By Bisola Adeyemo
No fewer than 30 corpses were discovered by Sudanese banks of Setit river that abuts Ethiopia’s northern region of Tigray.
Two Ethiopian refugees and four Sudanese witnesses who told Reuters on Monday confirmed that the bodies were found in the Setit River, known in Ethiopia as the Tekeze, which is the current de facto borderline between territory controlled by Tigrayan forces and those controlled by Amhara forces allied with Ethiopia’s federal government.
According to Dr. Tewodros Tefera, a surgeon who escaped from the Ethiopian border town of Humera, told Reuters he buried 10 bodies over the past six days in Sudan and was told by local fishermen and refugees another 28 had been recovered, including seven on Monday.
“They were shot in their chest, abdomen, legs… and also had their hands tied,” he said adding that he had been able to identify three bodies belonging to Tigrayans from Humera, with the help of refugees. Many Tigrayans from Humera fled into Sudan when the fighting began.
An Ethiopian refugee from Humera, who asked for anonymity for fear of repercussions for his family still in Ethiopia, said he found nine bodies.
“We found nine…They tied them up with a rope and they were swollen, but there’s no marks of them being hit or shot,” he said.
Redwan Hussein, head of the Ethiopian government’s emergency task force on Tigray, and Colonel Getnet Adane, Ethiopia’s military spokesman, did not respond to a WhatsApp message for comment on the bodies.
Billene Seyoum, the Ethiopian prime minister’s spokeswoman, did not respond to a request for comment.
On Monday, an Ethiopian government-run Twitter account said accounts of floating bodies circulating on social media were due to a fake campaign by Tigrayan “propagandists”.
But the accounts of the Ethiopian refugees were bolstered by witnesses in Sudan. Two local Sudanese officials and two Sudanese residents of the town of Wad Alhilew village, near the Setit dam in Kassala state, who asked not to be named for fear of reprisals, said they had retrieved about 20 bodies from the Setit river: five on Monday, nine on Sunday and six on Saturday.