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Hyenas scavenge on corpses as Tigray forces retreat
Farouk Chothia & Teklemariam Bekit - BBC News
Wed, October 19, 2022
Tigray is a sparsely populated mountainous region
Hyenas scavenging on the corpses of villagers, cities and towns hit in air strikes, elderly men and young women conscripted into armies - these are the horrific accounts emerging from a war that has left tens, if not hundreds, of thousands dead in Ethiopia's historic region of Tigray.
The region was once a tourist attraction, with visitors drawn to its rock-hewn churches, Muslim shrines and ancient scripts in the Ge'ez language.
Now Tigray is the site of a vicious war, as the Ethiopian and Eritrean armies on the one side, and the army of the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) on the other, fight for control in a region that has long been seen as the key to power in Ethiopia - or what was historically part of Abyssinia.
It has been under a blockade for 17 months - with no banking, telephone or internet services - and no media access.
Over the last two years, the fortunes of the two sides have constantly changed on the battlefield, with:
Ethiopian and Eritrean forces capturing the Tigray capital, Mekelle, in November 2020 after the TPLF was accused of launching a rebellion
The Tigrayans launching a counter-offensive in the neighbouring Amhara and Afar regions, bringing them close to the federal capital, Addis Ababa, about a year later
The Ethiopian and Eritrean forces regaining territory in Tigray - including the key city of Shire - in the latest round of fighting, raising the prospect of them trying to capture Mekelle once more.
"There are at least 500,000 Eritrean and Ethiopian federal troops in active combat, plus 200,000 from the Tigrayan side," said Alex de Waal, the executive director of the US-based World Peace Foundation.
He added that after more than 50 days of non-stop fighting, this week the Tigrayan defence lines around Shire could no longer hold out because of a lack of ammunition.
"It's a big setback for the Tigrayans. It leaves civilians exposed to massacre, rape and starvation," Prof De Waal said, though the Ethiopian government has promised aid and the restoration of services in Shire and other areas under its control.
The war has led to millions of people in Ethiopia needing aid
Shire reflects the humanitarian crisis in Tigray, with an aid worker saying that around 600,000 civilians were taking refuge in the city and its surrounding areas after earlier fleeing war-hit areas.
"More than 120,000 were out in the open, sleeping under trees and bushes," he told the BBC, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.
Almost all humanitarian workers withdrew from Shire last week after it came under ferocious bombardment from Ethiopian forces.
Thousands of residents are also fleeing Shire amid fears that they could be subjected to atrocities - similar to those in other areas that fell under the control of Ethiopian and Eritrean troops.
"Four witnesses reported that in the village of Shimblina in September, 46 people were rounded up and summarily executed. Other villagers found their bodies lying mixed with domestic animals, which had also been killed," the aid worker said.
"Hyenas had eaten a few of the bodies, and they could be identified only by the remains of their clothing. The witnesses said they had no time to bury the bodies, and the hyenas must have finished them by now," he added.
What made the atrocity stand out, he said, was the fact that most of the victims came from the small Kunama ethnic group, which has not been involved in the conflict.
"Both sides are losing soldiers, and when they come into a village they take out their anger on locals," the aid worker added.
Tigrayan forces faced similar accusations - including of rape, extra-judicial killings and looting - during their advances into Amhara and Afar, before being pushed back into Tigray. The region has a population of around seven million, a small number in a country with a population of more than 100 million.
Old-fashioned warfare
Apart from atrocities, all the armies have been accused of forcibly recruiting civilians to fight, and of using the "human wave" tactic to gain ground.
"People are drafted into the armies and, after only a few weeks of training, they are sent in large numbers through mined areas towards the trenches of the enemy," said UK-based Horn of Africa analyst Abdurahman Sayed.
"The enemy opens fire and kills many of them, but they keep coming in waves until the enemy runs of ammunition and they occupy their trenches.
"It is the old way of warfare. It was first used by the king of Abyssinia to defeat the Italian invaders in the 1890s. Despite their superior firepower, the Italians were overwhelmed by the sheer number of people who confronted them."
Mr Abdurahman said that this tactic leads to massive casualties, with his estimate being that between 700,000 and 800,000 people have already lost their lives in almost two years of fighting.
"This is the most brutal war in the history of Ethiopia," he added.
