Eritean troops blamed for massacre in mountains
Abraham began burying the bodies in the morning and didn’t stop until nightfall.
The corpses, some dressed in white church robes drenched in blood, were scattered in arid fields, scrubby farmlands and a dry riverbed. Others had been shot on their doorsteps with their hands bound with belts. Among the dead were priests, old men, women, entire families and a group of more than 20 Sunday school children, some as young as 14, according to eyewitnesses, parents and their teacher.
Abraham recognized some of the children immediately. They were from his town in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region, Edaga Hamus, and also had fled fighting there two weeks earlier. As clashes raged, Abraham and his family, along with hundreds of other displaced people, escaped to Dengelat, a nearby village in a craggy valley ringed by steep, rust-colored cliffs. They sought shelter at Maryam Dengelat, a historic monastery complex famed for a centuries-old, rock-hewn church.
On Nov. 30, they were joined by scores of religious pilgrims 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.
People receive services earlier this month from a mobile health and nutrition clinic set up because many health facilities have been damaged or destroyed and essential supplies looted, including the one where the mobile clinic is set up, in Freweyni, north of Mekele, the capital of the Tigray region of northern Ethiopia.
The troops followed, spraying the mountainside with bullets.
A CNN investigation drawing on interviews with 12 eyewitnesses, more than 20 relatives of the survivors and photographic evidence sheds light on what happened next.
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.
The mayhem continued for three days, with soldiers slaughtering local residents, displaced people and pilgrims. Finally, on Dec. 2, the soldiers allowed informal burials to take place. Abraham volunteered.
Under their watchful eyes, he held back tears as he sorted through the bodies of children and teenagers, collecting identity cards from pockets and making meticulous notes about their clothing or hairstyle. Some were completely unrecognizable, shot in the face, Abraham said.
Then he covered their 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.
One was Yohannes Yosef, who was just 15.
“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, 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.