“We were ordered to kill all Tigrayan males over the age of four so that they don’t come to take revenge upon us in the future.” – Testimony from an Eritrean soldier, Axum massacre, November 2020

From the very beginning, the genocidal war on Tigray was a joint project of two brutal regimes bound together by a single goal: the destruction of Tigray and the eradication of its people. Eritrea was a full-on partner of Ethiopia’s Abiy Ahmed in a war with the sole and express purpose of annihilation.

While the regime of Abiy Ahmed sought to crush Tigray’s political autonomy and dismantle federal protections, Isaias aimed to erase the cultural, historical, and linguistic identity of Tigrayans, the very identity he had long viewed as a threat to the new Eritrean identity he constructed after independence. Isaias Afwerki entered the war willingly, fully prepared to commit genocide under a blackout that would hide his crimes from the world. His involvement was driven by his years of resentment and deep hostility toward Tigrayans.

But the first question any sensible person should ask is simple: Who invited Eritrea to commit genocide in Tigray? The answer is just as simple: it was the Ethiopian regime of Abiy Ahmed. Ethiopia betrayed Tigray and allowed Isaias Afwerki to commit genocide under a total communications blackout.

On February 18, 2025, Eritrean Minister of Information Yemane G. Meskel made an admission on Twitter, confirming what was already well known, that Eritrea’s  involvement in the war on Tigray was at “the request of the Ethiopian government.” The same statement of the Minister is also available here. 

Ethiopian military commanders corroborated this, with Field Marshal Birhanu Jula, Chief of Staff of the Ethiopian military, stating that Eritrean support was crucial to the Ethiopian army’s recovery from near defeat. His deputy, General Abebaw Tadesse, also confirmed joint Ethiopian-Eritrean operations.

Abiy Ahmed’s regime invited Eritrea into Tigray and allowed its forces to commit the heinous crimes against the people of Tigray. Indeed, Abiy Ahmed extended the invitation, but what united Abiy and Isaias was an alliance born of shared hostility, driven by power, and rooted in the conviction that Tigray had to be broken for their own survival. Abiy and Isaias met repeatedly between 2018 and 2020, in Addis Ababa, Asmara, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), even visiting each other’s military bases in the months before the genocidal war on Tigray.

According to information leaked from Eritrea, Isaias told his closest confidantes on the eve of November 4, 2020, that Eritrea could not secure its long Red Sea coast alone and that some form of “union” with Ethiopia might be possible in terms of economic and maritime cooperation.

Abiy, who has openly stated Ethiopia must obtain access to the sea, peacefully or otherwise, was driven by his own imperial ambitions as well. He has long imagined himself as the restorer of a unitary Ethiopian empire, a belief rooted in the story he often tells about his mother predicting that he would one day become the seventh king of Ethiopia. Their shared ambitions combined with their shared hatred of Tigray laid the foundation of the Tigray genocide that followed.

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The Long War Against Tigray

To clearly understand why Isaias Afwerki committed genocide in Tigray, we must look far beyond November 2020. The hostility that fueled this genocide has deep historical roots. It stretches back decades to a time when the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF), led by Isaias, began to view the Tigrayan liberation struggle as a political and ideological threat.

Although the EPLF and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) fought Mengistu Haile Mariam’s military dictatorship, commonly known as the Derg, their relationship was defined by mistrust and rivalry. The EPLF was never comfortable with the TPLF’s revolutionary vision, one that centered on self-determination, equality, and social justice.

As John Young and Dan Connell have noted, the TPLF quickly built deep support among Tigray’s rural population, a level of grassroots mobilization that the EPLF did not expect. The TPLF organized people through village-level committees and mass participation, a model that contrasted with the EPLF’s more centralized and rigid approach. This growth unsettled Isaias and his circle, who had long viewed themselves as the senior leaders of the liberation movement. As the TPLF grew stronger both politically and militarily, the relationship between the two fronts became even more strained.

Isaias never forgave the Tigrayan movement for developing an independent political identity, for gaining popular support, and for insisting that liberation must also mean equality. Historical accounts by Alex de Waal, John Young, Martin Plaut, and Dan Connell show that the relationship between the TPLF and EPLF was never smooth. Alex de Waal writes that a disagreement in 1985 led the EPLF to close the main road from Tigray to Sudan, forcing Tigrayan refugees to take a longer and more dangerous route during the devastating 1984 famine. 

Blocking that main road prevented life-saving humanitarian aid from reaching starving civilians in Tigray. Martin Plaut confirms that the road was deliberately cut, leaving 60 to 100 food trucks stranded near the town of Sheraro until the TPLF built a new route to Sudan in just seven days. Those involved in the emergency relief effort described the blockade as “a savage act” and said the decision, taken personally by Isaias Afwerki, was a deliberate attempt to weaken Tigray by starving its people.

John Young describes the relationship as “beset with tensions,” and notes that these differences eventually led to a complete break in 1985. Dan Connell also writes that the EPLF treated the TPLF as a “junior partner” rather than an equal, and that TPLF leaders resented Eritrean interference in their political affairs.

These historical records make it clear that the EPLF under Isaias Afwerki did not welcome a strong and independent Tigrayan movement. For Isaias, any independent Tigrayan identity was a threat, and this resentment shaped Eritrea’s hostility toward Tigray long after Eritrea achieved its independence.

Isaias Afwerki’s rejection of Tigrayan self-determination was not a recent development. For decades, he viewed the very survival of Tigray as a self-determined political and cultural entity as fundamentally unacceptable because it challenged his ambition to reshape Eritrea’s identity and to position himself as the dominant leader in the Horn of Africa. He insisted that the idea of an independent Tigray was both impossible and illegitimate.

In a 1999 talk at Princeton University, Isaias openly dismissed the idea that Tigray had any right to independence and portrayed the TPLF, even at its founding in 1975,  as a “small group” driven by unrealistic ambitions. As he put it:

“This is a very small group. We had to go through a struggle of about five or ten years to convince these people that there is nothing like an independence of Tigray. Tigray as a region could not be independent. One can have his own grandiose ideas about his own territory, his own particular region, but that was not realistic. We had to finally arrive at a point where we convinced them that this is not tenable.”