Though US-based Horn of Africa analyst Faisal Roble disputed that the Tigrayans used human wave attacks, his estimate of the death toll was not very different.
"In the first two phases of the war, around 500,000 died in combat, and 100,000 have probably died in this third phase," he said.
Mekelle, which has a population of around 500,000, has been hit by several drone strikes
Mr Roble added that the Tigrayan army was well trained, with "the heart" to fight, but the Ethiopian army had two advantages: numbers and airpower.
"A general who is now an ambassador said they could enlist one million young men every year, and they have fighter jets and Turkish drones that have proved very effective. The Tigrayans have no air force."
The command of the Ethiopian air force had moved to Eritrea's capital Asmara, he explained, from where fighter jets were taking off as the city was much closer to Tigray than their usual base in Bishoftu in central Ethiopia.
"The drones are still leaving from Bishoftu," Mr Roble said.
Settling old scores
Eritrea intervened in the conflict as the TPLF is its sworn enemy. The TPLF dominated a coalition government in Ethiopia until current Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed rose to power in 2018.
Map
Under the TPLF, Ethiopia and Eritrea fought a border war which claimed the lives of about 80,000 people. An international tribunal later ruled that Ethiopia should hand over territory to Eritrea, but the TPLF-controlled government failed to do so.
Eritrea regained the territory soon after the latest war started in November 2020, and its critics say that President Isaias Afwerki is determined to help Mr Abiy finish off the TPLF so that it does not threaten his nation again.
"Eritrea's concern is that the TPLF wants to either regain power in Ethiopia, or its wants a satellite government in Asmara that will give it access to the Red Sea because Tigray is a landlocked, impoverished region," Mr Abdurahman said.
As the war in Tigray escalated in recent weeks, Eritrea's government intensified its military mobilisation and hunted down draft dodgers across the country, multiple sources in Eritrea told the BBC.
In one instance in September, Eritrean troops raided a church in the southern town of Akrur, detaining a priest, young worshippers and choir members who had not heeded the military call-up, the sources said.
Prof De Waal said the call-up showed that Mr Isaias was "not taking any chances", but he has not deployed conscripts to Tigray in large numbers.
"Eritrea has units in Tigray, but most of the fighting is being done by Ethiopian forces. What Isaias is doing is running the war because he believes he can show Abiy how to win, but the Tigrayans will fight, even if it means with knives and stones because it is a matter of life and death for them," he said.
Talks unlikely
According to Mr Abdurahman, the war is being fought on four to six fronts, with tens of thousands of Ethiopian and Eritrean troops stationed near the Tigray town of Adigrat.
"They are ready to launch an attack on Adigrat, and Mekelle," he said.
Sources on the battlefront told the BBC that the two armies were already advancing from Shire towards the historic city of Aksum, as well as Adwa and Adigrat, in an operation that has seen them move from west to east.
While foreign powers have been urging the two sides to resolve the conflict peacefully, Mr Abdurahman said this was unlikely to happen.
"Historically, the ruling classes of Abyssinia, and now Ethiopia, always fought their way to power. The powerful becomes the king of kings until someone else emerges. There is no tradition of resolving matters peacefully. It is a zero-sum game," he said.
Prof De Waal said that the international community needed to act urgently to impose a ceasefire.
"Otherwise there is the risk of a genocide, and mass starvation," he said, pointing to research in August from a Belgian-led academic team that calculated total civilian deaths during the war in Tigray - caused by the fighting, famine and lack of health care - stood at between 385,000 and 600,000.
"Harvesting is supposed to start now, but the Eritrean-led armies are turning Tigray into a wasteland."
Farouk Chothia & Teklemariam Bekit - BBC News
Wed, October 19, 2022
Tigray is a sparsely populated mountainous region
Hyenas scavenging on the corpses of villagers, cities and towns hit in air strikes, elderly men and young women conscripted into armies - these are the horrific accounts emerging from a war that has left tens, if not hundreds, of thousands dead in Ethiopia's historic region of Tigray.
The region was once a tourist attraction, with visitors drawn to its rock-hewn churches, Muslim shrines and ancient scripts in the Ge'ez language.
Now Tigray is the site of a vicious war, as the Ethiopian and Eritrean armies on the one side, and the army of the Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF) on the other, fight for control in a region that has long been seen as the key to power in Ethiopia - or what was historically part of Abyssinia.
