“We Will Erase You from This Land”

Crimes Against Humanity and Ethnic Cleansing in Ethiopia’s Western Tigray Zone

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On January 17, 2021, Fano militia and local Walqayte and Amhara residents rounded up dozens of male Tigrayan residents of Adi Goshu. Amhara Special Forces (ASF) took about 60 of them to the Tekeze River bridge that same day, and summarily executed them. This is the massacre Goitom escaped from. Residents and the few survivors believed the killings were a revenge attack after ASF forces suffered heavy losses during fighting with Tigrayan forces near the river the previous night. The persecution of Tigrayans in Adi Goshu escalated in the aftermath of the massacre, prompting a mass exodus from the town. For several weeks, Tigrayans who fled across the Tekeze bridge could see the bodies, which had remained unburied, and served as a terrifying reminder of the atrocities committed.