Women line up behind
barbed wire as they
wait for food to be dis-
tributed in Agula-e.
“We don’t have any
food, we don’t have
any medication, all our
property was looted,”
says Salam Abraha
(middle). “Every day,
people are dying here.”
Ethiopian and Eritrean
soldiers have blocked
humanitarian aid.The only roads open
in the besieged state
of Tigray in northern
Ethiopia lead to endless
tales of darkness.
Along a path on the outskirts of Abiy Adi, in
central Tigray, Araya Gebretekle tells his story,
tragic in its simplicity. He had six sons. He
sent five of them to harvest millet in the fam-
ily’s fields. Four never came home.
When Ethiopian soldiers arrived in the vil-
lage in February, “my sons didn’t flee,” says
Araya, wiping his eyes with his white head-
scarf. “They didn’t expect to be killed while
harvesting.” But the soldiers aimed their
weapons at his sons, and a female soldier gave
the order to shoot. “Finish them, finish them,”
she said. The brothers pleaded for their lives.
“We’re just farmers,” they said. “Spare one of
us to harvest and deal with the animals,” they
begged. The soldiers spared the youngest, a
15-year-old, and executed the others, leaving
their bodies in the field where they fell.
Three months later, “my wife is staying at
home, always crying,” Araya says. “I haven’t
left the house until today, and every night
I dream of them.” He wipes his eyes again.
“There were six sons. I asked the oldest one to
be there too, but thank God he refused.” (Ethi-
opians are referred to by their first names.)
East of Abiy Adi, at Ayder Referral HospitalThe National
Geographic Society,
committed to illumi-
nating and protecting
the wonder of our
world, has funded
Explorer Lynsey Add-
ario’s work covering
the COVID-19 pan-
demic since 2020.
ILLUSTRATION BY JOE MCKENDRY