It has been under a blockade for 17 months - with no banking, telephone or internet services - and no media access.
Over the last two years, the fortunes of the two sides have constantly changed on the battlefield, with:
Ethiopian and Eritrean forces capturing the Tigray capital, Mekelle, in November 2020 after the TPLF was accused of launching a rebellion
The Tigrayans launching a counter-offensive in the neighbouring Amhara and Afar regions, bringing them close to the federal capital, Addis Ababa, about a year later
The Ethiopian and Eritrean forces regaining territory in Tigray - including the key city of Shire - in the latest round of fighting, raising the prospect of them trying to capture Mekelle once more.
"There are at least 500,000 Eritrean and Ethiopian federal troops in active combat, plus 200,000 from the Tigrayan side," said Alex de Waal, the executive director of the US-based World Peace Foundation.
He added that after more than 50 days of non-stop fighting, this week the Tigrayan defence lines around Shire could no longer hold out because of a lack of ammunition.
"It's a big setback for the Tigrayans. It leaves civilians exposed to massacre, rape and starvation," Prof De Waal said, though the Ethiopian government has promised aid and the restoration of services in Shire and other areas under its control.
The war has led to millions of people in Ethiopia needing aid
Shire reflects the humanitarian crisis in Tigray, with an aid worker saying that around 600,000 civilians were taking refuge in the city and its surrounding areas after earlier fleeing war-hit areas.
"More than 120,000 were out in the open, sleeping under trees and bushes," he told the BBC, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.
Almost all humanitarian workers withdrew from Shire last week after it came under ferocious bombardment from Ethiopian forces.
Thousands of residents are also fleeing Shire amid fears that they could be subjected to atrocities - similar to those in other areas that fell under the control of Ethiopian and Eritrean troops.
"Four witnesses reported that in the village of Shimblina in September, 46 people were rounded up and summarily executed. Other villagers found their bodies lying mixed with domestic animals, which had also been killed," the aid worker said.
"Hyenas had eaten a few of the bodies, and they could be identified only by the remains of their clothing. The witnesses said they had no time to bury the bodies, and the hyenas must have finished them by now," he added.
What made the atrocity stand out, he said, was the fact that most of the victims came from the small Kunama ethnic group, which has not been involved in the conflict.
"Both sides are losing soldiers, and when they come into a village they take out their anger on locals," the aid worker added.
Tigrayan forces faced similar accusations - including of rape, extra-judicial killings and looting - during their advances into Amhara and Afar, before being pushed back into Tigray. The region has a population of around seven million, a small number in a country with a population of more than 100 million.
Old-fashioned warfare
Apart from atrocities, all the armies have been accused of forcibly recruiting civilians to fight, and of using the "human wave" tactic to gain ground.
"People are drafted into the armies and, after only a few weeks of training, they are sent in large numbers through mined areas towards the trenches of the enemy," said UK-based Horn of Africa analyst Abdurahman Sayed.
"The enemy opens fire and kills many of them, but they keep coming in waves until the enemy runs of ammunition and they occupy their trenches.
"It is the old way of warfare. It was first used by the king of Abyssinia to defeat the Italian invaders in the 1890s. Despite their superior firepower, the Italians were overwhelmed by the sheer number of people who confronted them."
Mr Abdurahman said that this tactic leads to massive casualties, with his estimate being that between 700,000 and 800,000 people have already lost their lives in almost two years of fighting.
"This is the most brutal war in the history of Ethiopia," he added.
Though US-based Horn of Africa analyst Faisal Roble disputed that the Tigrayans used human wave attacks, his estimate of the death toll was not very different.
"In the first two phases of the war, around 500,000 died in combat, and 100,000 have probably died in this third phase," he said.
Mekelle, which has a population of around 500,000, has been hit by several drone strikes
Mr Roble added that the Tigrayan army was well trained, with "the heart" to fight, but the Ethiopian army had two advantages: numbers and airpower.
"A general who is now an ambassador said they could enlist one million young men every year, and they have fighter jets and Turkish drones that have proved very effective. The Tigrayans have no air force."
The command of the Ethiopian air force had moved to Eritrea's capital Asmara, he explained, from where fighter jets were taking off as the city was much closer to Tigray than their usual base in Bishoftu in central Ethiopia.
