7, 2021 GMT
https://apnews.com/article/ethiopia-tigray-minority-ethnic-cleansing-sudan-world-news-842741eebf9bf0984946619c0fc15023
HAMDAYET, Sudan (AP) The atrocities have been seared into the skin and the minds of Tigrayans, who take shelter by the thousands within sight of the homeland they fled in northern Ethiopia.
They arrive in heat that soars above 38 C (100 F), carrying the pain of gunshot wounds, injured vaginas, welts on beaten backs. Less visible are the horrors that jolt them awake at night: Memories of dozens of bodies strewn on riverbanks. Fighters raping a woman one by one for speaking her own language. A child, weakened by hunger, left behind.
By Edith M. Lederer, Associated Press
Published April 16, 2021
The U.N. humanitarian chief warned Thursday that the grave humanitarian crisis in Ethiopia’s embattled Tigray region is deteriorating, with no sign of Eritrean troops withdrawing and alarmingly widespread reports of systematic rape and other sexual violence mainly by men in uniform.
Tigrayan refugee Belaynesh Beyene, 58, who fled the conflict in the Ethiopia’s Tigray, sits in her shelter in Hamdayet, eastern Sudan, near the border with Ethiopia, on March 13, 2021. (AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty)
told a closed Security Council meeting that the U.N. knows that 4.5 million of Tigray’s nearly 6 million people need humanitarian aid and the government estimates 91% of the population needs emergency food.
Multiple Authors Article
Farmer Nega Chekole, 30, a Tigrayan refugee from Humera, touches his stitched wound in Hamdayet, eastern Sudan, near the border with Ethiopia, on March 14. He says he was shot by militias before the war broke out on Nov. 4. The atrocities have been seared into the skin. It s often the only evidence at hand to show the world. Now Tigrayans by the thousands take shelter within sight of the homeland they left behind in northern Ethiopia, some of them told to leave or be killed. Image by Nariman El-Mofty. Sudan, 2021.
HAMDAYET, Sudan (AP) The atrocities have been seared into the skin and the minds of Tigrayans, who take shelter by the thousands within sight of the homeland they fled in northern Ethiopia.
Warning: This story contains graphic descriptions of violence and may disturb some readers.
The atrocities have been seared into the skin and minds of Tigrayans, who shelter by the thousands within sight of the homeland they fled in northern Ethiopia.
Berhane Gebrewahid, a 24-year-old Tigrayan farmer who fled the conflict in Ethiopia s Tigray.(AP)
They arrive in heat that soars above 38C, carrying the pain of gunshot wounds, torn vaginas, welts on beaten backs.
Less visible are the memories: Dozens of bodies strewn on riverbanks. Fighters raping a woman one by one for speaking her own language. A child, weakened by hunger, left behind.
For months, the people of Tigray have been largely sealed off from the world, with electricity and telecommunication access severed and mobile phones often seized, leaving little to back up their claims of thousands, even tens of thousands, killed. That has begun to change.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken asserted last month that “ethnic cleansing” has taken place in western Tigray, marking the first time a top official in the international community has openly described the situation as such. The term refers to forcing a population from a region through expulsions and other violence, often including killings and rapes.