Survivors recount horrific details of Mai Kadra massacre.

With communications gradually being restored to parts of Ethiopia’s war-hit Tigray region, survivors and residents in the town of Mai Kadra have been able to share harrowing accounts of the slaughter of civilians more than a month ago, the worst confirmed atrocity in a weeks-long conflict between government forces and the now-fugitive regional government.

On November 12, nearly two weeks after the start of the fighting in the northern region, an Amnesty International investigation cited witnesses as saying that forces linked to the embattled Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) had gone on a rampage in the small town three days earlier.

Armed with weapons including machetes and knives, the attackers hacked and stabbed residents to death, the witnesses told Amnesty, which said it could confirm “the massacre of a very large number of civilians” after examining and verifying gruesome photographs and videos from the scene.

Days later, a preliminary investigation by a government-appointed rights watchdog stated that there may be as many as 600 victims, saying the killings were committed by a local youth group with the support of other Tigrayan civilians, police and militia.nullThe massacre in Mai Kadra is the worst known attack on civilians during the conflict [File: Eduardo Soteras/AFP]Home to up to 45,000 people of Tigrayan, Amhara and other ethnic origins, Mai Kadra had been under the control of the TPLF until its forces retreated from the town a day after the massacre as Ethiopian government troops made advances in western Tigray.

Despite the Ethiopian government’s capture of the Tigrayan capital of Mekelle on November 28, fighting between the TPLF and Ethiopian army units is believed to be continuing in parts of rural Tigray. Swaths of the region remain inaccessible to journalists and aid workers, making it hard to verify claims from all sides and leaving observers fearing that additional war crimes may yet be uncovered.

The federal government imposed a communications blackout when it began its military operation on November 4, but Mai Kadra has had its phone services restored for a little more than a week now. Al Jazeera has been able to communicate with a total of six survivors, witnesses and relatives of victims who were in Mai Kadra on November 9 and said the bloodletting went on unabated for nearly 24 hours.
Solomon Chaklu said he had come to Mai Kadra from the town of Dansha to inspect a vehicle he had intended to buy.

“Police and TPLF youth militias went all over town searching for non-Tigrayans to kill,” Solomon told Al Jazeera on the phone. “At around 3pm, police and the youths with machetes came to the home we were hiding in,” he said.

“They dragged me outside, where I saw maybe 20 or 30 bodies of people who lay dying or were dead. I thought it was the end for me.”

The Ethiopian government maintains that a TPLF-backed Tigrayan youth militia dubbed the “Samri” singled out men like Solomon and Ferede, who are of ethnic Amhara descent. There have been long-standing tensions between Tigrayans and Amhara and militia members from the Amhara region neighbouring Tigray have taken part in fighting against the TPLF’s forces alongside the Ethiopian army.

Solomon said he, his friend Ferede Leu and a third man were asked to produce ID cards that would identify their ethnic group. The third man was left alone after he pleaded for his life in Tigrinya, the language of the assailants, according to Solomon.

“They tried to kill me,” he said. “I was surrounded by four men and one of them struck me in the head and back with his machete. I remember the others laughing as they watched him.”

When he regained consciousness, Solomon was informed that his friend, Ferede, had been hacked to death. He himself was bleeding profusely and the next day was taken to hospital in the city of Gonder some 260km (162 miles) away. Discharged after two weeks, he is currently recovering from multiple machete blows and a broken leg in his home in Dansha.

“Men turned into bloodthirsty beasts that day,” he said.
Ethiopian state media reported that the massacre was the result of surviving TPLF units taking out their frustration on the town’s residents after having been routed in battles with the Ethiopian army.

Hadas Mezgebu, whose husband of 17 years was murdered in front of the family’s home in Mai Kadra, said she believed the attackers “had planned this for days”.

“They had asked to see people’s identity cards. When the killings started, they knew which homes to go to. They knew my husband was Amhara.”

On the day of the killings, Tilahun Getnet says he hid in the home of his half-brother, Tebekaw Zewdu, who had lived in Mai Kadra for nearly 30 years.

“We heard the Samri gang wasn’t targeting women and children, so we lay hidden just above the ceiling of my brother’s home for hours,” Tilahun said on the phone. “Twice they searched the home and left after only finding my brother’s wife and children.”

But the machete-wielding killers came back for a third search of the home and grew frustrated when they could not locate Tebekaw, 37. They began threatening his wife and son.

“When she refused to reveal where her husband was hidden, they seized their 11-year-old son and threatened to slaughter him if she didn’t reveal his husband’s whereabouts. That’s when my brother came out from hiding. They hacked him to death there, in front of his wife and son who screamed for mercy.”

