East Africa correspondent Cara Anna and Cairo-based photographer Nariman El-Mofty teamed up to present the strongest case yet that Ethiopia has conducted a campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Tigray minority.
For months the people of Ethiopia’s Tigray region have claimed that thousands are being killed, raped and starved by the Ethiopian government and its allies. Anna and El-Mofty conducted meticulous interviews with 30 refugees in Sudan who had fled their homeland, as well as aid workers and officials. They also documented hard evidence of the ethnic cleansing, in the form of an identity card that completely removes all references to the Tigray minority, written in a language not their own and issued by authorities from a different ethnic group. “I kept it to show the world,” one refugee said.
A new ID card issued by Amhara authorities to Seid Mussa Omar, a 29-year-old nurse who fled Tigray, is displayed in Hamdayet, eastern Sudan, near the border with Ethiopia, March 17, 2020. Amhara authorities seized Omar’s original ID card displaying his Tigrayan ethnicity and burned it, he said. On the new card, all references to Tigray had vanished. After months of conflicting claims between the Tigrayans and the government in Ethiopia, there is now official proof of what is being called ethnic cleansing, in the form of identity cards smuggled across the border into this Sudanese border post and confirmed to the AP by more than a half-dozen refugees from different communities.
AP Photo / Nariman El-Mofty
AP’s reporting contradicts the claims of the Ethiopian government that life in Tigray is returning to normal — the refugees, some of whom had arrived just hours earlier, spoke of how the violence continues. Person after person described multiple killings, including seeing dozens of bodies strewn by the riverside and lying in the streets. Several women and medical workers described mass rapes, including a woman who was raped by fighters one by one for speaking her own language. And many of the refugees warned that more was yet to come, with deliberate starvation already having started and likely to continue.
Refugee Elsa Tesfa Berhe, a reproductive health official from Adwa, sits in Hamdayet, eastern Sudan, near the Sudan-Ethiopia border, March 16, 2021. Reusing gloves and rationing water, Berhe treated women secretly after Eritrean soldiers swept through health centers, looting even the beds and telling patients to leave. As she snuck out to deliver babies and treat the wounded, she saw people trying to bury bodies at the risk of being shot, or pouring alcohol on corpses in an attempt to hide the smell.
AP Photo / Nariman El-Mofty
Seid Mussa Omar, right, a 29-year-old Tigrayan nurse from Humera, treats a man at the Sudanese Red Crescent clinic in Hamdayet, eastern Sudan, near the border with Ethiopia, March 17, 2021. Omar says that authorities now in charge in Amhara seized his original ID card that showed his Tigrayan ethnicity, and burned it. The new card he was issued in January was examined by the AP — all references to Tigray had vanished. The language on the card is Amharic, not the Tigrinya of Tigray.
AP Photo / Nariman El-Mofty
Tigrayan refugee Alem Mebrahtu, 30, who fled the conflict in Ethiopia’s Tigray, sits for a portrait in eastern Sudan, near the border with Ethiopia, arch 15, 2021. “Bodies were strewn near the riverbank,” she said. “Some were face-down. Some were looking up at the sky.” She estimated she saw some 50 corpses.
AP Photo / Nariman El-Mofty
Abedom, a 25-year-old day laborer and Tigrayan refugee, sits for a portrait inside his friends’ shelter in Hamdayet, eastern Sudan, near the border with Ethiopia, March 16, 2021. Abedom spent three months roaming in mountains and rural villages. “It was normal to go a whole day without food. So many people were hungry. The (Ethiopian troops and allies) loot everything, so if they take it all, how do I survive?”
AP Photo / Nariman El-Mofty
Lemlem Gebrehiwet, a 20-year-old Tigrayan refugee, holds her 3-day-old daughter Semhal in their shelter in Hamdayet, eastern Sudan, near the border with Ethiopia, March 16, 2021. “(The authorities) started distributing new ID cards in Bahkar but only for Amhara and Wolkait,” said Gebrehiwet, who fled Tigray while heavily pregnant and gave birth three days after reaching Sudan.