This makes Isaias’s long-standing position clear. He rejected the political identity, autonomy, and self-determination of Tigray outright, seeing them as illegitimate and dangerous to his own ambitions and interests. His remarks at Princeton show that more than two decades before the 2020 Tigray genocide, he already viewed any independent or self-directed Tigrayan movement as a threat, a “grandiose idea” that should never be allowed to exist. This helps explain why his regime later made the weakening of both Tigray and the Tigrayan identity a long-term strategic objective.

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Why Isaias Afwerki Fears the Tigrayan Identity

The genocidal war against Tigray was not only about power and territory. It was also a war on identity. After Eritrea’s independence, Isaias Afwerki moved quickly to build a new Eritrean national identity that would be fundamentally separate from both Ethiopia and Tigray. But this was not easy, because for centuries, highland Eritreans and Tigrayans had shared the same language, religion, culture, family ties, and way of life. 

To understand why Eritrea under Isaias later embraced the complete destruction of Tigray and the eradication of the Tigrayan identity, we also have to understand the ideological project he pursued after independence. This shared heritage meant that Tigray was never simply a distant enemy in the eyes of Isaias and his regime. It was a direct threat to the separate Eritrean identity he was trying to build. A strong, self-governing Tigray complicated his identity project because it kept alive the deep cultural ties that still connected highland Eritreans and Tigrayans. Instead of accepting this shared history, his regime worked to deny and systematically erase it.

This effort to reshape identity did not start with independence. The Italian colonial period had already planted the seeds of separation. Under Italian rule, Eritreans were deliberately portrayed as different from, and often superior to, the people of Tigray and the Ethiopian highlands. Colonial policy encouraged distance, hierarchy, and suspicion between communities that had long been closely connected.

Alemseged Abbay, in Identity Jilted Or Re-Imagining Identity? The Divergent Paths of the Eritrean and Tigrayan Nationalist Struggles, explains in detail how Eritrean and Tigrayan nationalist movements gradually diverged over time under the combined pressure of colonial rule, war, and competing political visions. What began as a political separation later grew into a wider cultural and psychological divide under Isaias’s authoritarian regime.

Vilifying Tigray became a key part of this identity project. By constantly portraying Tigrayans as enemies and as inferior, Isaias worked to convince Eritreans that they were fundamentally different from Tigrayans. His regime pushed this message relentlessly, especially toward the Eritrean youth, encouraging them to see Tigray and Tigrayans with suspicion and deep hostility.

At the same time, Isaias dismantled Eritrea’s education system by shutting down the University of Asmara and restricting opportunities for higher education. Schools in Eritrea are suppressed, independent thought is discouraged, and access to books, free media, and open debate is shut down. By denying education while promoting anti-Tigrayan propaganda, the regime spread suspicion and deep hostility among a generation that had little access to information that could counter these narratives.

An educated population with access to history and the ability to think critically would have challenged his narratives about Tigray and the Tigrayan identity. Young Eritreans who grew up under Isaias’s authoritarian rule had few opportunities to study history for themselves or to question the official narratives they were taught. In such an environment, the regime’s portrayal of Tigray as an enemy took root easily.

The more he could isolate and demonize Tigray while controlling what Eritreans learned, the easier it became to promote the myth of a separate and superior Eritrean identity. Through years of propaganda and hatred, Isaias created a mindset in Eritrea that treated Tigrayan identity itself as illegitimate and deserving of destruction.

Isaias’s war against Tigray was not only military. For years, he used propaganda to prepare Ethiopians and Eritreans for genocide against Tigrayans. Before Abiy Ahmed came to power, Eritrea funded and sheltered anti-Tigrayan political groups and media networks that worked to dehumanize Tigrayans and turn Ethiopian public opinion against Tigray.

One example is ESAT (Ethiopian Satellite Television and Radio), a television network that broadcast from abroad but relied heavily on Eritrean financial and logistical support. ESAT became a platform for relentless anti-Tigrayan messaging, branding Tigrayans as “privileged,” “corrupt,” and “enemies of Ethiopia.”

The network dehumanized Tigrayans and portrayed them as threats to Ethiopia’s unity and prosperity. It repeatedly framed the battle of “95 million Ethiopians against 5 million Tigrayans,” making Tigray’s destruction seem both justified and inevitable.

In August 2016, ESAT journalist Messay Mekonnen openly called for genocidal violence against Tigrayans on air. He described Tigray as a “colonizer” of Ethiopia and argued that the only solution was to “dry the sea to catch the fish”. This means that the Tigrayan civilian population had to be destroyed to eliminate the TPLF. This was a direct call for genocide, broadcast years before the war on Tigray began.

At the same time, Eritrea’s security apparatus trained members of Ginbot 7, an armed group whose leaders, Berhanu Nega and Andargachew Tsige, lived under Isaias’s protection in Asmara. Both Berhanu and Andargachew would later play key roles in facilitating the genocide against Tigrayans after Abiy came to power.

Through these networks, Isaias worked systematically to inflame anti-Tigrayan hatred across Ethiopia and prepare Ethiopians psychologically to accept, support, or ignore the destruction he was planning for a long time. Years before the genocidal war on Tigray started in November 2020, the groundwork had already been laid by Isaias and his propaganda networks.

This propaganda did not only shape anti-Tigrayan attitudes inside Eritrea and Ethiopia, but it also reached Eritreans living abroad. Even in the diaspora all around the world, where access to information is unrestricted, many Eritreans continued to repeat the regime’s narrative. Decades of state messaging, combined with fear, the legacy of authoritarian trauma, and a distorted sense of national pride, shaped how many Eritreans viewed their relationship with Tigray and the Tigrayan identity.

It is also important to note that not all Eritreans accepted this narrative. Many Eritreans in the diaspora stood with Tigray during the genocide. They joined protests, raised their voices against the mass atrocities, and have continued to donate money to support displaced Tigrayans. These Eritreans rejected Isaias’s decades of propaganda and chose solidarity with Tigrayans over the hatred promoted by the Isaias regime for many years.

Isaias’s fear and hatred of Tigrayan cultural proximity also explains his deep hostility toward Ethiopia’s multinational federal system. Ethnic federalism provided constitutional recognition to identity and self-rule, including for Tigray. A self-governing and culturally assertive Tigray, protected by federal rights, represented a danger to his project of constructing a separate Eritrean identity. It offered a living reminder of the shared past he was trying to bury and remained a powerful cultural pull for Eritreans with Tigrayan roots.

