{"id":13413,"date":"2022-03-19T05:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-03-19T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/axumawian.com\/?p=13413"},"modified":"2022-03-20T07:08:03","modified_gmt":"2022-03-20T07:08:03","slug":"horrific-video-brings-more-pain-to-new-zealands-tigrayan-community","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/axumawian.com\/?p=13413","title":{"rendered":"Horrific video brings more pain to New Zealand’s Tigrayan community"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Source: Stuff<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A horrific video which appears to show three people being burned alive<\/a> in Ethiopia has sparked outrage from the Tigrayan\u200b community in Wellington.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The video<\/a>, which has been shared on social media, appeared to show armed men pushing three people into the flames. The victims are believed to be Tigrayan, according to leaders of that ethnic group<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Tigray\u200b region in northern Ethiopia has been locked in a civil war <\/a>with Ethiopian federal forces and its allies since November 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As well as allegations of\u00a0human rights abuses from both sides of the conflict<\/a>, including executions, torture and rape, more than two million\u202fhave been forced\u202fto flee their homes since it began.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t want to see [the video] but everyone was calling me and sending it to me,\u201d says Rahwa\u200b Hagos, \u200b chairperson of Wellington\u2019s 100-strong Tigrayan community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEveryone was crying and saying we need to do something. I felt helpless. What can I do?\u201d she says. \u201cThey were laughing as they pushed those people into the fire. I can\u2019t believe a human being will do that to another human being. It doesn\u2019t matter who you are or where you are from, a person is a person.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Rahwa Hagos, pictured with her daughter Hannah, 4, is worried about her mother and grandmother whom she is unable to make contact with in Tigray.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The Ethiopian Government Communication Service confirmed the incident, although the video has not been authenticated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The gruesome event, which is understood to have taken place in the northwestern Benishangul-Gumuz region, was further anguish for the Tigrayan community in Wellington, who fear for the safety of their loved ones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hagos, who is from Tigray\u2019s third largest city of Shire, came to New Zealand with her family in 2001 as a refugee from Sudan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her mother, Shawaynesh, a New Zealand citizen, went back to Tigray in 2017 to look after her elderly mother. They have since lost touch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Rawha Hagos, right, with her mother Shawaynesh and children Seriana and Hannah. ROSS GIBLIN\/STUFF<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen the civil war started we tried to get her out, but we couldn\u2019t because it wasn\u2019t safe,\u201d she says. \u201cWe didn\u2019t hear from her till January 2021 and even then she had to travel miles to find a connection to call to say she was okay. They have no access to communications, banking, electricity, often no water supply, no medicines. She\u2019s been worried about my grandmother not getting her medication.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Civilians are at the mercy of it all, she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In June last year Hagos\u2019 mother, who used to work at Wellington\u2019s Commonsense Organics, was able to make a minute-long call through an aid organisation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cShe had lined up all night long to get her turn. She said \u2018We are okay, we are surviving, but we need money.\u2019 She is capable of looking after herself and family but all their bank accounts have been frozen, so she can\u2019t access her own money.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She was unable to move around freely because she was too scared, she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Tigrayan protest in Wellington at the start of the civil war in November 2020. ROBERT KITCHIN\/STUFF<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Hagos, who lives in Wellington with her husband, Hancock, and their two young daughters, has taken part in protests to draw the New Zealand Government\u2019s attention to the crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Foreign Affairs Minister Nanaia Mahuta announced in June last year the Government would give $3.25m towards the humanitarian response in Ethiopia adding Aotearoa was \u201cdeeply concerned at the worsening humanitarian situation and food insecurity in Tigray\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hagos remained frustrated with the United Nations, saying the organisation was \u201cnot doing anything apart from releasing statements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cStatements don\u2019t do anything,\u201d she says. \u201cThe atrocities we have seen\u2026 It feels like no one is paying attention. People are losing their lives every day just for being Tigrayan. It just blows your mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe want people to know what is happening. We hope people will keep pushing the UN and people who have power [to act].\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Former New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark was one of the few she saw asking the UN to do something about it, she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Clark, former administrator of the United Nations Development Programme, has said war crimes were being committed in Tigray. Sexual violence had become a weapon of war. In an article published last year in <\/a>Foreign Policy<\/em><\/a>, co-written with Rachel Kyte<\/a>, Clark said there was evidence of widespread and systematic sexual violence perpetrated by men in uniform.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She called on the world to \u201cstep in now and call the assaults what they are: a war crime.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hagos cries every day worrying about her family in Tigray. She can only hope they are safe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since that June call there has been only one message from her mother just before Christmas letting them know she was alive. And since then, silence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Issac Ghebremiskel and his sister-in-law Trhas Gebreselassie. SUPPLIED<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Issac\u200b Ghebremiskel\u200b lives in Wellington with his wife and four children but has grave fears for his family in Tigray\u2019s capital Mekelle.\u200b<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hi 63-year-old sister was arrested twice in Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa \u201cjust for being Tigrayan\u201d, he says. She escaped with civil war and is now living in Aotearoa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ghebremiskel and his wife have been unable to make contact with the rest of their family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere is no Internet, no phone. It\u2019s blackout. They don\u2019t have any access to banks. We don\u2019t know how they are surviving. We don\u2019t know if they are alive,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019s difficult to get [food] aid in to Tigray. The government is using starvation like a weapon.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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An Ethiopian woman argues with others over the allocation of yellow split peas after it was distributed by the Relief Society of Tigray in the town of Agula, in the Tigray region of northern Ethiopia, last year. (File photo) BEN CURTIS\/AP<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Conflict \u2013 the fallout<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n