NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) – The pockets of Eritrean soldiers jingled with stolen jewelry. Sincerely, Zenebu saw them trying on clothes and other clothes looted from houses in a town in the Tigray region of Ethiopia.
“They were focused on trying to grab everything that was worth it,” even the diapers, said Zenebu, who arrived in Colorado this month after weeks trapped in Tigray, where he had gone to visit his mother. On the road, he said, the trucks were full of boxes headed to Eritrean places for the looted goods to be delivered.
He said that, heartbreakingly worse, Eritrean soldiers went from house to house looking for and killing Tigrian men and boys, some as young as 7, and then not allowing their burials. “They would kill you for trying or even crying,” Zenebu told The Associated Press, using only his first name because relatives remain in Tigray.
Huge unknowns persist in the deadly conflict, but details of the involvement of neighboring Eritrea, one of the most secretive countries in the world, with witnesses of survivors and others appear. Estimated in thousands, Eritrean soldiers have fought alongside Ethiopian forces. It is accused of targeting thousands of vulnerable people refugees from their own country, raping and intimidating locals, and now some worry and refuse to return home.
Recently, Eritrea and Ethiopia established peace under Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019 for their efforts. But Eritrea remains the enemy of Tigray leaders who dominated the Ethiopian government for nearly 30 years and are now on the run since fighting between Ethiopian and Tigray forces began in November as a result of growing tensions. about power.
The Ethiopian government denies the Eritreans are in Tigray, a stance contrary to an Ethiopian military commander who confirmed his presence last month. The United States has called Eritrea’s involvement “serious development,” citing credible reports. Eritrean officials do not answer questions.
Despite the denials, the Eritrean soldiers do not hide. They have even attended meetings where humanitarian workers are negotiating access with the Ethiopian authorities.
Now millions of Tigray residents, still largely separated from the world, live in fear of soldiers, who inspire memories of the countries ’two-decade border war. The recent peace revived cultural and family ties with Tigray, but Eritrea soon closed the border crossings.
“If Eritrea refuses to leave, the UN should give us protection before it dies as a people,” Seye Abraha, an Ethiopian defense minister, said in comments published Sunday by a Tigray media outlet.
Ethiopian Prime Minister Billene Seyoum’s spokeswoman did not respond to a request to discuss Eritrean forces.
With almost all journalists blocked from Tigray and humanitarian access and limited communications links, eyewitness accounts give the clearest picture of the presence of Eritreans.
They were first reported northwest of Tigray, which saw some of the first fighting. The Ethiopian Human Rights Commission cites residents of the border town of Humera as saying that Eritreans participated in a widespread looting that “emptied food and grain depots”. This has helped increase hunger among the survivors.
The story of Zenebu, a 48-year-old health worker, is one of the most detailed that has emerged, and comes from the center of Tigray, an area of which little had been known until now.
He first saw Eritrean soldiers in mid-December. He had fled with others to the mountains as the fighting approached, leaving behind his mother, too fragile for the journey. Twelve days later he returned to the town of Hawzen, needing to know if his mother had survived.
In the dark, he said, he stumbled upon the bodies, including the 70s, later realizing he knew they were identified. The floor was full of beer bottles, cigarettes and other garbage and “could not differentiate between human bodies and animals.” The stench of death was strong.
A boy in the neighborhood, just twelve years old, had been recruited by soldiers to do errands and then murdered.
“I saw his body,” Zenebu said. “They just threw it away.”
His mother had survived, his house was left without possessions.
People had been killed for having photographs of Tigray leaders, even a long time ago, Zenebu said, and the photos were burned. Although he said Ethiopian forces and Allied fighters in the neighboring Amhara region committed some atrocities, he recognized the Eritreans with markings on their cheeks and their Tigrinya dialect.
“I felt more heartbroken and surprised to see the Eritreans do this because I felt a connection, speaking the same language,” Zenebu said. “I felt we shared more of the same struggle,” while others “don’t know us how the Eritreans do.”
Residents tried to survive as food supplies dwindled. Electricity to grind grain had disappeared and medical supplies ran out. “People are starving,” Zenebu said.
It was worse, he said, than in the 1980s, when famine and conflict crossed Tigray and images of hungry people in Ethiopia caused a global alarm and he fled to Sudan.
At the time, “there were no looting of civilians from house to house, which fueled famine and ruthless murder,” he said. “It’s worse than before.”
Zenubu finally managed to leave Hawzen and reach the capital of Tigray, Mekele, after pretending to be a resident and mingling with others traveling there. He called his family in the US crying hysterically.
“I just wanted to say she was alive,” he said. Now he can’t reach his mother.
His account, like many, cannot be verified until communication links with Tigray are completely re-established, and even the people of Ethiopia are concerned that phone calls be monitored.
But another person who escaped Hawzen and arrived in the United States this month told the AP that Eritrean soldiers were “everywhere” and confirmed his murder and looting. He also identified them by their dialect.
“The same blood, the same language,” he said, pointing to the close ties to the tigrayans. “I don’t know why they killed him.” He spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of his relatives.
“We are investigating credible reports of a range of abuses by Eritrean forces in central Tigray, including extrajudicial executions of civilians, widespread looting and damage to public and private property, including hospitals,” Laetitia Bader said. , a researcher at Human Rights Watch, who called for “an immediate international review” and a UN-led investigation.
Other accounts come from about 60,000 refugees who fled to Sudan.
“My five brothers and my mother are in Axum,” near the Eritrean border, a refugee doctor, Tewodros Tefera, told the AP. “The people of Axum said Eritrean forces killed many young people.”
“I don’t know if my siblings are alive,” he said of his siblings, who are between 25 and 35 years old. Your phone calls don’t pass.
A woman who is now in the United States after managing to leave Axum, who only gave her first name, Woinshet, cried while telling the AP she believed she survived because she showed the soldiers eritreus his American passport instead of a local identification.
“There is no (military) camp in Axum, just monasteries,” he said, recalling the bodies left in the streets. “Why are they there?”
Other survivors have fled Eritrean soldiers to remote areas of Tigray and have called to say they have been living for weeks on leaves and nuts.
“I don’t know how people stay alive,” Tewodros said.