This is why Isaias consistently favored a centralized, unitary Ethiopia instead. A Tigray stripped of real autonomy would be politically weaker and culturally less influential. In his view, weakening Tigray served two strategic purposes at once: it eliminated a political rival and helped safeguard the fragile narrative of a post-Tigrayan Eritrean identity. A diminished Tigray would pose less of a challenge to the identity myth he was constructing inside Eritrea.

This hostility to federalism later found a willing ally in Abiy Ahmed, a younger dictator whose authoritarian ambitions mirrored Isaias’s. Abiy’s push to dismantle Ethiopia’s multinational federal system in pursuit of his own imperial ambitions aligned perfectly with Isaias’s long-standing desire to weaken Tigray’s autonomy and influence.

When Abiy came to power in 2018, Isaias immediately recognized an opportunity to finish what he had started decades earlier: the dismantling of Tigray’s political power and the erasure of its identity. His intent was clear from the start. In 2018, on two separate public occasions, Isaias declared: “Game Over, Woyane.” This was a statement of intent. For Isaias, Abiy’s rise to power meant the opportunity to finally destroy Tigray and the Tigrayan political identity he had opposed for decades.

In July 2018, just as the rapprochement with Abiy began, Isaias publicly declared that “political cleansing” was needed in Tigray. For Isaias, “political cleansing” meant eliminating Tigray’s political elite and ensuring that Tigrayans would no longer have any meaningful political role in the country. It meant dismantling the federal system that protected Tigray’s autonomy and erasing Tigrayan political representation entirely. This was a blueprint for what would follow two years later.

In a February 2020 interview, Isaias openly pledged his support, stating: “We will support with all our capacity the reform process that has emerged in Ethiopia,” adding, “We cannot fold our arms and sit idle.”

In a February 2021 interview, Isaias discussed the depth of his hostility to Ethiopia’s federal system. He claimed that when Prime Minister Meles Zenawi showed him Ethiopia’s 1994 draft constitution, he warned that “the constitution wouldn’t benefit the Ethiopian people.” For Isaias, Ethiopia’s multinational federal arrangement was the root cause of the country’s problems, a system he described as “divisive” and “toxic to the broader region.”

What Isaias labeled “toxic” was precisely what protected Tigray’s autonomy and cultural identity. His opposition to federalism was inseparable from his determination to weaken Tigray, a goal he had long framed as opposition to the TPLF.

The “reform” Isaias endorsed was Abiy’s campaign to dismantle Ethiopia’s multinational federal system and crush Tigray’s autonomy. Their sudden “peace deal” and the Nobel Prize diplomacy that followed were merely a cover for this shared project. The international recognition Abiy received made it easier for both dictators to prepare for genocide while the world celebrated their supposed reconciliation.

Many people, including some Tigrayans, believe Isaias joined the war on Tigray out of revenge against the TPLF leadership. But this misses the point. Revenge against the TPLF was only the excuse. His real war was with Tigray and with the Tigrayan identity, not with individual TPLF figures.

Isaias wanted to destroy the very idea of Tigray as a symbol of resilience and identity. This ideological hostility helps explain not only why Isaias entered the war on Tigray at the invitation of Abiy Ahmed, whose own ambitions aligned with Isaias’s desire to break Tigray, but also the nature of the heinous crimes that followed.

The crimes committed by Eritrean soldiers in Tigray were not random acts of wartime violence. They followed a deliberate pattern that targeted the very Tigrayan identity Eritrea under Isaias Afwerki had long sought to erase. The massacres, the sexual violence, the destruction of cultural and religious sites, the bombing of schools and hospitals, the use of mass starvation as a weapon, and the mass looting of homes and property were all part of a coordinated campaign designed to humiliate, terrorize, and destroy Tigrayans as a people.

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Evidence of Genocidal Intent

International media and human rights reports documented a clear pattern of atrocities committed by Eritrean soldiers in Tigray. In June 2024, the New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy released a comprehensive report concluding that there is strong evidence that Ethiopian forces and their allies, including Eritrean soldiers, committed genocide against Tigrayans.

The New Lines Institute report documents systematic mass killings of Tigrayan civilians, widespread torture and gang rape, weaponized mass starvation, and the destruction of cultural heritage. According to the report, Eritrean soldiers, along with Ethiopian soldiers and Amhara militia and Fano, possessed the clear intent to destroy Tigrayans as an ethnic group.

In April 2022, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International released a joint report titled “We Will Erase You From This Land,” documenting crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing in Western Tigray. The report found that Amhara authorities and Ethiopian soldiers, with the presence and participation of Eritrean soldiers, carried out widespread killings, forced displacement, and systematic destruction of Tigrayan communities. The United States Department of State responded, stating that it was “deeply troubled by the report’s finding that these acts amount to ethnic cleansing” and expressed grave concern over “ethnically-motivated atrocities committed by Amhara authorities in western Tigray.”

Eritrean soldiers massacred civilians in their homes, in churches, and on the streets. For example, in the town of Axum in November 2020, Human Rights Watch documented how Eritrean soldiers massacred scores of civilians, including children as young as 13. After indiscriminate shelling, Eritrean soldiers shot civilians in the streets and inside hospitals. Over 24 hours, Eritrean soldiers systematically executed several hundred men and boys. Witnesses and survivors estimated the total death toll in Axum between 240 and 800 civilians.

The targeting of men was deliberate. Eritrean army officers admitted on many occasions to having been ordered by their regime in Asmara to kill any Tigrayan male. According to Eritrean soldiers, the order they received from their superiors was to kill those who “pee against the wall”, a crude euphemism indicating men.

Human rights organizations, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, documented similar massacres of unarmed Tigrayan civilians in other locations across Tigray, including Mariam Dengelat and Mariam Shewito. Eritrean soldiers consistently conducted house-to-house searches, deliberately targeting and executing men and boys. Survivors reported horrific scenes, including parents being shot in front of their children and children being shot in front of their parents.

