Refugees who have fled the Tigray region of Ethiopia, in a bus taking them to the Village 8 temporary shelter, near the border between Ethiopia and Sudan.
Refugees who have fled the Tigray region of Ethiopia, in a bus taking them to the Village 8 temporary shelter, near the border between Ethiopia and Sudan.
Refugees who have fled the Tigray region of Ethiopia, in a bus taking them to the Village 8 temporary shelter, near the border between Ethiopia and Sudan.
Refugees who have fled the Tigray region of Ethiopia, in a bus taking them to the Village 8 temporary shelter, near the border between Ethiopia and Sudan.

Tigray forces accused of brutality in Ethiopia’s Amhara region


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As they bring war to other parts of Ethiopia, resurgent Tigray fighters face growing allegations that they are retaliating for the abuse their people suffered at home.

In interviews with the Associated Press, more than a dozen witnesses offered the most widespread descriptions yet of Tigray forces striking communities and a religious site with artillery.

They said civilians had been killed and schools and clinics looted, forcing hundreds of thousands of people to flee in the past two months.

Displaced Amharas from different villages now controlled by Tigrayan forces in the North Gondar zone, gather in a kindergarten school housing the internally-displaced, in Debark, in the Amhara region of northern Ethiopia Wednesday, Aug. 25, 2021. AP
Displaced Amharas from different villages now controlled by Tigrayan forces in the North Gondar zone, gather in a kindergarten school housing the internally-displaced, in Debark, in the Amhara region of northern Ethiopia Wednesday, Aug. 25, 2021. AP

In the town of Nefas Mewucha in Amhara, a hospital’s medical equipment was smashed. The fighters looted medicine and other supplies, leaving more than a dozen patients to die.

“It is a lie that they are not targeting civilians and infrastructures,” hospital manager Birhanu Mulu told AP. He said his team had to transfer about 400 patients elsewhere for care. “Everyone can come and witness the destruction that they caused.”

When it began last November, the conflict was confined at first to Ethiopia’s sealed-off northern Tigray region. Accounts of atrocities often emerged long after they occurred: Tigrayans described gang rape, massacres and forced starvation by federal forces and their allies from Amhara and neighbouring Eritrea.

Thousands of people died, though the opaque nature of the war – most communications and transport links have been severed – means no one knows the real toll.

The Tigray forces retook much of their home region in a stunning turn in June, and now the fighting has spilt into Amhara. Angered by the attacks on their communities and families, the fighters are being accused of attacking civilians from the other side.

The US, which for months has been outspoken about the abuses against Tigrayans, this week turned sharp criticism on the Tigray forces.

“In Amhara now, we now know that the [Tigray forces have] … looted the warehouses, they’ve looted lorries and they have caused a great deal of destruction in all the villages they have visited,” the head of the US Agency for Economic Development, Sean Jones, told the Ethiopian Broadcasting Corporation.

He called the Tigray fighters “very aggressive”. USaid, which feeds millions in Ethiopia, has seen Tigray forces looting and emptying some of its warehouses, he said.

Mulu Adugna, 18 years old, poses for a photo in the room where he sleeps at a center for the internally-displaced in Debark, in the Amhara region of northern Ethiopia Friday, Aug. 27, 2021. AP
Mulu Adugna, 18 years old, poses for a photo in the room where he sleeps at a center for the internally-displaced in Debark, in the Amhara region of northern Ethiopia Friday, Aug. 27, 2021. AP

While the US and UN have urged all sides to stop the fighting and sit down to talks, those on the ground believe there is no peace to come.

Many Ethiopians outside Tigray support the federal government’s war effort. As Tigray forces advance, families heed recruiting drives and send loved ones for military training. Ethiopia’s government says “millions” have answered the call.

“Our children are living in terror. We are here to stop this,” said Mekdess Muluneh Asayehegn, a new Amhara militia recruit. Propping a gun on a full plastic sack, she lay on the ground and practised sighting.

But the consequences of the call to war are already coming home.

“As we came here, there were lots of dead bodies [of defence forces and civilians] along the way,” said Khadija Firdu, who fled the advancing Tigray forces to a muddy camp for displaced people in Debark. “Even as we entered Debark, we stepped on a dead body. We thought it was the trunk of a tree. It was dark. We came here crying.”