Tilahun said his half-brother’s family has since moved out of Mai Kadra. “We can still hear the horrific sounds of that day when we dream at night.”

Thousands of people are thought to have been killed since fighting began in Tigray on November 4, with the United Nations saying that an estimated one million people have been displaced across the region, in addition to the nearly 50,000 who have fled to neighbouring Sudan.

In the Sudanese refugee camps, a number of Tigrayan refugees have told journalists they escaped after Tigrayan civilians in Mai Kadra had been killed by Ethiopian federal forces and members of an Amhara militia. Some said they had seen hundreds of bodies and described scenes of ethnically motivated attacks, including killings with knives and beatings.

Amid the divergent accounts, TPLF leader Debretsion Gebremichael has dismissed accusations of his forces’ involvement in any mass killings as “baseless”, while Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has said the federal forces have not killed a single civilian during their operation against the TPLF.

When probed by Al Jazeera, TPLF official Fesseha Tessema said the group is aware of killings involving Tigrayan victims. “The heinous crime committed against Tigrayans in Mai Kadra is just one among similar crimes that should be investigated by an international body,” he said.

Earlier this week, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet said there is “an urgent need” for independent monitoring of the developments in Tigray, warning that the “exceedingly worrying and volatile” situation “is spiralling out of control, with appalling impact on civilians”.

Amnesty, meanwhile, concursthere may be victims of additional atrocities among people of both ethnicities during the fighting, but its lead Ethiopia researcher said the organisation has no doubt as to who was behind the killings of November 9.

“We have had follow-up interviews with victims, who say the killers were provided support by armed local [TPLF] militia,” Fisseha Tekle, Amnesty’s lead Ethiopia researcher, told Al Jazeera. “Youth groups were armed with axes, machetes and knives and told to go home to home in search of Amhara men.”

While Ethiopian officials say the conflict is dwindling down and reject what they describe as outside “interference”, the United Nations continues to press the government to grant it access to people in war-torn areas to provide much-needed humanitarian aid.

Federal government must apologize to families of slain Zabarmari rice farmers.

A youth group, the North-east Youth Progressive Alliance, has called on the Federal Government to immediately apologize to the families of the Zabarmari rice farmers massacred last Saturday by Boko Haram insurgents.

Addressing journalists late Tuesday evening at the NUJ Press Centre, Bauchi, the spokesman of the group, Barrister Hussaini Saraki, described the statement by the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media, Mallam Garba Shehu, that the slain farmers did not get permission from the military before going to their farms as most unfortunate.

Describing the statement as uncalled for, Saraki declared that it must be withdrawn with apology tendered to Nigerians, adding that the current insecurity in the North was not what the people bargained for.

According to him, “Whoever made that statement is out of his mind. It is uncalled for and must be withdrawn and apologize to Nigerians immediately.

“The entire North is bleeding and no one seems to care; the leaders among us have chosen to remain silent, watching how innocent people are being slaughtered while thousands are displaced and made refugees in their own country.

“This was not part of the bargain made, neither was it the supposed dividend of democracy promised to our people.”

The group equally called on the Federal Government to ensure that the families of the slain farmers are adequately compensated with a view to relieving them of their pains.

Lamenting the various security challenges bedevilling the North, North-east Youth Progressive Alliance spokesman called on the government to, as a matter of urgency, bring to an end all forms of insecurity in the region.

The group called for the recruitment of Borno youths into the Nigerian Army, Police and Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), adding that such youths recruited should be deployed to help in the fight against insurgency in their state.

He stated that it was obvious that the current strategies deployed in the fight against insurgency in the North-East had failed, going by the fact that Boko Haram is still carrying out attacks, particularly the latest one.

Nigerian Army Promotes 81 Division Commander, Ahmed Taiwo, Who Claimed No Killing Occurred At Lekki Toll Gate Despite Evidence.

Despite video evidence that so many protesters were killed, Brigadier-General Taiwo, who has been representing the army at the sitting of the Judicial Panel of Inquiry set up by the Lagos State Government to unravel the mystery behind the incident, claimed no one was killed.

The Nigerian Army Council has approved the promotion of 421 senior officers from various ranks to the next higher rank.

Those promoted include 39 Brigadier-Generals to Major-Generals, 97 Colonels to Brigadier Generals, 105 Lieutenant-Colonels to Colonels and 180 Majors to Lieutenant-Colonels.