Eyewitness testimonies reveal the explicit genocidal orders given to Eritrean soldiers. During the Axum massacre, witnesses reported that Eritrean soldiers said they had been ordered “to kill all Tigrayan males over the age of four” so that “they don’t come to take revenge upon us in the future.” Another witness stated that the orders were “to exterminate you [Tigrayans], all of you” above the age of seven. A third witness account described the age limit as either “any male over the age of 14” or simply “those who ‘pee against the wall.’”

According to preliminary civilian victims data compiled by TGHAT, more than two-thirds of the victims are between the ages of 18 and 49, the most productive age bracket in society. This pattern shows the genocidal intent of the perpetrators. The systematic targeting of young Tigrayans functions as an attack on the future social, economic, and generational continuity of Tigray and the Tigrayan identity.

The widespread and systematic sexual violence sexual violence and gang rape documented across Tigray provide additional evidence of genocidal intent. According to doctors interviewed by CNN in March 2021, the women they treated described being raped by Eritrean and Ethiopian soldiers who made clear that the violence was not about individual acts but about destroying Tigrayan identity and social continuity.

One survivor told CNN that her attacker said to her: “You Tigrayans have no history, you have no culture. I can do what I want to you and no one cares.” Doctors treating rape survivors reported that soldiers explicitly told their victims they intended to “ethnically cleanse Tigray” and to “cleanse the bloodline.” Dr. Tedros Tefera, a doctor treating rape survivors in refugee camps in Sudan, told CNN: “Practically this has been a genocide.”

The language used by perpetrators during these attacks makes the genocidal intent clear. Survivors reported that their attackers explicitly told them they were there to destroy Tigrayans as a people. According to testimonies collected by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Al Jazeera, and CNN, Eritrean and Ethiopian soldiers made statements such as “Our problem is with your womb. Your womb gives birth to woyane [a derogatory term for the TPLF]. A Tigrayan womb should never give birth,”, “If you were male, we would kill you, but girls can make Amhara babies”, and “You will never be able to give birth.”

The testimonies documented in the preliminary report by the Commission of Inquiry on Tigray Genocide (CITG), published on October 16, 2025 (pp. 103-104), show that the Eritrean soldiers used the most explicit genocidal language, often directly targeting the survival and future existence of Tigrayans as a people. Survivors reported being told by Eritrean soldiers: “It is time to destroy all Tigrayans. You have nowhere to go. Now is your end”, and “We came here to eliminate all Tegaru. We have to see a Tigrayan-free world.”

Many women and girls were told, “You will not give birth again. We will not allow you to have a Tigrayan child. This has to stop, we have to destroy your race”, and “You will never have a Tigrayan child. Maybe you can try to have a child from us.” Others reported threats such as: “This is the womb that was producing Woyane. It has to be destroyed”, “Every Tigrayan woman deserves to suffer. You produce Junta and make us suffer; you have to pay for it”, and “Your son is fighting with us, so how can you complain when we rape you? It is fair, you deserve the suffering.” 

Eritrean soldiers also used openly dehumanizing language. They called survivors “Agame” and told them: “You are trash,” and “We can’t finish Woyane in a fight. This is how we can end their race.” These statements, repeated across multiple locations in Tigray, show a consistent pattern of ethnic hatred, reproductive violence, and intent to destroy Tigrayan identity and lineage, aligning with genocidal intent as defined under international law. 

While Eritrean soldiers were the main perpetrators of genocidal rhetoric in sexual violence, Ethiopian soldiers, Amhara militia and Fano have equally made similar statements that reflected ethnic hostility, domination, and intent to permanently harm and destroy the Tigrayan population.

Survivors recounted Ethiopian soldiers saying: “This is the right time to stop you from giving birth, Daytime hyena.” Amhara militia and Fano told Tigrayan women and girls: “Leave our land and go to Mekelle. If not, you will suffer all the time you try to be here,” and “This is our time. Your time has expired. We will not waste it like you; we will eliminate you all,”  and “Now your blood is clean. You are also lucky; even our girls usually have one husband. Look at you, how many of us have had sex with you?”

In some cases, Ethiopian soldiers and Amhara militia and Fano used such language together. Survivors reported being told: “This is the right time to stop you from giving birth, Daytime hyena. From now on, you can have a child only from us. No more from Junta.”

These statements show that all three forces used sexual violence to terrorize, dominate, and prevent future generations of Tigrayans from being born.

“Daytime hyena” and “Junta” are derogatory terms promoted by Abiy Ahmed and widely used by his supporters to dehumanize Tigrayans. “Woyane”, though historically used by many Ethiopians, has been especially weaponized by the Eritrean regime and its supporters for decades as an insult targeting Tigrayans collectively. “Agame” is another widely known derogatory slur used by Eritreans to insult and demean Tigrayans.

One report recounts the case of a young Tigrayan girl whose arm was broken and left paralyzed when Eritrean soldiers attempted to forcibly remove a Norplant contraceptive implant from her upper arm. This was done to force pregnancy. During the assault, an Eritrean soldier reportedly stated: “You will give birth from us, then the Tigray ethnic[ity] will be wiped out eventually.” In another case documented in a BMC Women’s Health study, a survivor reported that her attacker told her they were there “to make the Tigrayan uterus quit giving birth.”

Additional reports have documented the extreme brutality of these attacks. According to a report by the CITG, approximately 25% of rape survivors (15,804 documented cases) reported that foreign objects were forcibly inserted into their genitals to cause infertility. These included razors, nails, military tools, sharp metallic objects, contaminated substances, and a dead snake.

Reporting by The Guardian corroborates these findings. Medical professionals treating survivors found evidence that Eritrean soldiers had inserted foreign objects into victims’ bodies, in some cases accompanied by written statements expressing intent to prevent Tigrayan births. One such statement read: “From now on, no Tigrayan will give birth to another Tigrayan.” These acts and statements make clear that the sexual violence was designed not only to terrorize but to eliminate future generations of Tigrayans.

These statements show that the war on Tigray was not about defeating a political opponent or asserting control in war, but about preventing future generations of Tigrayans from being born and this is a clear act of genocide as defined under international law. 

Women and girls were gang-raped repeatedly, sometimes for days or weeks, often in front of family members. Some were forced to watch their relatives being killed. Pregnant women and young girls were not spared.

