UM RAKOBA, Sudan (AP) – The only thing survivors can admit is that hundreds of people were massacred in a single Ethiopian city. Witnesses said security forces and their allies attacked civilians in My-Katra with knives and knives or strangled them with ropes. The stench of the bodies lasted for several days during the initial turmoil of the Ethiopian government’s offensive in the region of Tigre last month. Several mass burials have been reported. What has happened since November 9 in the agricultural city near the Sudanese border has become the most visible atrocity in a war often waged in the shadows. But even here, it is not yet clear who was killed. Witnesses in Mai-Katra told the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission and Amnesty International that ethnic Tigrian forces and allies had attacked Amhara, a minority in Tigray, one of Ethiopia’s largest ethnic groups. In Sudan, where nearly 50,000 people have fled, an ethnic Amhara refugee gave a similar account to the Associated Press. But more than a dozen Tigrian refugees told Andrei that it was the other way around: in surprisingly similar stories, they and others were targeted by Ethiopian federal forces and allied Amhara regional troops. Amnesty International now claims that civilians of both races may have been targeted in Mai-Kadra. “If they find them, they will be killed,” said Desfalem Germe, an Ethiopian Tigrian who fled to Sudan with his family. He said he saw hundreds of bodies, and he made a sliding gesture to the neck and head. But he told another refugee, Abhisit Ref, that many species like him, who had stayed behind, had been slaughtered by the Tigrian forces. “The government didn’t even think we were alive. They thought we were all dead,” he said. Conflicting accounts since the Ethiopian forces entered and sealed off Tigre on November 4 are a sign of war. The region from around the world restricts access to journalists and support workers. For several weeks, food and other items were running at dangerous levels. This week, Ethiopia’s security forces visited the UN. Employees were shot and a first assessment was made of how to provide assistance, a senior Ethiopian official said. The government of Ethiopia and Tigre filled the void with propaganda. Each side has captured the killings in My-Kadra to support its cause. The conflict began after months of clashes between governments that now consider each other illegal. Tigre leaders once dominated Ethiopia’s ruling coalition, but sidelined them when Prime Minister Abi Ahmed came to power in 2018. In the western Tigray, where Mai-Kadra is located, there have been long-standing tensions on the land between the Tigrayans and Amhara. Fire. Amnesty International reports that the minimum score in May-Kadra was confirmed and that hundreds of people were killed. It conducted “specific interviews” over long distances. But Mai-Katra was “only the tip of the iceberg,” Amnesty International’s Pisceha Tekley said at an event on Tuesday amid growing fears of atrocities elsewhere in Tigray. “Other credible allegations are emerging in the nearby city of Humera, the city of Dansha and the capital of Tigre, McClellan … not just in My-Katra”. In Mai-Katra, witnesses told the visiting Ethiopian Rights Commission that police, militants and members of a Tigre youth group had attacked Amhara. “The streets were lined with bodies not yet buried,” the commission said. One person who saw the identity cards of the dead while removing the bodies told Amnesty International that many were Amhara. But the multi-ethnic Tigris who fled blamed the Ethiopian and allied Amhara regional forces for the simultaneous killings in the same town, with some asking to see identity cards before attacking. In some cases, they said, they recognized the killers as their neighbors. The mechanic, Samir Bayan, stopped him and asked if he was Tigrayana, who was later beaten and robbed. He said he saw people being massacred with knives and dozens of rotting corpses. “It’s like the end of the world,” he recalled. “We could not bury them because the soldiers were nearby.” Refugees are now waiting in empty concrete houses in Sudan or under sheltered shelters from plastic and branches, playing checkers with Coca Cola bottle caps or stretching mats to sleep, briefly trying to escape the horrible memories. AB was unable to obtain permission to travel to the Tigre region and was unable to independently verify reports of the massacre. Neither Amnesty International nor the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission agreed to their requests to speak with the witnesses they interviewed. The Ethiopian Commission, an institution created under the country’s constitution, called its findings preliminary. The federal government allowed its researchers to visit Mai-Katra, but when asked if it was allowed to investigate other atrocities, spokesman Aaron Masho replied, “We do.” This week the UN Office of Human Rights called for an independent inquiry into the conflict, but Ethiopian officials rejected their intervention, saying this week that the government did not need a “babysitter” and underestimated that the government could not do such work, “said senior Ethiopian official Redwan Hussein. Told reporters on Tuesday. The prime minister called the killings in My-Kadra a “summary of moral degradation” and expressed suspicion that the perpetrators may have fled to Sudan and been hiding among refugees. Aki provides no evidence, only pointing to the number of young people among the refugees – though approximately half are women. The prime minister has denied allegations of misconduct by the Ethiopian security forces during the conflict, saying “no one was killed in any city.” Profiles should be stopped, UN human rights chief Michael Bachelet warned this week that they are “growing divisions and sowing the seeds of instability and conflict” – an area already widespread with both .___ Associated Press Writers in Cairo and Atlanta Hadero contributed.
Source