AP Photo / Nariman El-Mofty
Tigrayan refugee Kidu Gebregirgis, a farmer who fled the conflict in Ethiopia’s Tigray, is photographed in eastern Sudan, near the border with Ethiopia, March 15, 2021. Gebregirgis said he was questioned almost daily about his ethnicity, his shirt yanked aside to check for marks from the strap of a gun. He said that over the course of two weeks the Amhara harvested some 5,000 kilograms (5.5 tons) of sorghum from his fields and hauled it away. He never tried to stop them.
AP Photo / Nariman El-Mofty
Tigrayan refugees who fled the conflict in the Ethiopia’s Tigray try to find a network signal for their mobile phones in Hamdayet, eastern Sudan, near the border with Ethiopia, March 23, 2021.
AP Photo / Nariman El-Mofty
A Tigrayan woman who says she was gang raped by Amhara fighters, speaks to surgeon and refugee Dr. Tewodros Tefera at the Sudanese Red Crescent clinic in Hamdayet, near the Sudan-Ethiopia border, eastern Sudan, March 23, 2021. “Let the Tigray government come and help you,” she recalled them saying, even while they were raping her.
AP Photo / Nariman El-Mofty
Tigrayan refugee Maza Girmay, 65, sits in her shelter in Hamdayet, eastern Sudan, near the border with Ethiopia, March 15, 2021. “I heard food was being distributed (in Tigray),” she said. She went to the government office in her community of Bahkar to inquire. “They told me, ‘Go home, you're Tigrayan.’” The rejection brought her to tears. “We Tigrayans are Ethiopian. Why do they treat us as non-Ethiopian?” she said.
AP Photo / Nariman El-Mofty
Refugee Hiwot Hadush, a 24-year-old teacher from Zalambessa, sits in her shelter in Hamdayet, near the Sudan-Ethiopia border, eastern Sudan, March 16, 2021. “Even if someone was dead, they shot them again, dozens of times. I saw this,” said Hadush.
AP Photo / Nariman El-Mofty
Awalom Mebrahtom, who fled the conflict in the Ethiopia’s Tigray, poses in Hamdayet, near the Sudan-Ethiopia border, eastern Sudan, March 17, 2021. Mebrahtom described hiding and watching Eritrean soldiers order 18 Tigrayans, mostly young men like him, to lie in a remote field in Irob. They were shot to death.
AP Photo / Nariman El-Mofty
A rape victim who fled the conflict in Ethiopia’s Tigray sits for a portrait in eastern Sudan near the Sudan-Ethiopia border, March 20, 2021. Several refugees from different Tigray communities told the AP they watched or listened helplessly as women were taken away by Amhara or Eritrean fighters and raped.
AP Photo / Nariman El-Mofty
People stand on the banks of the Tekeze River on the Sudan-Ethiopia border after Ethiopian forces blocked individuals from crossing into Sudan, near Hamdayet, eastern Sudan, March 16, 2021. Ethiopia is at left, and Sudan is at right.
AP Photo / Nariman El-Mofty
The photos by El-Mofty were stunning, and a freelancer joined the team to take video footage. The final package included an animated graphic of the identity cards by Peter Hamlin, and a presentation by Natalie Castañeda with satellite imagery showing how a field of crops had been burned.
The deeply reported story sparked immediate reaction. In an unusual comment, the spokesperson of United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called the accounts “harrowing” and said, “We are very concerned.” The Ethiopian government was provoked to reply to the AP story, criticizing “the rush to accuse the government” and calling Tigray forces “a criminal enterprise that has been armed to its teeth.” One researcher told Anna, “You just wrote the most harrowing report about Tigray to date.” Even the bureau chief of a major competitor commented, calling the story “beautifully written” and saying he was “super jealous.”