According to the CITG report, many survivors reported being forced to watch the killing of their relatives, while others were subjected to sexual violence as their loved ones were held at gunpoint. The Commission documented cases where families were deliberately targeted. In 24.51% of reported incidents (17,737 cases), family members were forced to witness rape. In 13.7% of cases (9,504 incidents), relatives were forced to commit rape themselves.

Brothers were forced to rape sisters. Husbands were forced to witness the rape of their wives. Family members who resisted were immediately killed in front of others. These crimes, committed predominantly by Eritrean soldiers, were intentionally designed to cause irreversible physical injury, profound psychological trauma, and the permanent destruction of family structures and community cohesion.

The CITG report also documents the scale and primary perpetrators of sexual violence in Tigray. According to the Commission’s findings (pp. 113), Eritrean soldiers were responsible for the highest rate of rape at 54.47%, followed by Ethiopian soldiers at 35.66%, and Amhara militia and Fano at 4.88%. The Commission also documented cases where perpetrators from different groups committed rapes together, including joint attacks by Eritrean soldiers, Ethiopian soldiers, and Amhara militia and Fano.

Amnesty International documented that between February and April 2021 alone, more than 1,288 cases of sexual violence were registered at health centers in Tigray. A 2022 UN investigation confirmed widespread rape and sexual violence by all parties, with Ethiopian and Eritrean soldiers using sexual slavery as a systematic weapon.

One study estimated that around one in ten women and girls in Tigray were subjected to sexual violence during the war on Tigray. The real numbers are much higher, as most health facilities across Tigray were looted or deliberately destroyed, making it impossible for many survivors to seek medical care or report what happened to them.

The same genocidal intent was visible in the destruction of religious and cultural sites. Eritrean soldiers systematically destroyed churches, historic manuscripts, mosques, monasteries, and other sites central to Tigrayan identity, killing priests and desecrating holy sites. According to Mekelle University’s Cultural Heritage Institute, at least 200 religious or cultural sites were damaged or targeted.

They also looted homes, businesses, hospitals, universities, and government offices, and confiscated or destroyed crops and livestock, leaving entire communities facing starvation. A 2022 joint report by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International documented how Eritrean soldiers, alongside Amhara forces, systematically stripped Tigrayans of their means of survival. The looting was selective and targeted by ethnicity.

The destruction went far beyond looting. Eritrean and Ethiopian soldiers deliberately prevented Tigrayan farmers from ploughing or cultivating their land through direct threats and intimidation. According to witness testimonies, soldiers warned civilians, “We are here fighting to die and you want to plough?”

In June 2021, the BBC reported that soldiers told Tigrayan farmers: “You won’t plough, you won’t harvest, and if you try we will punish you.” This was the systematic starvation of an entire population. In remote villages, farmers were forced to plough at night and work in darkness before dawn, with scouts posted to warn of approaching soldiers.

This was not typical wartime looting but a deliberate attempt to strip Tigray of its resources, destroy its institutions, and prevent any possibility of recovery. The goal was to leave Tigray economically devastated and culturally erased.

Eritrean soldiers also waged environmental genocide. According to the CITG Volume I report published on October 29, 2025, systematic environmental destruction caused an estimated $46.6 billion in damage. The destruction included 53% of Tigray’s forest ecosystems (over 600,000 hectares), devastation of soil and water resources across 145,000 hectares, local wildlife extinctions, and chemical contamination of land. Eritrean soldiers were identified as the primary perpetrators of this environmental destruction. This was a deliberate campaign to destroy the means of survival in Tigray.

The destruction extended to the foundations of civilian life. The CITG Social Sector report documents $10.86 billion in damage to health, education, cultural heritage, and social welfare systems. Eritrean soldiers were responsible for the largest share: 56.3% of damage to education facilities, 43.9% to health facilities, and approximately 40% to cultural heritage and religious institutions. Ethiopian soldiers and Amhara militia and Fano were responsible for the rest of the destruction. These acts of deliberate destruction show a coordinated collective campaign to eliminate not just Tigrayans but the very possibility of Tigrayan life continuing.

Beyond the environmental and social infrastructure damage, the Commission’s preliminary assessment of Tigray’s productive sector reveals approximately $83.84 billion in total damage and losses across agriculture, manufacturing, trade, and services.

An additional $5 billion in damage was inflicted on public infrastructure, including water, sanitation, transport, energy, and telecommunications systems. This was done systematically by design to deprive millions of access to clean water, electricity, mobility, and communication. These reports confirm a comprehensive campaign to destroy the economic, material, and institutional foundations of life in Tigray. For the Commission’s preliminary reports and ongoing documentation, visit here.

Even after the November 2022 Pretoria peace agreement, Eritrean soldiers continued to commit mass atrocities. Amnesty International documented that between late October 2022 and January 2023, Eritrean soldiers stationed in parts of Tigray engaged in house-to-house searches, extrajudicial killings of civilians, and continued sexual violence. These violations occurred even after the peace agreement, showing that the violence was never about resolving a political conflict but about destroying Tigrayans as a people.

What makes these crimes genocidal is not only their scale or brutality, but their clear intent. The perpetrators themselves made their motives known. They explicitly stated they were there to destroy Tigrayans, to erase Tigrayan culture, and to end Tigrayan bloodlines. The pattern of violence, the language used during attacks, the targeting of cultural sites, and the systematic use of sexual violence and gang rape to prevent births all point to one conclusion: Eritrea under Isaias did not enter Tigray to fight a political movement. It entered to commit genocide.

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Rewriting Genocide

In the aftermath of a genocide, the battle over truth can be as dangerous as the war itself. This is why the revisionism practiced by figures like General Tsadkan Gebretensae is so dangerous.

Tsadkan Gebretensae, a Tigrayan general now working closely with Abiy Ahmed’s regime, has taken on the role of deliberately rewriting recent history to provide Abiy with political cover. He has betrayed not only the truth but also the victims of the genocide he claims to represent.

Tsadkan consistently emphasizes the atrocities committed only by Eritrean soldiers while downplaying the crimes committed by Ethiopian soldiers under Abiy Ahmed’s command. This selective blame allows Abiy Ahmed to present himself as a reluctant participant in the Tigray genocide rather than one of its chief architects.

