On Wednesday, March 1st, the American daily newspaper Washington Post published a particularly chilling investigation into several massacres committed by Eritrean soldiers in Tigray, Ethiopia at the end of October 2022. The soldiers carried out these killings while negotiations for a peace agreement were ongoing, and the agreement was eventually signed on November 2 in Pretoria, South Africa.
These are dozens of testimonials from relatives and survivors that can be found in the Washington Post, Wednesday, February 1st. These are corroborated by satellite photos, showing destroyed military vehicles and homes on the dates and places corresponding to the accounts.
These stories are terrifying. They tell of an Eritrean army unit, emerging from a losing battle and first sowing death in the agricultural village of Mariam Shewito, between Adoua and Aksoum, on October 25. In the first house, they killed a 92-year-old man, his son, his two daughters, a son-in-law, his daughter-in-law carrying his 10-year-old son, and a teenage girl. All this in front of terrified children left there with the corpses of their families.
According to witnesses, the Eritreans went from house to house in the village and killed people for three days. The Washington Post has verified the names of 140 victims in Mariam Shewito who were either murdered in their homes or executed in the wilderness with their hands tied behind their backs.