It is not clear how many people in Amhara have been killed; claims by the warring sides cannot be verified immediately. Each has accused the other of lying or carrying out atrocities against supporters.

Shaken, the survivors are left to count bodies.

In the town of Debre Tabor, Getasew Anteneh said he had watched as Tigray forces shelled and destroyed a home, killing six people.

He helped carry away the dead. “I believe it was a deliberate revenge attack, and civilians are suffering.”

In recent interviews with the AP, the spokesman for the Tigray forces, Getachew Reda, said they were avoiding civilian casualties.

“They shouldn’t be scared,” he said last month. “Wherever we go in Amhara, people are extending a very warm welcome.”

Displaced Amharas from different villages now controlled by Tigrayan forces in the North Gondar zone, shelter under an awning in the rain at a kindergarten school housing the internally-displaced, in Debark, in the Amhara region of northern Ethiopia Wednesday, Aug. 25, 2021. AP
Displaced Amharas from different villages now controlled by Tigrayan forces in the North Gondar zone, shelter under an awning in the rain at a kindergarten school housing the internally-displaced, in Debark, in the Amhara region of northern Ethiopia Wednesday, Aug. 25, 2021. AP

He tweeted in response to USaid that “we cannot vouch for every unacceptable behaviour of off-grid fighters in such matters”.

The Tigray forces say their offensive is an attempt to break the months-long blockade of their region of about six million people, as an estimated 400,000 face famine conditions in the world’s worst hunger crisis in a decade. The situation “is set to worsen dramatically”, the UN said on Thursday.

The fighters also say they are pressuring Ethiopia’s government to stop the war and the ethnic targeting in which thousands of Tigrayans have been detained, evicted or harassed.

Abiy Ahmed, the prime minister and Nobel Peace Prize winner, has used words such as “cancer” and “weeds” to describe the Tigray fighters.

Ethnic Amhara, more than half a million of whom are displaced, say innocent people have been killed as Tigray forces move in.

“I’ve witnessed with my own eyes when the [Tigray forces] killed one person during our journey,” said Mesfin Tadesse, who fled his home in Kobo town in July. “His sister was pleading with them when they killed him for no reason.”

Zewditu Tikuye, who also fled Kobo, said her 57-year-old husband was killed by Tigray fighters when he tried to stay behind to protect their home and cows. “He wasn’t armed,” she said. Now she shelters with her six children in a small house with 10 other people.

Others seek refuge in schools, sleeping in classrooms as newcomers drenched from the rainy season arrive. They squat in muddy clearings, waiting for plastic plates of the spongy flatbread injera to be handed out for the latest meal.

And as earlier in Tigray, people in Amhara now watch in horror as the war damages religious sites in one of the world’s most ancient Christian civilisations.

On Monday, the fourth-century Checheho monastery was hit by artillery fire and part of it collapsed.

“This is very brutal,” said Mergeta Abraraw Meles, who works there as a cashier. He believes it was attacked by the Tigray forces intentionally. They had come peacefully, he said, but then lashed out after facing battlefield losses.

In the rubble of the monastery was a young boy, dead.

TEACHERS' PAY - WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

Pay varies significantly depending on the school, its rating and the curriculum. Here's a rough guide as of January 2021:

- top end schools tend to pay Dh16,000-17,000 a month - plus a monthly housing allowance of up to Dh6,000. These tend to be British curriculum schools rated 'outstanding' or 'very good', followed by American schools

- average salary across curriculums and skill levels is about Dh10,000, recruiters say

- it is becoming more common for schools to provide accommodation, sometimes in an apartment block with other teachers, rather than hand teachers a cash housing allowance

- some strong performing schools have cut back on salaries since the pandemic began, sometimes offering Dh16,000 including the housing allowance, which reflects the slump in rental costs, and sheer demand for jobs

- maths and science teachers are most in demand and some schools will pay up to Dh3,000 more than other teachers in recognition of their technical skills

- at the other end of the market, teachers in some Indian schools, where fees are lower and competition among applicants is intense, can be paid as low as Dh3,000 per month

