{"id":13402,"date":"2022-03-20T06:38:17","date_gmt":"2022-03-20T06:38:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/axumawian.com\/?p=13402"},"modified":"2022-03-20T06:38:38","modified_gmt":"2022-03-20T06:38:38","slug":"the-war-in-ethiopia-is-not-over-yet-and-the-atrocities-are-mounting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/axumawian.com\/?p=13402","title":{"rendered":"The war in Ethiopia is not over yet \u2013 and the atrocities are mounting"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A viral video of a man being burned alive should shock the world into action<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Source: The Continent<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Rashid Abdi<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The video of a Tigrayan man being torched by men in uniform, then thrown into a smouldering pyre and literally \u201ccooked\u201d has stunned Ethiopians and shocked the world. The blackened pit shows other human remains, suggesting he could be one of a number of prisoners executed in similar fashion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The macabre spectacle would not have been known about were it not for the ghoulish fantasy of one solitary soldier and his desire to show off his \u201cwar trophy\u201d. His colleagues partake in this dark ritual while making tasteless cannibalistic jokes. \u201cHis grilled flesh would be good to eat with injera,\u201d says one of them. \u201cWith bread!\u201d retort the rest, amid guffaws and further insults.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The sheer barbarism and atavism of this latest atrocity speaks to the nihilism and dehumanization that now disfigures all involved in this conflict \u2013 combatants and non-combatants alike. Implicated in the massacre are federal units supported by a motley collection of ethnic forces: the Amhara Fano militia, special forces from the Gambela, Sidama and the Southern Nations, Nationalities and People\u2019s Region. The Fano, in particular, have been among the most vicious and prolific perpetrators of rights abuses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The incident, which occurred in Metekel, Beni-Shangul Gumuz state, has been widely condemned. The state-funded Ethiopian Human Rights Commission termed it an act of extra-judicial killing. A senior official from the commission told the BBC a joint security team arrested 11 men \u2013 nine of them Tigrayans \u2013 and seized radio communication sets, cash and weapons. The men were apparently on a covert mission, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other media reports suggested the men were from a commando unit of the Tigray Defence Forces sent to blow up the Grand Renaissance Dam. The claim is outlandish, not least because there is no overt hostility to the dam in Tigray and the president of the Tigrayan People\u2019s Liberation Front (TPLF) \u2013 Debretsion Gebremichael \u2013 was actually intimately involved in the early stages of the project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The \u201chuman flesh barbecue\u201d horror is part of a long chain of documented atrocities in the 15-month-old conflict, with all parties to the conflict complicit. The pattern of mass killings was established barely weeks after the start of the war in November 2020. Eritrean troops killed hundreds of civilians in the town of Axum in what Amnesty International called the single worst documented atrocity of the war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In March 2021, Ethiopian troops and militias rounded up close to 30 civilians from the town of Mahbere Dego, marched them to a cliff near Aksum, shot them and pushed them over the cliff to a bed of rocks below. In August 2021, dozens of bodies washed up on Tekeze River, near the Sudanese border. Most bore multiple gunshot wounds and had their hands tied behind their backs. They were all Tigrayans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Ethiopian state outsourced the war to ethnic militias and turned the conflict into a violent ethnic grudge match. Incendiary rhetoric and hate speech by politicians against Tigrayans, the collapse of the professional army and its chain of command, the absence of any meaningful system of accountability, all contribute to a culture of impunity that embolden combatants to commit mass atrocities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prime minister Abiy Ahmed and his inner circle feed the anti-Tigray frenzy. Mass arrests of Tigrayans, purges of Tigrayan public servants and the shutdown of Tigrayan-owned businesses is now routine across Ethiopia. Hate is sanctioned at the highest levels of the state. In July 2021 Abiy vowed to \u201cremove the weed\u201d. His spiritual advisor Deacon Daniel Kibret in September 2021 told Ethiopians the TPLF \u201cshould be erased and disappeared from historical records\u201d. Another senior regime supporter said \u201cthe enemy does not deserve your compassion or your mercy\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Metekel horror ought to serve as a wake-up call. The world must end its conscious denial of the gravity of the human rights crisis in Ethiopia and hold all the belligerents accountable. \u25a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Rashid Abdi is the chief Horn of Africa and Gulf analyst at Sahan Research.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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