Eritrean troops fighting in Ethiopia’s northern region of Tigray killed hundreds of people in Aksum mainly over two days in November, witnesses say.

The mass killings on 28 and 29 November may amount to a crime against humanity, Amnesty International says in a report.

An eyewitness told the BBC how bodies remained unburied on the streets for days, with many being eaten by hyenas.

Ethiopia and Eritrea, which both officially deny Eritrean soldiers are in Tigray, have not commented.

The Ethiopian Human Rights commission says it is investigating the allegations.

The conflict erupted on 4 November 2020 when Ethiopia’s government launched an offensive to oust the region’s ruling TPLF party after its fighters captured federal military bases in Tigray.

Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, told parliament on 30 November that “not a single civilian was killed” during the operation.

But witnesses have recounted how on that day they began burying some of the bodies of unarmed civilians killed by Eritrean soldiers – many of them boys and men shot on the streets or during house-to-house raids.

Amnesty’s report has high-resolution satellite imagery from 13 December showing disturbed earth consistent with recent graves at two churches in Aksum, an ancient city considered sacred by Ethiopia’s Orthodox Christians.

A communications blackout and restricted access to Tigray has meant reports of what has gone on in the conflict have been slow to emerge.

In Aksum, electricity and phone networks reportedly stopped working on the first day of the conflict.

Shelling by Ethiopian and Eritrea forces to the west of Aksum began on Thursday 19 November, according to people in the city.

“This attack continued for five hours, and was non-stop. People who were at churches, cafes, hotels and their residence died. There was no retaliation from any armed force in the city – it literally targeted civilians,” a civil servant in Aksum told the BBC.

Amnesty has gathered similar and multiple testimonies describing the continuous shelling that evening of civilians.

Once in control of the city, soldiers, generally identified as Eritrean, searched for TPLF soldiers and militias or “anyone with a gun”, Amnesty said.

“There were a lot of... house-to-house killings,” one woman told the rights group.

There is compelling evidence that Ethiopian and Eritrean troops carried out “multiple war crimes in their offensive to take control of Aksum”, Amnesty’s Deprose Muchena says.

What sparked the killings?

For the next week, the testimonies say Ethiopia troops were mainly in Aksum – the Eritreans had pushed on east to the town of Adwa.

A witness told the BBC how the Ethiopian military looted banks in the city in that time.

The Eritrean forces reportedly returned a week later. The fighting on Sunday 28 November was triggered by an assault of poorly armed pro-TPLF fighters, according to Amnesty’s report.

Between 50 and 80 men from Aksum targeted an Eritrean position on a hill overlooking the city in the morning.

A 26-year-old man who participated in the attack told Amnesty: “We wanted to protect our city so we attempted to defend it especially from Eritrean soldiers... They knew how to shoot and they had radios, communications... I didn’t have a gun, just a stick.”

It is unclear how long the fighting lasted, but that afternoon Eritrean trucks and tanks drove into Aksum, Amnesty reports.

Witnesses say Eritrean soldiers went on a rampage, shooting at unarmed civilian men and boys who were out on the streets – continuing until the evening. (BBC)

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