TIGRAY, ETHIOPIA Video captures the alleged actions of the Ethiopian army against the civilian population. Believing they were collaborating with the TPLF – the Tigray People’s Liberation Front – they executed several dozen of them and threw their bodies off a cliff.
The TPLF was the dominant political party in Ethiopia for decades (1991–2018). When a new government came to power, its prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, began to significantly limit their influence and carry out political reforms aimed at destroying or at least suppressing the TPLF’s power.
In 2020, when new elections were supposed to take place, the government postponed them due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which the TPLF refused to recognize, holding their own elections in the Tigray region instead. The Ethiopian government strongly opposed this and responded with a military operation. The conflict quickly escalated into a civil war in the region. During it, both sides accused each other of war crimes, massacres, and ethnic violence.
The Ethiopian army often attacked innocent civilians because it considered them allies of the TPLF. This created one of the largest humanitarian crises on the African continent. Hundreds of thousands of people were killed or forced to flee. The region was cut off from any aid, media attention, or internet connection for a long time.