"The drones are still leaving from Bishoftu," Mr Roble said.
Settling old scores
Eritrea intervened in the conflict as the TPLF is its sworn enemy. The TPLF dominated a coalition government in Ethiopia until current Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed rose to power in 2018.
Map
Under the TPLF, Ethiopia and Eritrea fought a border war which claimed the lives of about 80,000 people. An international tribunal later ruled that Ethiopia should hand over territory to Eritrea, but the TPLF-controlled government failed to do so.
Eritrea regained the territory soon after the latest war started in November 2020, and its critics say that President Isaias Afwerki is determined to help Mr Abiy finish off the TPLF so that it does not threaten his nation again.
"Eritrea's concern is that the TPLF wants to either regain power in Ethiopia, or its wants a satellite government in Asmara that will give it access to the Red Sea because Tigray is a landlocked, impoverished region," Mr Abdurahman said.
As the war in Tigray escalated in recent weeks, Eritrea's government intensified its military mobilisation and hunted down draft dodgers across the country, multiple sources in Eritrea told the BBC.
In one instance in September, Eritrean troops raided a church in the southern town of Akrur, detaining a priest, young worshippers and choir members who had not heeded the military call-up, the sources said.
Prof De Waal said the call-up showed that Mr Isaias was "not taking any chances", but he has not deployed conscripts to Tigray in large numbers.
"Eritrea has units in Tigray, but most of the fighting is being done by Ethiopian forces. What Isaias is doing is running the war because he believes he can show Abiy how to win, but the Tigrayans will fight, even if it means with knives and stones because it is a matter of life and death for them," he said.
Talks unlikely
According to Mr Abdurahman, the war is being fought on four to six fronts, with tens of thousands of Ethiopian and Eritrean troops stationed near the Tigray town of Adigrat.
"They are ready to launch an attack on Adigrat, and Mekelle," he said.
Sources on the battlefront told the BBC that the two armies were already advancing from Shire towards the historic city of Aksum, as well as Adwa and Adigrat, in an operation that has seen them move from west to east.
While foreign powers have been urging the two sides to resolve the conflict peacefully, Mr Abdurahman said this was unlikely to happen.
"Historically, the ruling classes of Abyssinia, and now Ethiopia, always fought their way to power. The powerful becomes the king of kings until someone else emerges. There is no tradition of resolving matters peacefully. It is a zero-sum game," he said.
Prof De Waal said that the international community needed to act urgently to impose a ceasefire.
"Otherwise there is the risk of a genocide, and mass starvation," he said, pointing to research in August from a Belgian-led academic team that calculated total civilian deaths during the war in Tigray - caused by the fighting, famine and lack of health care - stood at between 385,000 and 600,000.
"Harvesting is supposed to start now, but the Eritrean-led armies are turning Tigray into a wasteland."
Ethiopia's Tigray conflict: Nasa shows how a war zone faded from space
Catherine Byaruhanga - Africa correspondent, BBC News
Wed, October 19, 2022
New images taken from space at night starkly show how the conflict in Ethiopia's northern Tigray region has left a population facing one of the world's worst humanitarian crises. Cities are shown fading to black over 20 months as electricity supplies are shut down.
The Nasa satellite photos have been shared with the BBC as Ethiopian troops and militias, along with soldiers from neighbouring ally Eritrea, appear to be gaining the upper hand against Tigrayan forces.
On Tuesday, Ethiopia said its army had taken control of Shire, one of Tigray's biggest cities, and the towns of Alamata and Korem, which lie to the south of the regional capital, Mekelle.
The UN, African Union and the US, among others, warn that the resurgence of heavy warfare could worsen the already catastrophic situation for civilians.
New data from the Tigray Bureau of Health, shared with the BBC, reveals how the blockade on the region - which has largely halted humanitarian aid as well as other services like electricity and banking - has affected young children.
The figures show that the number of those under the age of five who have died from malnutrition has risen by a staggering 1,533% over the two years from July 2020 - four months before the war broke out.
Dr Kokeb Hagos, who collates the Tigray Health Bureau data, told the BBC that 2,450 children had died in hospitals between July 2021 and July 2022 - a huge underrepresentation, he says, of the true figure as health workers cannot travel around the region because of a shortage of fuel while phone lines and the internet have also been cut.