The Mahbere Dego massacre is a clear example of this betrayal. In a recent televised interview on October 10, 2025, with NBC Ethiopia in Amharic, General Tsadkan claimed that the massacres in Mahbere Dego and Bora Selewa were committed by Eritrean soldiers. This is a complete lie, and it is a lie that contradicts overwhelming evidence documented by international media and human rights organizations.

The Mahbere Dego massacre was documented through video footage filmed by Ethiopian soldiers themselves. The soldiers in the videos were speaking Amharic, and their uniforms displayed the markings of the Ethiopian flag. 

In the footage, Ethiopian soldiers can be heard urging one another not to waste bullets and cheering each other on as they executed unarmed Tigrayan men at point-blank range before throwing their bodies off a cliff. Bellingcat (April 1, 2021 and June 24, 2021), working with CNN, Newsy, and BBC Africa Eye, geolocated the videos and confirmed that the massacre took place near Mahbere Dego in January 2021.

The Mahbere Dego massacre was carried out under orders from senior Ethiopian military officers. According to consistent and credible testimonies from captives and eyewitnesses, the 2nd Brigade, 2nd Battalion of the 25th Division was the primary unit involved. Colonel Sofian Sheikh Mohammed Kelif Ahmed, then Commander of the 25th Division, issued the order to kill and was later promoted to Brigadier General despite his role in the massacre.

These testimonies also detail how the order moved through the division’s command hierarchy. Major Tamrat Lenjiso, the division’s Operations Officer, received the order from Colonel Sofian and oversaw its execution. As of this article’s publication, he serves as head of the military training center at the 6th Command in Fiche, Oromia region.

Colonel Tesfaye Burkesa, Commander of the 1st Brigade, was also part of the chain of command responsible for the massacre. Sergeant Zenebe Werq, a radio operator within the 2nd Battalion, confirmed the transmission of Colonel Sofian’s order through the battalion’s command structure.

In addition to his role in the Mahbere Dego massacre, according to credible testimonies and eyewitnesses, Colonel Tesfaye Burkesa had also ordered the extrajudicial killing of six civilians inside the Commercial Bank of Ethiopia in Axum on December 15, 2020. The killings were carried out in cold blood inside a public institution and were documented by survivors and eyewitnesses.

Despite these documented crimes, he is currently deployed with the United Nations Mission in the Republic of South Sudan (UNMISS). The deployment of an officer credibly implicated in mass atrocities raises serious questions about the UN’s vetting procedures for peacekeeping personnel and undermines the credibility of its peacekeeping missions.

A peacekeeping mission cannot credibly protect civilians while employing individuals accused of mass atrocities. Colonel Tesfaye Burkesa should be immediately suspended from his UN duties and investigated, and ultimately held accountable for the crimes he committed during the Tigray genocide.

Ethiopia has continued to contribute troops to UN peacekeeping missions despite the extensive, well-documented mass atrocities committed by its forces during the war on Tigray. Given the systematic nature of these genocidal massacres and extrajudicial killings of civilians in Tigray, and the documented promotion of perpetrators within Ethiopian military ranks, Ethiopia should not be allowed to deploy personnel to UN missions until a credible, transparent vetting process is established that excludes individuals implicated in serious crimes.

These systemic failures make the documented accounts even more important. The evidence of Ethiopian military responsibility for the Mahbere Dego massacre and other documented mass atrocities extends beyond command testimonies alone. The soldiers who carried out the killings were later captured by the Tigray Defense Forces (TDF).

Some of these soldiers appeared on television, confessed to their crimes, and apologized publicly. Their testimonies were broadcast on Tigray Television. Among those captured was the soldier who had filmed the executions himself. Identified in investigative reports as “Fafi”, his real name is Sitotaw Alemayehu. In his testimony, aired in Amharic on Tigray Television, he provided a detailed account of how the massacre was carried out.

Yet General Tsadkan now claims Eritrean soldiers were responsible. This becomes even more damning when you consider his own role. As Vice President of the previous Tigray interim administration under Getachew Reda, Tsadkan was part of the top three leadership that released 449 captured Ethiopian soldiers, 444 men and 5 women, in two separate rounds. 

The first round on March 22, 2024 included 212 male soldiers and one female soldier. The second round on June 25, 2024 included 232 male soldiers and four female soldiers. Both releases were carried out at night.

According to credible accounts from within the interim administration, before the release, General Tsadkan approached the then Vice President of the Tigray Supreme Court, who was directly involved in investigating the captured Ethiopian soldiers and documenting the genocidal crimes they had committed. General Tsadkan asked him if there was any legal basis to halt the criminal investigation and justify their release.

The Vice President, who had lost his own son during the war on Tigray, was outraged. He strongly objected and told General Tsadkan that even considering the release of soldiers who had committed genocide against the people of Tigray would itself be a grave crime. He argued that the perpetrators should be prosecuted and brought to justice, and that only those found innocent through due process would be released according to the rule of law.

Even international humanitarian organizations familiar with detainee conditions privately expressed concern that releasing soldiers implicated in such grave crimes before any form of justice or accountability would undermine the rights of victims and violate basic principles of international humanitarian law.

The Vice President remained firm in his position. Disappointed by his refusal to compromise, General Tsadkan and Getachew Reda forced him to resign under pressure. It was only after his removal that the interim administration proceeded with the release of the 449 captured Ethiopian soldiers in two rounds.

These were soldiers who had confessed on camera to committing mass atrocities in Tigray, including stating that they had been ordered to kill any Tigrayan. Despite their public confessions, General Tsadkan and the interim administration team he served in released them, as a gesture to appease Abiy Ahmed. Now Tsadkan takes this betrayal further by denying their crimes and shifting the blame onto the Eritrean soldiers instead.

Ethiopian soldiers across Tigray made similar confessions. Major Berhanu Biramo Irbora, Commander of the 4th Regiment of the 53rd Division, testified as a prisoner of war that Ethiopian soldiers were ordered to kill and eliminate Tigrayans, including children, the elderly, and even visually impaired people.

Major Berhanu also confessed to systematic looting of homes, including gold and other valuables, and the burning of houses, and the widespread commission of rape by Ethiopian soldiers against Tigrayan women and girls.

