Around mid-June, the Tigray region saw some of the most intense fighting since the war broke out in November last year. The Ethiopian national army and its allies faced off against the Tigrayan resistance in the highly contested rugged terrains of Tembien – kola Tembien to be exact.
After heavy fighting in central Tigray Woredas of Abergele-Yechila, entire towns have been destroyed and lay in rubbles. Mirgit, Sewate-Higum, Kofawa, and several other towns in central Tigray Woredas are now sights that cause anguish for Tigrayans who lived in them.
The towns and villages were shelled by the Ethiopian and Eritrean armies in operation Alula as they retreated from central Tigray. Civilians told DW that most of the dwellings and public property were leveled in the fighting that took place in the third week of June.
“We have suffered economic and psychological scarring,” one resident told DW. DW reporters took footage of the ruins of a burned home - an elderly gentleman and his young son, barely 20 years old, used to lodge in the now destroyed house. They appeared dejected, unable to accept the fact that everything they owned was destroyed.
“They burned everything, the Hay, our crops. Everything!” What is left in place of their crops is soot. All of it burned, keeping in form with the trend in the last eight months. Every battle that took place in Tigray was followed by reprisal attacks on Civilians.
Usually, the reprisal attacks are directed at the majority agrarian community in Tigray. Most notoriously burning crops; killing cattle; destroying farming equipment and water systems. These acts have been so effective in their wickedness that millions in Tigray are either wallowing in famine conditions or on the brink of famine.
“We’ve never seen or heard anything like this. A government deliberately destroying its own people, it’s unheard of.”
“When they came [Ethiopian soldiers], everyone started running for their lives. Men, women, and children. We ran away to the hills.”
“As we fled, I saw from afar soldiers burning homes. And after they had left, we came down to the village.”
To the villagers’ horror, they lost everything, the house fence included. What waited for them was so acutely heart-breaking, the old man and his family opted to leave their small village and find refuge at a relative’s place nearby.
The man’s son told DW reporters, “Our parents were disgusted to even look at the house; we just left for a safer place.” “We owned 25 donkeys and a dozen cattle, and with nothing to feed them, the cattle are growing hungry, so are we.” With only the cloth on his back, the teenager is relatable to millions of other Tigrayans who lost everything after the war.
With fighting simmering in most parts of Tigray, civilians can now hope to take part in farming activities in the rainy season – from June to September. Many Tigrayans rue last year’s uncollected harvest when the war first broke out. Coupled with a locust invasion in the south and southeastern Tigray, the lack of food was exacerbated immensely.
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