A recent academic study estimates total civilian deaths in Tigray - caused by the fighting, starvation and lack of health care - stand at between 385,000 and 600,000
Numbers have to be jotted down on pieces of paper and sent by any available transport to the bureau for collation, including the information that 70% of children found to be severely malnourished have not been treated because of a lack of food and medicine.
One of the children known to have died this year is Surafeal Mearig. The BBC first reported on his case in January 2022. At the time he was three months old and weighed just 2.3kg (5lb), 1kg less than he did at birth. His parents had run out of money to buy food after they lost their jobs. Doctors at Mekelle's Ayder Referral Hospital, where he was being treated, told us he died a month later.
Hydroelectric dam bombed
In Nasa's Black Marble images (from November 2020 until August 2022) the trajectory of the conflict can almost be mapped - as they show light levels decreasing in the cities of Shire, Aksum and Mekelle. It is a monthly composite of the light emitted from the respective cities and an indication of their access to electricity.
Ethiopia's federal government controls the national power grid but has been accused of cutting off Tigray, where power was pretty consistent in the region's towns before the war, several sources have told the BBC.
According to an investigation published in September by the UN's International Commission of Human Rights Experts on Ethiopia, the government "suspended electricity, internet and telecommunications, and banking services in Tigray on 4 November 2020" - the day the conflict started.
The images show a sharp fall in light over the cities of Shire and Aksum from November 2020. The lights in the two cities get stronger between March and June 2021 when they are in government hands.
Mekelle remains well-lit until July 2021, just after the city was recaptured by Tigray forces. It had fallen within the first month of the conflict and remained bright during the seven months it was under government control.
"When Tigrayan forces retook control of large parts of Tigray, including Mekelle, in late June 2021, the federal government responded by again shutting down electricity, internet and telecommunications, and banking services for the region," the UN report says.
During the conflict the only major power source for Tigray's seven million people has been the Tekeze Hydroelectric Dam, which was bombed in December 2021.
The images show how the lights dimmed sharply in Mekelle later in December 2021 after the dam was bombed. This affected two of four turbines, according to Canada-based academic Getachew Assefa.
"Engineers are making two turbines active by utilising spare parts from the other two, but the condition is dire. Even the two turbines that are working are generating electricity inefficiently as they have several faults that could have been rectified if spare parts were accessible," the associate professor of sustainable design at Calgary University told the BBC.
Tigray is also home to the 84-turbine Ashegoda windfarm, dubbed Africa's biggest when it opened in 2013 near Mekelle, but it has been out of action during the conflict, says Prof Getachew.
A herder seen by Tigray's Ashegoda windfarm, pictured a few years before conflict erupted
Engineers there have managed to get 19 turbines working, but cannot get them to feed into a grid for Tigray alone.
There was a virtual blackout in Shire and Aksum in July and August 2021 and Mekelle gets darker and darker.
Some of the patchiness - especially in July and August this year - can be put down to seasonal levels of the dam, as the power plant is designed to be part of an integrated power supply and is unable to produce electricity all the time, Prof Getachew explains.
Future fears
Ethiopia's government continues to deny blocking access to electricity, banks and communications in Tigray, though after seizing Shire this week, it promised access to humanitarian organisations in areas it now controls via the city's airport.
Sources on the front lines told the BBC the coalition of forces is now advancing eastwards from Shire and on to Aksum, Adwa and Adigrat.
This is almost a repeat of the start of the conflict nearly two years ago when the Ethiopian government seized Shire and went on to take the other towns before capturing Mekelle, which has been hit by frequent drone strikes especially since fighting restarted in August following a five-month humanitarian truce.
It is a terrifying time for the city's estimated 500,000 residents.
"The war has intensified. We are always wondering, when will the drone come? Will I find my children alive?" a nurse at the Ayder Referral Hospital told me.
One of the few aid workers left in the region said that her colleagues were now also going hungry.
"The remaining food has been depleted and the entire population is starving," she said. "Hundreds and thousands of desperate people knock on our doors seeking support. There are scores more starving in their homes, foregoing food for days on end."
They fear what will happen - especially possible reprisals from the Ethiopian and Eritrean troops.
