The refugees all described being bombarded for several days by indiscriminate artillery shelling and rocket fire coming from the border with Eritrea. They also say they were attacked by knife-wielding militiamen from the neighbouring Amhara region, who had joined forces with federal troops and cut people to death as they tried to escape.
Since the civil war started to rage across the mountainous region of Africa’s second-most populous nation, tens of thousands of refugees have fled into neighbouring Sudan and thousands have likely died.
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“It was very, very bad. The soldiers of Abiy Ahmed didn’t differentiate between people. They crushed all the people. It is like a genocide,” said Zenebe, a young ethnic Tigrayan man from Humera. “They didn’t only use guns; they used knives. They used big weapons. So many big weapons [shooting] from Eritrea.”
All the refugees The Telegraph spoke to said they had seen bodies lying in the streets of Humera. One man said he had seen more than twenty bodies, some killed with knives, others by guns and shelling.
Because of a communication blackout in the Tigray region, it is difficult to verify the refugees’ claims independently. People told The Telegraph that about a week before the fighting began the government shut the power off, meaning no one had any battery on their mobile phones to record the assault.