- in Indian schools, it has also become common for teachers to share residential accommodation, living in a block with colleagues

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2011-2015: Al Ain – 123 apps, 128 goals

2015-2017: Shanghai SIPG – 20 apps, 7 goals

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Gran Gala del Calcio 2019 winners

Best Player: Cristiano Ronaldo (Juventus)
Best Coach: Gian Piero Gasperini (Atalanta)
Best Referee: Gianluca Rocchi
Best Goal: Fabio Quagliarella (Sampdoria vs Napoli)
Best Team: Atalanta​​​​​​​
Best XI: Samir Handanovic (Inter); Aleksandar Kolarov (Roma), Giorgio Chiellini (Juventus), Kalidou Koulibaly (Napoli), Joao Cancelo (Juventus*); Miralem Pjanic (Juventus), Josip Ilicic (Atalanta), Nicolo Barella (Cagliari*); Fabio Quagliarella (Sampdoria), Cristiano Ronaldo (Juventus), Duvan Zapata (Atalanta)
Serie B Best Young Player: Sandro Tonali (Brescia)
Best Women’s Goal: Thaisa (Milan vs Juventus)
Best Women’s Player: Manuela Giugliano (Milan)
Best Women’s XI: Laura Giuliani (Milan); Alia Guagni (Fiorentina), Sara Gama (Juventus), Cecilia Salvai (Juventus), Elisa Bartoli (Roma); Aurora Galli (Juventus), Manuela Giugliano (Roma), Valentina Cernoia (Juventus); Valentina Giacinti (Milan), Ilaria Mauro (Fiorentina), Barbara Bonansea (Juventus)

Some of Darwish's last words

"They see their tomorrows slipping out of their reach. And though it seems to them that everything outside this reality is heaven, yet they do not want to go to that heaven. They stay, because they are afflicted with hope." - Mahmoud Darwish, to attendees of the Palestine Festival of Literature, 2008

His life in brief: Born in a village near Galilee, he lived in exile for most of his life and started writing poetry after high school. He was arrested several times by Israel for what were deemed to be inciteful poems. Most of his work focused on the love and yearning for his homeland, and he was regarded the Palestinian poet of resistance. Over the course of his life, he published more than 30 poetry collections and books of prose, with his work translated into more than 20 languages. Many of his poems were set to music by Arab composers, most significantly Marcel Khalife. Darwish died on August 9, 2008 after undergoing heart surgery in the United States. He was later buried in Ramallah where a shrine was erected in his honour.

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THE BIO

Mr Al Qassimi is 37 and lives in Dubai
He is a keen drummer and loves gardening
His favourite way to unwind is spending time with his two children and cooking

UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Series info

Test series schedule 1st Test, Abu Dhabi: Sri Lanka won by 21 runs; 2nd Test, Dubai: Play starts at 2pm, Friday-Tuesday

ODI series schedule 1st ODI, Dubai: October 13; 2nd ODI, Abu Dhabi: October 16; 3rd ODI, Abu Dhabi: October 18; 4th ODI, Sharjah: October 20; 5th ODI, Sharjah: October 23

T20 series schedule 1st T20, Abu Dhabi: October 26; 2nd T20, Abu Dhabi: October 27; 3rd T20, Lahore: October 29

Tickets Available at www.q-tickets.com

Stat Fourteen Fourteen of the past 15 Test matches in the UAE have been decided on the final day. Both of the previous two Tests at Dubai International Stadium have been settled in the last session. Pakistan won with less than an hour to go against West Indies last year. Against England in 2015, there were just three balls left.

Key battle - Azhar Ali v Rangana Herath Herath may not quite be as flash as Muttiah Muralitharan, his former spin-twin who ended his career by taking his 800th wicket with his final delivery in Tests. He still has a decent sense of an ending, though. He won the Abu Dhabi match for his side with 11 wickets, the last of which was his 400th in Tests. It was not the first time he has owned Pakistan, either. A quarter of all his Test victims have been Pakistani. If Pakistan are going to avoid a first ever series defeat in the UAE, Azhar, their senior batsman, needs to stand up and show the way to blunt Herath.

Wonka
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Updated: September 05, 2021, 5:30 PM