For Prof Getachew, the war is bound to have a long-lasting impact on the region's infrastructure even if a blockade is lifted.
There are already reports of looting in Shire with allegations that items are being shipped back to Eritrea, as was reported to have happened widely in towns Eritrean troops took over early in the conflict.
"If true, they will continue with what is left of the electricity infrastructure."
Catherine Byaruhanga - Africa correspondent, BBC News
Wed, October 19, 2022
New images taken from space at night starkly show how the conflict in Ethiopia's northern Tigray region has left a population facing one of the world's worst humanitarian crises. Cities are shown fading to black over 20 months as electricity supplies are shut down.
The Nasa satellite photos have been shared with the BBC as Ethiopian troops and militias, along with soldiers from neighbouring ally Eritrea, appear to be gaining the upper hand against Tigrayan forces.
On Tuesday, Ethiopia said its army had taken control of Shire, one of Tigray's biggest cities, and the towns of Alamata and Korem, which lie to the south of the regional capital, Mekelle.
The UN, African Union and the US, among others, warn that the resurgence of heavy warfare could worsen the already catastrophic situation for civilians.
New data from the Tigray Bureau of Health, shared with the BBC, reveals how the blockade on the region - which has largely halted humanitarian aid as well as other services like electricity and banking - has affected young children.
The figures show that the number of those under the age of five who have died from malnutrition has risen by a staggering 1,533% over the two years from July 2020 - four months before the war broke out.
Dr Kokeb Hagos, who collates the Tigray Health Bureau data, told the BBC that 2,450 children had died in hospitals between July 2021 and July 2022 - a huge underrepresentation, he says, of the true figure as health workers cannot travel around the region because of a shortage of fuel while phone lines and the internet have also been cut.
A recent academic study estimates total civilian deaths in Tigray - caused by the fighting, starvation and lack of health care - stand at between 385,000 and 600,000
Numbers have to be jotted down on pieces of paper and sent by any available transport to the bureau for collation, including the information that 70% of children found to be severely malnourished have not been treated because of a lack of food and medicine.
One of the children known to have died this year is Surafeal Mearig. The BBC first reported on his case in January 2022. At the time he was three months old and weighed just 2.3kg (5lb), 1kg less than he did at birth. His parents had run out of money to buy food after they lost their jobs. Doctors at Mekelle's Ayder Referral Hospital, where he was being treated, told us he died a month later.
Hydroelectric dam bombed
In Nasa's Black Marble images (from November 2020 until August 2022) the trajectory of the conflict can almost be mapped - as they show light levels decreasing in the cities of Shire, Aksum and Mekelle. It is a monthly composite of the light emitted from the respective cities and an indication of their access to electricity.
Ethiopia's federal government controls the national power grid but has been accused of cutting off Tigray, where power was pretty consistent in the region's towns before the war, several sources have told the BBC.
According to an investigation published in September by the UN's International Commission of Human Rights Experts on Ethiopia, the government "suspended electricity, internet and telecommunications, and banking services in Tigray on 4 November 2020" - the day the conflict started.
The images show a sharp fall in light over the cities of Shire and Aksum from November 2020. The lights in the two cities get stronger between March and June 2021 when they are in government hands.
Mekelle remains well-lit until July 2021, just after the city was recaptured by Tigray forces. It had fallen within the first month of the conflict and remained bright during the seven months it was under government control.
"When Tigrayan forces retook control of large parts of Tigray, including Mekelle, in late June 2021, the federal government responded by again shutting down electricity, internet and telecommunications, and banking services for the region," the UN report says.
During the conflict the only major power source for Tigray's seven million people has been the Tekeze Hydroelectric Dam, which was bombed in December 2021.
The images show how the lights dimmed sharply in Mekelle later in December 2021 after the dam was bombed. This affected two of four turbines, according to Canada-based academic Getachew Assefa.
"Engineers are making two turbines active by utilising spare parts from the other two, but the condition is dire. Even the two turbines that are working are generating electricity inefficiently as they have several faults that could have been rectified if spare parts were accessible," the associate professor of sustainable design at Calgary University told the BBC.
Tigray is also home to the 84-turbine Ashegoda windfarm, dubbed Africa's biggest when it opened in 2013 near Mekelle, but it has been out of action during the conflict, says Prof Getachew.
