The country is about to start investigating crimes reported in a brutal regional war. But trust is at an all-time low and survivors feel forgotten M e

Rounded up, massacred and posted on social media: can Ethiopia bring justice for atrocities in Tigray?

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2024-11-07 11:00:05

The country is about to start investigating crimes reported in a brutal regional war. But trust is at an all-time low and survivors feel forgotten

M eaza Teklemariam was seven months pregnant when the soldiers came to her home in January 2021, dragged her husband, Tsegaye, outside and bound his hands together, before taking him away with other men from their neighbourhood in the Tigray region of Ethiopia.

“They said to him, ‘You are a fighter, you are a fighter’,” says Meaza, tears rolling down her cheeks. “He kept saying, ‘No, no. I’m a farmer, I’m a civilian.’”

Videos filmed by the soldiers and posted on social media show what happened next. The soldiers gather dozens of men on a rocky clifftop. Then they lead them to the edge and shoot them with automatic rifles. The limp bodies are tossed into the valley below, as the soldiers fire rounds into anyone showing signs of life.

At one point, before the slaughter begins, a smiling soldier with a rifle slung over his shoulder beckons to the camera. “Why don’t you go closer and film?” he asks. “You should film how these are going to die.” In another video a soldier identifies his name and military unit and then passes his phone to a comrade who films him shooting someone.