One can only imagine what those released Ethiopian soldiers must feel now, hearing a Tigrayan general deny their confessed crimes and rewrite history to protect the brutal dictator they served.

Another documented massacre from early January 2021, the mass killings in Bora Selewa, similarly demonstrates how Ethiopian soldiers carried out widespread extrajudicial killings that went largely unreported by much of the international media. According to detailed documentation by TGHAT, based on witness accounts, survivors, and family members, about 175 unarmed civilians were massacred in Bora Selewa between January 8 and 10, 2021.

Testimonies and eyewitness accounts indicate that multiple Ethiopian military units within the 32nd Division took part in the Bora Selewa massacre. The division’s main Operations Officer, Lieutenant Colonel Getnet Gira Kebede, played the main role in coordinating the massacre. Several other commanders and officers within the division were also implicated, according to verified survivor testimonies.

Despite his documented involvement in these crimes, Lieutenant Colonel Getnet remains in active service and currently serves in the western part of Ethiopia.

The Bora Selewa massacre received limited international media attention and was largely overshadowed by other mass atrocities in Tigray, with the Los Angeles Times being among the few major outlets to report on it. Yet in his interview on October 10, 2025, General Tsadkan similarly attributed the massacre in Bora Selewa to Eritrean soldiers, despite eyewitness accounts identifying Ethiopian soldiers as the sole perpetrators.

After I asked him for his opinion on General Tsadkan’s interview, a friend of mine who has been actively documenting crimes committed during the war on Tigray said something I have not been able to stop thinking about: “It also makes you wonder how much of what we know from the past as truth today is actually true.”

He is absolutely right. If General Tsadkan can lie this openly about events that happened in front of cameras, events we all witnessed, what else has been distorted? What other history has been rewritten for political gain? How can we trust anything he has said before if he is willing to deny what we know happened? For a Tigrayan general who claims to represent Tigray, denying well-documented Ethiopian crimes to protect Abiy Ahmed is a betrayal.

Getachew Reda also engages in this pattern of revisionism. He has repeatedly worked to portray Abiy Ahmed as a peacemaker rather than the architect of the Tigray genocide. In his December 17, 2025, article in The Africa Report, Getachew praised Abiy for “rescuing” the Pretoria peace deal, writing: “That Abiy helped rescue the deal may be inconvenient to some narratives, but it is a fact.” This framing presents Abiy as a reasonable actor who saved the peace process.

But the reality is very different. This is the same Abiy Ahmed whose forces tried multiple times to eliminate Getachew Reda through drone strikes on his home in Mekelle during the war on Tigray. In an interview with The New Yorker, Getachew described one attack as a “direct hit” that killed nine people. Despite this, Getachew now works to protect Abiy from accountability.

Just two weeks later, on December 30, 2025, Getachew Reda appeared on the same NBC Ethiopia platform and made another false claim. He asserted that 76% of the crimes in Tigray were committed by Eritrean soldiers, with the remaining 24% by Amhara militia and Fano. This deliberate distortion erases the well-documented crimes of Ethiopian soldiers under Abiy Ahmed’s command. In the same interview, Getachew also stated, “I will no longer use the word genocide while I am working with the federal government.” This admission shows that his revisionism is driven by political survival through the denial of genocide. Like General Tsadkan, Getachew is rewriting history to absolve Abiy Ahmed of responsibility for the genocide.

For someone who once served as Tigray’s interim administrator, reducing genocide to a numbers game while absolving its main architect is a betrayal of every civilian victim whose suffering he now denies. Genocide is not a matter of percentages. Getachew’s focus on attribution rather than accountability shows he is protecting Abiy Ahmed, not honoring the victims.

On February 3, 2026, Abiy Ahmed told the Ethiopian Parliament that his falling out with Eritrea stemmed from atrocities Eritrean forces committed in Tigray, not from disputes over Red Sea access. He said he had repeatedly dispatched former foreign minister Gedu Andargachew with a clear message to Eritrean authorities: “Do not terrorize the people of Tigray, do not loot their wealth; the fight is with the TPLF, not the people of Tigray.” He added that he later sent the then Deputy Prime Minister Demeke Mekonnen to convey the same message.

However, his own former Foreign Minister, Gedu Andargachew, publicly contradicted this account on February 6, 2026, stating that Eritrean and Ethiopian forces operated “as a single force” until the Pretoria Agreement.

Gedu confirmed that he traveled to Eritrea in early January 2021 but described a very different mission. He said the visit was intended not to protest atrocities, but to congratulate Isaias Afwerki on the joint military campaign against the TPLF, thank Eritrea for its support to Ethiopian forces, and discuss how both governments would respond to international allegations of human rights violations. 

Abiy is attempting to shift all blame to Eritrea. This coordinated blame-shifting by Abiy, General Tsadkan, and Getachew Reda serves one clear purpose: protecting Abiy Ahmed from accountability for the Tigray genocide he orchestrated.

It was Abiy Ahmed who invaded Tigray, displaced millions, invited Eritrea to commit genocide, and handed Western and Southern Tigray to the Amhara region. Now, Abiy uses these occupied Tigrayan territories as bargaining chips to maintain power by keeping the Amhara authorities on his side. Getachew Reda knows this. Yet he paints Abiy as a peacemaker.

Both General Tsadkan and Getachew Reda are deliberately working to absolve Abiy Ahmed of his genocide crimes by shifting all blame to Eritrea. They are trying to change the story from “Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Amhara militia and Fano committed genocide together” to “Eritrea alone was responsible”, protecting the brutal dictator who destroyed Tigray while claiming to represent the victims. This narrative shift may also serve a broader political purpose.

Placing all blame on Eritrea aligns with Abiy Ahmed’s strategic interests, allowing him to mobilize Ethiopian public opinion against Eritrea in pursuit of his ambition for Red Sea access.

This is what General Tsadkan and Getachew Reda are working to hide from the public. In February 2021, Pekka Haavisto, then the European Union’s Special Envoy to Ethiopia and Finland’s former Foreign Minister, publicly stated that when he met with Ethiopian leadership, “they really used this kind of language, that they are going to destroy the Tigrayans, they are going to wipe out the Tigrayans for 100 years.”