Among the Brigadier-Generals promoted to the rank of Major-General is Ahmed Ibrahim Taiwo, Commander of 81 Division of the Nigerian Army, the unit of the army that sent troops to Lekki Toll Gate in Lagos on the evening of October 20, 2020 to disperse peaceful protesters.

Nigerian Army Commander, Brigadier-General Ahmed Ibrahim Taiwo, Who Claimed No Killing Occurred At Lekki Toll Gate Despite Evidence Is Son Of Late Colonel Behind Killing Of Over 700 Civilians In 1967 Asaba Massacre0 Comments3 Days Ago

Despite video evidence that so many protesters were killed, Brigadier-General Taiwo, who has been representing the army at the sitting of the Judicial Panel of Inquiry set up by the Lagos State Government to unravel the mystery behind the incident, claimed no one was killed.

He has also given at least seven inconsistent accounts of what truly transpired at the Lekki Toll Gate that fateful night.

The most recent of his narrative came last Saturday when Taiwo told the panel that soldiers deployed to the scene led by Col. S.O. Bello, Commanding Officer of 65 Battalion, and Brig.-Gen. F.O. Omata actually went there with live ammunition – a claim totally in contrast with his earlier position on the issue. 

He, however, said the live ammunition was for backup purpose and not used by soldiers deployed to the scene.

Taiwo is son of a former military governor of Kwara State, Colonel Ibrahim Taiwo, famous for the massacre of over 700 persons in Asaba, Delta State, during the Civil War.

Lekki ‘massacre’: Mother of fake news

SIR: It was already late in the evening when I got a very short notice to be a guest on AriseTV to discuss the #EndSARS uprising from the northern perspective especially since agitations has begun to tend towards #EndInsecurityNow.

I had already stepped in front of camera with microphone already clipped to my shirt when the news of the alleged Lekki massacre broke. The general mood in the studio suddenly translated into individual inner rage and furry. From my distance, I watched as the program anchor grit her teeth and clench her fist in fury anytime she took a break off-camera, while I struggled to comprehend the “why?” and contend with my own share of the anger at the Nigerian military’s action, at the same time.

What followed was a deliberately orchestrated barrage of misinformation and fake news, occasioned by outrage and condemnation from local and international quarters. For the first time, local organizations, the international community, celebrities and the media were sold a dummy in which they fell for, hook line and sinker, qualifying this digital warfare as the mother of all fake news in Nigeria.

As the outrage began to ease and critical minds cared to dig, the reality that we are in the era of alternative facts where provable falsehood can easily be bandied around, dawned on us all.

The Headquarters 81 Division Nigerian Army since released a statement that they were only invited by the Lagos State government to restore normalcy in the wake of erupting violence and their intervention followed all laid down procedures for Internal Security operations and all the soldiers involved acted within the confines of the Rules of Engagement (ROE) for Internal Security Operations. The official Police report also confirmed that six policemen and about four civilians lost their lives in the #EndSARS protest.

These facts have since been established by credible media platforms.  Days after the alleged massacre, neither a single bullet-ridden body has been sighted nor any family of victims has reported the death of their relations during the incident. In fact, credible fact-checking sites have debunked footages purported to be from the alleged massacre. Leading the pack in debunking fake images from the EndSARS protests is the world’s oldest news agency, Agence France-Presse (AFP) which describes bodies recovered from Lekki Toll Shooting in Nigeria as FALSE (https://cutt.ly/lekkiafp)

Many of the people reported to have been killed have since come out to debunk such reports. For instance, a photo of a young corps member shot in the stomach which went viral on social media claiming that he died as a result of the shooting was debunked by the young man himself who said that the picture was taken on a movie set earlier in the year.

While many such similar cases paraded as victims such as a certain Steve Abbey and Nollywood movie star Eniola Badmus have all come out to deny claims, weighing the available fact versus allegations, the truth of the Lekki matter will not be far from a rational thinker.

But that is exactly what fake news is meant to serve – confusion. Reportedly invented by Adolf Hitler in 1930, fake news was used against his antagonist to help the rise of fascism that led to the destruction that we talk about today.

Fake news creates a post-truth society where it becomes difficult to determine what is true and what is fake, allowing people to stick to what they believe in instead of taking an informed stance simply because it is difficult to interpret reality since people are unable to engage in critical thinking and cannot understand complexities. Such a condition makes it easy for totalitarianism to permeate. That exactly what is happening in our social media space today.

As citizens, we are glad that the international community has proven time and again that they will stand on the side of our people when the need arises. I like their swift reaction in standing for what is right; but apologizing when one is wrong, is also the right thing to do. So, would they now apologize?