Ethiopian Massacre Under the Auspices of a Nobel Peace Prize Winner

In Tigray, a northern region of Ethiopia, lies the town of Dengelat, in a craggy valley ringed by steep, rust-colored cliffs.  People seeking shelter from government-sponsored violence against citizens in the Tigray sought shelter at Maryam Dengelat, a historic monastery complex famed for a centuries-old, rock-hewn church.

On the last day of November, scores of religious pilgrims came to Dengelat for the Orthodox festival of Tsion Maryam, an annual feast to mark the day Ethiopians believe the Ark of the Covenant was brought to the country from Jerusalem. The holy day was a welcome respite from weeks of violence, but it would not last.

A group of Eritrean soldiers opened fire on Maryam Dengelat church while hundreds of congregants were celebrating mass, eyewitnesses say. People tried to flee on foot, scrambling up cliff paths to neighboring villages. The troops followed, spraying the mountainside with bullets.

The soldiers went door to door, dragging people from their homes. Mothers were forced to tie up their sons. A pregnant woman was shot, her husband killed. Some of the survivors hid under the bodies of the dead.  The mayhem continued for three days, with soldiers slaughtering local residents, displaced people and pilgrims. Finally, on December 2, the soldiers allowed informal burials to take place, but threatened to kill anyone they saw mourning.

A young man (whom CNN referred to as Abraham) volunteered to perform the burials.  Abraham covered the bodies with earth and thorny tree branches, praying that they wouldn't be washed away, or carried off by prowling hyenas and circling vultures.  Finally he placed their shoes on top of the burial mounds, so he could return with their parents to identify them.  "Their hands were tied ... young children ... we saw them everywhere. There was an elderly man who had been killed on the road, an 80-something-year-old man. And the young kids they killed on the street in the open. I've never seen a massacre like this and I don't want to [again]," Abraham said.  "We only survived by the grace of God."  Abraham said he buried more than 50 people that day, but estimates more than 100 died in the assault.

They're among thousands of civilians believed to have been killed since November, when Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019 for resolving a long-running conflict with neighboring Eritrea, launched a major military operation against the political party that governs the Tigray region. He accused the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), which ruled Ethiopia for nearly three decades before Abiy took office in 2018, of attacking a government military base and trying to steal weapons. The TPLF denies the claim.

The conflict is the culmination of escalating tensions between the two sides, and the most dire of several recent ethno-nationalist clashes in Africa's second-most populous country.  After seizing control of Tigray's main cities in late November, Abiy declared victory and maintained that no civilians were harmed in the offensive. Abiy has also denied that soldiers from Eritrea crossed into Tigray to support Ethiopian forces.

 

 But the fighting has raged on in rural and mountainous areas where the TPLF and its armed supporters are reportedly hiding out, resisting Abiy's drive to consolidate power. The violence has spilled over into local communities, catching civilians in the crossfire and triggering what the United Nations refugee agency has called the worst flight of refugees from the region in two decades.   Read more wrenching details from CNN's report on the massacre here.