Pekka Haavisto was direct about what this meant: “If you wipe out your national minority, well, what is it?” he said. “You cannot destroy all the people, you cannot destroy all the population in Tigray. And I think that’s very obvious, that we have to react, because it looks for us like ethnic cleansing.” 

Abiy Ahmed’s genocidal intent against the people of Tigray was clear to international observers from the beginning. This intent was evident not only in the language described by Pekka Haavisto, but also in documented acts carried out by Ethiopian soldiers under Abiy’s command.

These crimes include indiscriminate airstrikes on civilians in Togoga and Adi Daero, an IDP camp at Dedebit Elementary School in northwestern Tigray, repeated airstrikes on civilian residential areas in Mekelle, including a kindergarten, mass killings such as the Debre Abay massacre, the dumping of bodies into the Tekeze River, widespread torture and arbitrary detention, the weaponization of mass starvation through a prolonged siege, the forced displacement of more than two million Tigrayans, systematic sexual violence used as a weapon of war, and the ethnic cleansing of Tigrayans from Western Tigray.

Yet General Tsadkan and Getachew Reda now work to protect him from accountability for these crimes, including those committed under a total communications blackout.

Eritrean soldiers committed heinous atrocities across every village and town they entered in Tigray. In Axum, Mariam Dengelat, Goda, Mariam Shewito, Kokob Tsibah, Western Tigray, Hitsats, Zalambessa, Irob, Hawzen, Adigrat, Wukro, Mekelle, Kola Tembien, Hagere Selam, Tahtay Adiyabo, Shire, and other districts, they massacred civilians, gang raped Tigrayan women and girls, destroyed communities and infrastructure, looted homes, businesses, and government offices. They also indiscriminately shelled civilian and residential areas, causing widespread destruction and mass displacement.

The sheer brutality of Eritrean soldiers was also described vividly by residents in Shire in December 2020. Elders told reporters that civilians had been “slaughtered like chickens,” with bodies left behind to be “eaten by hyenas.” They also described widespread looting and vandalism.

Accounts from other locations emerged across Tigray. Residents of Mariam Shewito reported that Eritrean soldiers remained in the area and prevented families from searching for missing relatives or burying the dead. Left exposed, many of the bodies were mauled by wild animals. One resident said he found the remains of his son “five or six days” after he was killed. Only his hands, feet, and head were left beside his torn clothes and university ID. “The hyenas had eaten the rest,” he said.

Similar patterns of cruelty were documented in Goda. Families searching for relatives who had been taken by Eritrean soldiers were initially told by the local Eritrean commander that the men were alive and had been taken to Senafe, Eritrea, along with looted property from the Goda Bottle and Glass Factory.

Days later, the same commander admitted that they had been executed shortly after being forcibly taken and warned the families against holding public funerals. For more than two weeks, the killings were kept hidden from the community, and mourning was forced underground until Eritrean troops withdrew from the area.

These were only a few examples of the barbaric cruelty shown by Eritrean soldiers. The same pattern was documented in Axum, where communities were forced into mass burials, and in the Adwa area, where survivors were prevented from burying their relatives. Similar abuses were reported in many other parts of Tigray invaded by Eritrean soldiers. 

In Mariam Dengelat, the scale of the savagery was horrific. The massacre took place at a historical church during the annual celebration of the feast of Saint Mary the Virgin. Local church officials estimate that at least 164 civilians were killed over two days in late November 2020. 

On November 30, Eritrean soldiers indiscriminately killed civilians who had gathered for the feast. The following day, December 1, they returned and carried out door-to-door executions across nearby villages. Among those killed were 21 youth church choirs, 20 girls and one boy, who had escaped the church massacre but were hunted down and executed the next day.

According to a report from the Financial Times, a 78-year-old Orthodox priest, Liqe Tiguhan Abraha Gebre, stayed inside his house until the killers had gone, then rushed outside with his wooden cane and crucifix to cover the bodies of his four sons and two grandsons.

“You speak like us in Tigrinya. You are Eritreans. We are brothers. Come in and eat with us,” the priest had told six soldiers. Instead, they took six men to the river, tied their hands behind their backs, and shot them in the head. “They killed unarmed human beings. They are barbarians,” Liqe Tiguhan Abraha said.

One witness, Yemane Gebremariam, who lost his daughter and newlywed son in the massacre, described watching a mother holding a child and shouting “my son, my son” being singled out and killed, her seven-month-old baby falling to the ground.

Survivors reported that on the second day, mothers were forced at gunpoint to tie the hands of their children and husbands behind their backs and watch as they were executed. “In our lifetime, or even in our history, we have not seen such wickedness,” Yemane said. “They killed youngsters who were wearing white clothes after having taken the Holy Communion.”

Outside the church, 53-year-old Emnti Gobezay wept as she described what she had witnessed. “I saw them with my own eyes,” she said, recounting how Eritrean soldiers caught and killed her 20-year-old son. “The Ethiopian government and its Eritrean supporters want to wipe out the people of Tigray,” Emnti said.

The evidence of crimes committed by the Eritrean soldiers is undeniable. Every crime must be documented, and every perpetrator must be held accountable. But emphasizing genocidal crimes committed by Eritrean soldiers while erasing those committed by Ethiopian soldiers and Amhara militia and Fano is not justice. It is revisionism, and it betrays the victims of the Tigray genocide.

The genocide against the people of Tigray was a joint project carried out by all three forces. Eritrean soldiers, Ethiopian soldiers, and Amhara militia and Fano all committed genocidal crimes against Tigrayan civilians.

Abiy Ahmed invited Eritrean soldiers into Tigray and deployed his own army alongside Amhara militia and Fano against the civilian population. All three must be held accountable. The evidence is extensive and well-documented by international media, human rights organizations, and even by footage the perpetrators themselves recorded.

Attempts to rewrite this history do not serve justice; they serve the perpetrators. By protecting Abiy Ahmed from accountability, those who deny or minimize the mass atrocities committed by Ethiopian soldiers and the Ethiopian state become accomplices to genocide denial.

The victims of the Tigray genocide deserve truth, justice, and accountability. Nothing less will honor their suffering or prevent such mass atrocities from happening again.

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Author’s Note: A shorter version of this article was previously published on Ethiopia Insight. This extended version provides additional documentation, context, and analysis.