BY DIRRIBA TESHOME
After attacking the Northern Command of the indomitable Ethiopian National Defense Force (ENDF), the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) junta kidnapped more than a thousand army leaders and officers whom it took to Mekelle. Ethiopian Press Agency had a stay with two of the freed abductees to identify the brutal acts of the junta on them.
Later, as Mekelle was captured by the commandos of the (ENDF), the junta did not flee away alone but it also took the abductees barefooted with itself to escape from the military. The country’s indebted army has suffered a lot from fatigues and lack of food. The junta exhausted its captives. It deprived them of food and water, and tortured them. Consequently, most of the hostages were abused and some were sick.
The Ethiopian Air Force did great deed by backing the army by helicopters and drones those pursued the junta leadership and militants for days. This assisted the army on the ground that it arrived on December 9, at about eight o’clock local time in the afternoon and freed the abducted ENDF members intensifying their careful operations on the ground.
Since the junta failed to resist these well-organized measures, its militias sprang to their feet abruptly throwing down their vehicles an, weapons. Accompanied by their colleagues, the abductees left Adet.
Col. Abebaw Mengistu, Head of the North Command Indoctrination, one of the captives, shared his ordeal during his abduction stay.
“First of all, I am not clear with why they were moving us on the battlefield. Either they were trying to negotiate or to massacre us at the end. The biggest problem at the time was the conspiracy to punish the hostages with food.” He stated with emotion.
More to the detail, he recalls that they were given only a loaf of bread a day that grew to none at all in the last days except only some flour in the desert where there was no water and no cooking. And the junta’s militants provided them only a pot to be used for preparing porridge for over a thousand people. The porridge was cooked without the salt and basic spices. But there was no single tray to serve the hot porridge on.
“We ate the porridge on flat stones around using barks of fallen trees in two or three to save our lives,” he said, accompanied by tears streaming down his cheeks.
In addition to the lack of food and water, they were forced to walk through the hills and plains on swollen feet. For this reason, they had used sticks that they had found on their way as a walking cane to aid walking. As to him, they had spent a whole day climbing mountains.
“We’ve been in the military for long, and there can be lot of troubles. The problem we are facing under the junta cannot be compared to any other time,” said Colonel Abebaw adding that what makes the atrocity most saddening is that their own friends and former colleagues have made cruel acts and the abuses.
Eventually, however, the junta lost control of its territory and disintegrated in all directions, Colonel Abebaw added. As to him, at the last minute of junta’s time, he has witnessed the patriotic deeds of the army and noticed that even some officials of the junta who were following him in modern vehicles jumped out of the cars and ran away across the bushes on foot covering their faces with scarves and putting on black eyeglasses.
Col. Teshome Yimer, Commander of the North Command Training Center, is the other leader abducted by the junta. He also tells the severity and the bitterness of the days while he fallen into the junta’s hands. The strategy used to punish the abductees from eating food has caused health problem on most of the officers.
“When ENDF took precautionary measures, they ordered us to march along with them on the battlefield. Since most of the hostages were so thirsty and hungry, they could not even walk properly. However, as we have to save our lives, we started moving forward and crawling to the mountains scratching the ground,” he added.
To show the inhumane acts of the junta, it is enough to imagine the way in which the hostages were forced to march on foot for four days, from the mountains of Tamben to Edaga Hamus and Adet alone. It clearly shows how coldhearted the junta is. It did a terrible act by hitting the hostages in the back with sticks and weapons; Col. Abebaw proves the wildness of the junta.
The junta had intended to use the hostages as a shield in the battlefield and to cast a shadow on the law enforcement operation though the government has carried out the operation in more cautionary ways backing it by the Air Force. The deployment of dozers to prepare a burial pit for the abductees indicates the extent of its cruelty. If the army had not arrived in good time, they may not have been found alive after few minutes, he noted.
“Since we have heard on several occasions that the army was approaching us, we have hoped that our army would set us free. The idea came true. Finally, both the Defense Forces and the Air Force, aware of the situation, waited patiently for days and finally, when the time was appropriate, have disbanded the junta forces.
“We know that ENDF is an army of the people; we had faith that it would come; and it did it at night paying all the necessary sacrifices. I thank the government and the stakeholders for their efforts in rescuing us,” he said.
Admiring the army leaders for their well organized and careful efforts to rescue hostages from the cruel junta, they reaffirmed their readiness to assist the operation and fully exert their professional responsibilities in hunting for the inhumane junta’s leaders and militia.
The Ethiopian herald December 17/2020
