Thread by @sam_btw

After 2 years of war, the #Tigray region in #Ethiopia is recovering slowly.
People are traumatized but also hopeful.
A thread with pictures from my latest trip.

In #Adigrat people live in an IDP camp in a secondary school. A mother with 5 children sleeps on a blackboard (left), covered with plastic sheets. Nights in mountaineous Tigray can be cold.
The family can not return home. «There are still militia at our village», the mother says.

Here people have at least drinking water. They complain that food aid still hasn't reached them for months. During the war, over one million people have been displaced.

The atrocities are unbearable. This woman (left) has been raped by 5 soldiers who entered her house and tied her up. Her 4 year old son had to watch.
Sister Mulu Mesfin says she has treated 3000 survivors in the last two years in her centre in Mekelle.
Still new women arrive.

Two houses in Adigrat that have been destroyed by shellings.
Luckily no casualties. The woman (left) says her husband just went to see the chicken - that is why he survived.
Rebuilding though is hard, as their kids are in Addis Abeba and couldn't come see the parents so far.

Hospitals lack equipment and medications. Staff have not been paid for months.
During the interview with this medical student who works with malnourished children in a hospital in Adigrat (his university is closed), the power went off.
There is no fuel for the generator.

Remnants of the war are still visible everywhere. Here a truck next to a school that was and still is partly occupied by soldiers.

The battle near Yechila was a temporary turning point in this war. Remnants are closely guarded by two men with rifles.

Scattered around the place are shoes, jackets, school certificates, human bones and a SIM card of Ethio Telecom that calls for enthusiasm.

There are signs of hope though. In one village we saw school children along the road early in the morning.
But schools are closed for three years now! (Since Covid outbreak in march 2020.)
We followed them and ended up in a school that runs primary classes 1 to 3.

The teacher says, they have received a small sum of an NGO to make that possible.
«Three years without education sets the region back. The development has been halted. Not only the children's knowledge is affected, but also their education and psyche.»

Many children come to school with an empty stomach. Sometimes they don't come at all - school attendance varies a lot.

This woman is roasting wheat grains on a pan. That's all she can offer to her grandchildren right now. She is happy there's at least some food. «We were cut off from the outside world, during the war we even lacked salt and peppers.»

Most of the people in Tigray depend on agriculture. But cattle have been stolen and fields destroyed. In addition the draught in the Horn of Africa lead to hunger and hardship.

Life slowly comes back. People are in the streets of Mekelle or Abiy Addi. But there's not much to do, so mostly killing time.

People go out again, meet friends. Though a lot of them are traumatized.
«I can't sleep», admits one former fighter, «and when I get asked by families about the whereabouts of their sons and brothers, I can't tell. Even though I know they are dead.»

If you made it here - why not watch my video (it's in German).

Or listen to my longform audio piece (also in German, that might be a bit trickier...)

And there’s an article that google can translate:

srf.ch/news/internati…