A herder seen by Tigray's Ashegoda windfarm, pictured a few years before conflict erupted
Engineers there have managed to get 19 turbines working, but cannot get them to feed into a grid for Tigray alone.
There was a virtual blackout in Shire and Aksum in July and August 2021 and Mekelle gets darker and darker.
Some of the patchiness - especially in July and August this year - can be put down to seasonal levels of the dam, as the power plant is designed to be part of an integrated power supply and is unable to produce electricity all the time, Prof Getachew explains.
Future fears
Ethiopia's government continues to deny blocking access to electricity, banks and communications in Tigray, though after seizing Shire this week, it promised access to humanitarian organisations in areas it now controls via the city's airport.
Sources on the front lines told the BBC the coalition of forces is now advancing eastwards from Shire and on to Aksum, Adwa and Adigrat.
This is almost a repeat of the start of the conflict nearly two years ago when the Ethiopian government seized Shire and went on to take the other towns before capturing Mekelle, which has been hit by frequent drone strikes especially since fighting restarted in August following a five-month humanitarian truce.
It is a terrifying time for the city's estimated 500,000 residents.
"The war has intensified. We are always wondering, when will the drone come? Will I find my children alive?" a nurse at the Ayder Referral Hospital told me.
One of the few aid workers left in the region said that her colleagues were now also going hungry.
"The remaining food has been depleted and the entire population is starving," she said. "Hundreds and thousands of desperate people knock on our doors seeking support. There are scores more starving in their homes, foregoing food for days on end."
They fear what will happen - especially possible reprisals from the Ethiopian and Eritrean troops.
For Prof Getachew, the war is bound to have a long-lasting impact on the region's infrastructure even if a blockade is lifted.
There are already reports of looting in Shire with allegations that items are being shipped back to Eritrea, as was reported to have happened widely in towns Eritrean troops took over early in the conflict.
"If true, they will continue with what is left of the electricity infrastructure."
UN genocide official:
Hate speech is fueling
Ethiopia's war
RODNEY MUHUMUZA
KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) — A U.N. official is urging tech companies to do everything possible to stop the onslaught of hate speech fueling the war in Ethiopia's north, where a violent war pits federal troops and their allies against Tigray's rebellious leaders.
Inflammatory language by political leaders and armed groups in the Tigray conflict “continues unabated,” Alice Wairimu Nderitu, U.N. special adviser on the prevention of genocide, said in a statement Wednesday.
“There is discourse often propagated through social media, which dehumanizes groups by likening them to a ‘virus’ that should be eradicated, to a ‘cancer’ that should be treated because ”if a single cell is left untreated, that single cell will expand and affect the whole body” and calling for the “killing of every single youth from Tigray” which is particularly dangerous, the statement said.
Fighting resumed between Tigray forces and federal troops in August, bringing an end to a cease-fire since March that had allowed much-needed aid to enter the region. Eritrean troops are fighting on the side of Ethiopia’s federal military.
Fighting has intensified in recent weeks as federal troops try to take control of towns in Tigray. Earlier this week they took control of three towns, including one hosting a large number of internally displaced people in the Shire area.
Aid distributions are being hampered by a lack of fuel and a communications blackout in Tigray. The AP reported Saturday that a U.N. team found there were “10 starvation-related deaths” at seven camps for internally displaced people in northwestern Tigray, according to an internal document.
The conflict, which began nearly two years ago, has spread from Tigray into the neighboring regions of Afar and Amhara as Tigray's leaders try to break the blockade of their region.
The head of the continent-wide African Union and the U.N. secretary-general are urging the warring parties to stop fighting and meet for peace talks that were meant to start earlier this month in South Africa. The talks were delayed because of logistical issues.
“The conflict has reached new worrying levels of violence,” with widespread rape and sexual violence, Nderitu said in the statement that cited “horrifying levels of hate speech and incitement to violence.”
“The atrocious abuses taking place are spurred by the deluge of ethnically motivated hate speech that is propagated online,” the statement said, urging tech companies and their social networks to use “all tools available to stop the spread of hate speech that could constitute incitement to discrimination, hostility, or violence on their platforms.”
Millions of people in Tigray, Amhara and Afar have been uprooted from their homes and tens of thousands of people are believed to have been killed in the conflict that started in November 2020
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